The U.S. Navy’s Secret Sea Mammal Operatives
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
While canines may be the most well-known animal soldier used by the military today, sea mammals have been employed by the armed forces for nearly sixty years. Recently, a beluga whale employed by Russia as a spy defected to Norway, but the Kremlin isn’t the only military using cetaceans. To this day, the U.S. Navy keeps a contingent of dolphins and sea lions trained to facilitate military operations.
In 1960, American engineers captured a Pacific white-sided dolphin in hopes of studying the animal and improving their torpedo designs. The dolphin never helped make torpedoes any better, but researchers were impressed with the animal’s intelligence and trainability. In the following years, training facilities were set up in conjunction with the construction of SEALAB II, an underwater habitat used for testing by the U.S. Navy. A bottlenose dolphin named Tuffy was trained to deliver tools and messages from the surface to the underwater research station.