Pentagon Can’t “Confirm Or Deny” Training “Kamikaze Dolphins”

“I have one simple request, and that is to have dolphins with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads.”

Last month, the Wall Street Journal (no relation) reported that Iran was looking for creative solutions to America’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, including some very creative solutions such as “kamikaze dolphins.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Caine were then asked about these rumors at a recent press briefing. Caine replied, “I haven’t heard the kamikaze dolphins thing… You mean like sharks with laser beams?”

Hegseth then took the wheel, responding, “I can’t confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins, but I can confirm they [Iran] don’t.”

OK, none of us were thinking you had kamikaze dolphins, but we definitely are now.

To be fair, the idea isn’t without precedent.

In World War II, the Soviet army trained explosive dogs to run under enemy tanks, but the bomb-laden dogs continually returned to their Russian trainers and were deemed ineffective. Bomb-donkeys, bomb-horses, and bomb-bats have all been used to varying degrees of success, but there are no recorded cases of exploding dolphins.

But that doesn’t mean dolphins aren’t used in warfare.

Dolphins are very intelligent and are routinely trained to help militaries across the world detect underwater obstacles and spot intruders arriving at seaports.

Most relevantly, in 2000, the BBC reported that Iran was purchasing dolphins for a similar program, which might be the origin of the WSJ kamikaze rumor, which has not been substantiated.

The US Navy, for its part, runs the Marine Mammal Program, which explains that, “Mines and other potentially dangerous objects on the ocean floor that are difficult to detect with electronic sonar, especially in coastal shallows or cluttered harbors, are easily found by the dolphins.”

But, after a panic in the 90s that these trained dolphins might be used as weapons, the declassified project revealed no such plan. In fact, the dolphins are reportedly free to leave the program whenever they enter open waters.

That’s nice.

Of course, Hegseth’s ‘can neither confirm nor deny’ adds fuel to the fire of this kamikaze dolphin rumor, but that was likely a default, ‘best to keep ‘em guessing’ tactic and not an admission of anything.

Probably more telling is General Caine’s initial reaction: laugh it off and quote Austin Powers.