The Experiment That Broke a Dolphin's Heart 

You’d think a scientist would realize the simple fact that dolphin vocal structures couldn’t form human sounds.

This is where the phrase "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." comes into play.

I love that the seal mimicking speech has the voice of a blustery old Englishman! That is just so fitting for some reason.

I feel like we should create a language kinda like morse code for dolphins. See if we could actually have a conversation with one. I hate it when I see people say, "look my animal can talk." When in reality the defintion of talk is not to just make a noise that sounds like a word. But to give information, express Ideas and feelings with words. It's litteraly the defintion, so they aren't talking at all.

When my friends say dolphins are their favourite animal I just say that they do unspeakable things to almost everything

"With their high intelligence he figured that if he could find some way to communicate with dolphins that could lead us to find a way to talk to aliens." Making that leap while high asf must've been SUPER EASY barely an inconvenience.

Man, the idea where putting two dolphins in separate tanks yet still had a way to communicate to each other to learn their language could of been way more ground breaking than law breaking.

It is the way that people treat animals that truly show how cruel we can be. These poor dolphins. They asked for none of this. Used abused and discarded. With committing suicide as the only option to escape this nightmare. Not even in the worst horror movies could we describe even a fraction of what is done to animals in the name of science.

The point you brought up about mimicry is what really floors me about this. Millions of dollars, probably years of work, and no one was like "Hey... How do we know he understands?" Acid must be a heck of a drug.

Hoover the seal sounds like the drunk uncle at Thanksgiving who thinks he’s funnier than he actually is.

It's so bizarre that they never questioned if a dolphin could physically make English word sounds. My dog knows what several words mean, but it would never occur to me that I could get her to actually speak back.

The fact that Lilly got funded over the guy who suggested trying to understand actual dolphin communication pretty much describes the 60's to a tee. That must have been some crazy good acid. 😂

The seal saying "Get over here" is the cutest and most terrifying thing I've ever heard. 5:48

I admire this man’s ability to read horrible crap and somehow keep the classy demeanor we all know YOUR INCREDIBLE BRO!!!

imagine you’re out in the ocean swimming and you you a high-pitched “hello”+gurgling noise out of nowhere 💀

That ain't fair. How come people tried to capitalise on Margaret's situation by presenting her as a zoophile even though all the stuff she did was solely for the experiment alone. Meanwhile, the acid tripping old geezer who had all the recognition from her efforts and dedication never got as much public backlash as she did.

I know this is a weird take, but I super appreciate the compassion you showed the young woman and the dolphin in this.

Video suggestion: It would be awesome if you could do a mention if you could do a video mentioning Zalim the Tiger, a tiger who successfully raised his two daughters after the death of their mother, and was so protective of them that he even turned down mating with other females in order to make sure they were safe.

The seal clip made me realise why so many seamen went crazy on the ocean…krakens and human voices even though you’re the only one awake and on deck.

I started crying at 5:50. It sounded like a disgruntled Scottish man yelling at someone 😂

Man I love your channel. Not only are you charmingly funny you're highly informative, a deadly combination.

Step one: Talk to dolphins 🐬 Step two: Step three: Talk to aliens 👽 Step four: Step five: Profit

There was also a project for animals to learn human speech from a beluga whale. In fact this beluga spoke an uncanny human voice so well that a scientist once went to his tank and heard Get Out multiple times. Before leaving he talked to the observing scientists on why they said to get off but they said the beluga whale said it. There is an audio out on the internet of the beluga speaking. Honestly amazing stuff. Thanks science!

Atrocity Guide did a video on the experiment too and she found interviews from other people who worked with Lilly on this experiment. They were ALL servicing those dolphins!!!

Man, I love seeing how much you've grown as a channel, how you've advanced as a writer & host. Witnessing you perfect your craft is fantastic, keep it up.

Speaking as a believer in science, there are some experiments and studies where even I think "Come on guys, what the fuck?" This channel deserves a lot more attention - it's such an excellent blend of education and comedy and I worship the shit out of it 🥰

4:03 "The literal is coming... Like Peter." MAN IM WHEEZING

We could literally teach dolphins morse under water. The blowhole to English path was chosen because of the alien aspect

6:56 “Mimicry isn’t comprehension” I was a victim of that when I first used “WTF” at 11 years old.

Fun fact: the guy who "had relations" with Dolly is named Malcolm Brenner. The only reason I know that is because he is an alum from the college I attended. He even has a number like Kevin Bacon, but it's called the Dolphin Number. Did I mention that I hate knowing this?

I will say that it is kinda wholesome how Margaret tried to defend Peter from the whole drug nonsense

“You can do better Peter” SHUT UP MARGRET HES TRYING HIS GOD DAMN BEST 😭😭

Fun Fact: Eventually Dr. Lily was tripping balls so hard that even his hallucinated alien contacts were telling him to quit the drugs.

To be fair though, decoding the language of another intelligent species that lives on earth is still a reasonable practice run for decoding an alien language, even though this particular experiment was a mess lol

ok the baby dolphin counting to 3 was so cute i almost cried

"They aren't involuntary breathers like us, every breath they take is a conscious choice." ... _One of us is breathing wrong._

There's one detail I just noticed now. Casual literally said LSD in so many ways that no one noticed. He said certain phrases that if you abbreviated, would spell LSD and I bet my left sack that it was 100% intentional. We have -The actual meaning (LySergic Acid Diethylamide) -Little Slice of Delight -Lovely Saturday Drive -Little Sense of Direction -Light Seasoning of Dope All of these are things he said in the video and they all can be shortened to spell out LSD. I bet it was intentional. [Edit 11 months later: I forgot "Little Surprise Dose" as the replies mentioned, my bad.]

I once told my family this story over Thanksgiving dinner. They told me to never share at family events ever again.

Thank you. Very informative vid. That dolphin’s story needed to be told as a public service. That was an ugly insight into mankind’s potential for depravity. I don’t what else I could express about this story. Well done and thoughtfully presented sir. Thank you again.

@2:48 Close to my hometown there was an Unemployment Office at 420 High St. 😂

John c. lily was so high on acid that he started to believe that there was an alien council seeking to help him in his mission to teach dolphins english, and after some time the alien council that he hallucinated started to say that he was using too much acid, his own acid induced hallucinations wanted him to stop taking acid.

John C Lilly is one of these scientists that belong to the category I call "Madman in a labcoat". "Because you can doesn't always mean you should", and this story illustrates this perfectly

this was a really sad video, holy cow. do you think in the future (or here if you still want to) you could add citations or something? it would be really helpful both for cementing your facts and also for helping folks who want to explore your sources more of themselves

This is so sad 😢 unfortunately things like this haven’t stopped

"Hindsight is 2020 and unfortunately this was the 1960's" damn that's a good one

"Logic had real estate in his blind spot" dude you're an absolute linguist lmao you're so good at that

Your punchlines are IMMACULATE, sir 🧐🤌🏾

The seal: hey, hey you get over here

Very sad and traumatic, thank you for your hard work, this story gets worse each time you hear it. 🇨🇦🍁

This story has been told SO many times. But none as entertaining as this. Great job! Love your work.

I love the amount of thought and effort you put into your jokes. The fact that he used sensory deprivation tanks and you saying "what made him Eureka himself" being a reference to Archimedes supposedly saying "Eureka" when he discovered the Archimedes principle.

The way animals suffer because of the human ego really pisses me off the fact that I'm not even a neuroscientist and even I thought why try to make an animal do something it isn't even built to do.

Ah, the sixties…a decade I’m very happy I wasn’t involved with.

I feel so bad for (almost) everyone involved. Margaret deserved better than to have her legacy be "The woman who jacked off a dolphin" since honestly I feel like the fact that a dolphin basically pair-bonded with a human woman is the most interesting aspect of psychology we got out of this (Edit, the fact that lily's work also taught us more about dolphins in general is also pretty neat). And if it weren't for this legacy she probably would've been a much more successful scientist today than John Lily ever was. Peter deserved better than to be abandoned and left in shitty conditions while ALSO being heartbroken to the point that killing himself was better than living whatever hell he was thrown into (And really the cruelty towards dolphins IN GENERAL is pathetic considering they're supposedly "The smartest things that aren't people". Like bro, treat them better even if they're in captivity.) Greg Bateson deserved better than being stuck in an experiment that was guaranteed to fail from the start and watch this whole circus play out, and also the fact that he probably couldn't even get his "what if we learned Dolphin instead" experiment because of how completely done any backers were with the whole prospect. John Lily is the sole reason I say "almost" everyone, because honestly he deserves literally all the shit we can pile on him even if he did better later on.

"Don't hug a dolphin...it could lead to more than you're prepared to deal with." (words to live by)✋😌👍.

That figuratively-screwed line (not literally, but also literally) 😂😂😂

The overall quality of video you provided have gotten better and better. Most youtubers find a method and stick with it but you have progressively gotten better over time. Bravo!

Considering you say you don't know what you are doing, you are doing it excellently. 👌🏾

Peter be sounding like splatoon characters

I wonder did Margaret learn about his death.... Plus I wonder how the news learned about this, as I would assume all the people involved would want this situation swept under the rug as cleanly as possible 😂

You can't just show us that seals can mimic speech, without going into more detail

5:54 that's exactly what I'd imagine a human sounds like to an animal. brahbrahbrahlahblah

First thought was Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy!

"Well shoopity-poop, time to die" I want that on my gravestone

I had no idea that seals could mimic human speech. I legit screamed "DEMON SEAL" when I heard that audio.

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should!" - Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)

the dolphins fr sound like splatoon characters

I love your videos, learning different weird bs from our world. Also, hearing a seal speak gave me trauma... like wtf

I love that you mentioned that the dolphin Peter caught feelings. It's an important distinction many people just don't want to associate with animals in general. And yes I liked the video 😄😂. Keep it up. Luv luv

Also I need to mention that during the experiment most of the time he was in the sensory deprivation tank on acid. He did this to talk to psychic aliens who would give him advice during the experiment. I could not make that up even if I tried.

5:48 Imagine just having a walk at a harbor only to have a seal yell at you to "get over here!!!" Id be terrifyed.

I will say, I knew well about Lilly and his project with dolphins well already, not least because I've loved dolphins since I was young, thanks to a game that may have been at least slightly inspired by that experiment: Ecco the Dolphin! (And its great sequel, Ecco the Tides of Time). Very entertaining and funny to watch you cover it! I also LOVE that shirt! (Very Ecco, actually!)

I’ll never get sick of these videos lol.

Aside from the messed up shit that came after, at 3:31 that has got to be the cutest sound ever. Also sounds like the Splatoons sounds they make

I never knew much about this beyond the fact that the spiral of depression and psychological themes of this case are what would later inspire Ecco the Dolphin. Thankfully they kept Ecco PG rather than X rated.

"an olympic gymnast level stretch" 😆

As Roosterteeth so eloquently said many years ago... Burnie: "What did they think the dolphins would say?" Dolphin: "More handjobs!"

5:50 Bruh. I have never laughed so hard in my entire life 😂😂😂😂😂 I almost ruptured my lungs after hearing that seal

That harbor seal was obviously playing Mortal Kombat

"The friggin is silent" 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😅

its astounding that so many people supported this project and none of them stopped to think "hey how the fuck are dolphins supposed to speak to us?"

I love this video because its perfectly mixes your humor and knowledge in a way that adults get the sexual ramifications but little kids don't so the whole family can enjoy your content and not feel left out or robbed in some way good shyt!❤️❤️❤️❤️

bro that dolphin sounds like a splatoon character

My cat likes to try and mimick me, but he doesn't know what tf he's saying. He just knows it gets my attention. 😂

They shoulda came up with their own language in clicks, squeaks, and whistles. They could have easily used something to make those types of noises, although it wouldn't be directly from the person. If given enough context, I think the dolphins could have learned it as long as they created a well formed, thought out, limited vocabulary language.

-A dolphin sounds like an anime girl -A seal sound like a sailor - a bird sounds like an old farmer

I've heard this story, really glad you covered it. But as to Lilly's experimentations in deprivation tanks, the movie "Altered States" might interest you if you find that.. interesting.

One of the funniest classes ever. Young brother, you would make a great professor and lecturer.

I'm 57, and I remember a lot of my childhood. I remember the 60's and 70's being interesting times, so this video doesn't surprise me in the least.

For once I knew about a story before it became a video here. Thing is I don’t even remember where the hell I read it in the first place. I only know I came away regretting I did, several braincells shorter and my faith in humanity once again in the gutter

"And the litteral is co/uming, like Peter did" had me passed away

The seal sounds like Mr.krabbs💀

4:35 give the dolphin credit for using the water surface as a medium of articulation... He used the water to mimic an "L" sound.

I haven't even watched yet, just wanted to say I'm subscribed to a lot of RU-vidrs, but you are the only one I instantly click when I get a notification, you keep your facts straight 99.9 percent of the time and you are hilarious to watch! I'd still watch your videos even if it was just random facts!

Bro was speaking splatoon

You should do that spy cat story next. The one they turned into a cyborg, and my god the ending of that story is gold.

The rabbit hole joke made me laugh way too loud 😭 Good work as always ! 🔥

Thank you not only for this video, but for letting me know about that episode of Drunk History, which I immediately found and watched after yours. They should be giving you a cut of their monetization the uptick in traffic you're giving them now.

The talking dolphin sounds like an inkling from Splatoon

The Japanese example was golden...lol...love ur content Brother!