Source: Periodic records of Dr. George T. Williams, neuroscientist, at the Virgin Islands Communications Research Institute (Caribbean Sea), during the Study of Structured, Articulated, and Formal Language in Bottlenose Dolphins conducted between March and June 1966.
Date of entry: March 23, 1966
The isolated dolphins were finally reunited in Tank 1, where the food-providing ejector-button trap had also been placed. Peter, the male, familiar with the method, ate as he had been doing for the past few days. But more than 24 hours have passed, and he seems the only one to understand how to obtain food, which is evidence that no information was transferred to the female.
Source: Ibidem
Entry Date: March 24, 1966
Today I requested a NASA grant renewal and submitted a false list of completed objectives. I also promised them progress in interspecies communication studies, since all they seem to care about is that our results be applicable to the blessed detection of the language of intelligent extraterrestrial species on their radars. Everyone here is a little anxious. Without that financial support, we will have to cancel the experiment.
Source: Ibidem
Entry Date: March 27, 1966
NASA’s response hasn’t arrived. I need to be able to adjust the data from the mappings on the cerebral cortex of these animals, but due to their inability to breathe involuntarily, it’s impossible to sedate them without killing them, and the recordings are intermittent. I’ll try LSD. After the ketamine failure, better to follow one of Bateson’s suggestions.
Source: Ibidem
Date of entry: March 28, 1966
The LSD tests in the isolation tanks seem to have finally yielded better results than the experiments with musical tones and telepathy. A marginal result, I admit, but at least it’s a real result. I can hardly forget Amy’s surprised face when that howl imitating my voice emerged from Sissy’s blowhole.
Source: Ibidem
Date of entry: April 13, 1966
A young woman has been visiting us for several days. Her name is Margaret. She lives here in Saint Thomas, but on the west side. She is only 23 years old and has no scientific training. I am amazed by her comments and conclusions.
Source: Ibidem
Date of Entry: April 19, 1966
Margaret seems to have completely revolutionized the lab. Even our study subjects have changed their behavior. Sissy, always grumpy and elusive, has now become enthusiastic and cooperative. Peter, so young and shy, a virgin, seems increasingly willing to cooperate. And Pamela is literally a different person. Once fearful and solitary, she now responds to our calls as if she were a dog.
Source: Ibidem
Entry Date: April 22, 1966
We’ve reached an agreement with Maggie (as we call her). In exchange for a meager salary, I’ll allow her to live with Peter in a room filled with seawater. The goal is to see if their cohabitation can yield conclusive results. To do this, we’ll have to refurbish part of the laboratory.
Source: Periodic records of Margaret McDonald, volunteer assistant, at the Virgin Islands Communications Research Institute (Caribbean Sea)
Date of entry: May 3, 1966
I couldn’t help but cry when Dr. Williams offered me an internship in his laboratory. I’m so happy! I still remember the day he showed me the facilities, and now the aquarium is being remodeled so I can fulfill my mission: to teach Peter how to speak.
Source: Ibid.
Date of entry: May 12, 1966
I have a bed suspended in the air near one of the waterproof walls. I’m writing this on my legless desk, which hangs from the ceiling. The water is almost waist deep. (…)
Source: Ibid.
Entry Date: May 14, 1966
Peter is only 11 years old. Our relationship seems to be strengthening day by day, and everyone here is more than amazed by my progress.
At 8:00 a.m. our lessons begin. From a monitoring booth, Dr. Bateson records everything with microphones lowered from the ceiling.
After days of using random words, Amy suggested we try our luck with “Hello, Maggie.” “Hello, Maggie,” I repeat over and over for two hours. I’m optimistic.
To avoid Peter’s stress, we also play with a ball, while I sing to him. He seems to really like “Eight Miles High,” a song they play all day on the radio. He also likes to play fetch with things I hide underwater.
At noon, we continue with vocabulary lessons until 3 p.m. The rest of the time we watch TV. We also swim. I love cuddling up to his back and letting myself be carried along grabbing his fin.
Source: Ibid.
Date of Entry: May 15, 1966
Dr. Nash, the veterinarian who comes to check on the health of the dolphins and Peter (I can’t call him a dolphin anymore, I can’t see him as an animal), explained to me that, unlike us, who breathe without thinking, they must do so voluntarily; breathing is a conscious effort for them. That’s why when they sleep only half of their brain rests, while the other half remains awake to ensure breathing. Isn’t that amazing?
Source: Ibid.
Date of Entry: May 18, 1966
Peter’s progress is significant. He’s managed to say, in addition to the list of words I copied in the previous entry, “Hello, arrrggie.” As I had already seen with the words “monkey” and “magic,” the letter M is a problematic letter for him. He tends to get very frustrated.
Source: Ibid.
Date of entry: May 22, 1966
Peter has begun to show great interest in my body. Sometimes, when we’ve finished the lessons, he stares, mesmerized, at the back of my knee, very close to me.
Source: Ibid.
Date of Entry: May 29, 1966
Peter’s interest in certain parts of my body seems to have intensified, but I have no trouble at all keeping him focused on his lessons. In fact, I don’t even need to reward him with food anymore. He seems genuinely interested in communicating with me through words.
The rest of the time, he only requires petting. And if I don’t touch him, he rubs against my legs like a kitten, until my indifference makes him angry. He snouts me and has even bitten me. He doesn’t hurt me, but it’s clear he’s demanding a degree of affection from me that wasn’t common.
Source: Ibid.
Entry Date: June 1, 1966
It was yesterday when the caresses Peter constantly asks for gave me a tremendous scare. Peter had his first erection. Or at least that’s what Dr. Nash said.
I was caressing his belly, and without warning, a kind of fold opened, and that pinkish tentacle slowly emerged, as if uncoiling.
I screamed, thinking there must be some abnormality, that something was wrong with his health, that it was a part of his intestines coming out, twisting like that.
Dr. Bateson got out of the booth as quickly as he could and got me out of the room while he called Dr. Nash, who came flying over. The doctor couldn’t help but laugh as he told to us that it was Peter’s penis. “He’s probably in heat for the first time, since they never take their penis out unless it’s to use it,” he explained.
He told me he was going to be courting me with some very peculiar hissing sounds that, I realized, he’s already been making.
Source: Ibid.
Date of Entry: June 5, 1966
My legs are covered in bruises, and I’ve been forced to wear rubber boots at all times to protect my shins. When he gets uncontrollable, I push him around with a broomstick that Dr. Nash suggested I use. But I refuse to use violence on him.
Source: Ibid.
Entry Date: June 7, 1966
I finally did it. And I must admit I didn’t feel disgusted at all. It was like taking a hand and feeling it curl around mine until it started to vibrate and eventually released a juice similar to that of men. Similar to the cum of one hundred men ejaculating in unison…
I haven’t told Dr. Williams about it yet.
Source: Ibid.
Entry Date: June 13, 1966
Everyone already knows it. And Peter is insatiable. I count the times a day, and it’s up to ten. Cum clouds the water, it is not possible to change it so often.
But I’m finally getting used to it. It’s like scratching your skin when it itches: you do it and that’s it, calm for a while.
Source: Penultimate entry in Dr. George T. Williams’s records at the Virgin Islands Communications Research Institute
Date: June 29, 1966
I don’t even know why I bother closing this notebook with another entry. After the article in Hustler magazine so jokingly revealed the point we’d reached with our research (and exaggerated it, because Maggie never had sex with Peter), NASA has withdrawn all support. And without that support, this research cannot continue. Tomorrow we begin dismantling the laboratory. The dolphins will be sent to an aquarium in Miami.
Source: Last entry in Dr. George T. Williams’s records for the Study of Structured, Articulated, and Formal Language in Bottlenose Dolphins
Date: July 23, 1966
Today I finally plucked up the courage and called Maggie. I didn’t beat around the bush: I told her everything exactly as it happened. She cried and said I was lying, but I wish I were. How can an animal commit suicide by voluntarily stopping breathing? But that’s how dolphins are. She asked me to let her bury it in her backyard. I told her the body had already been disposed of.