- Greetings to you,
children of the world.
It is I, Duncan Trussell,
and tonight on "Drunk History,"
we're gonna talk about LSD
and dolphins.
- Cheers.
- Cheers.
 So in 1961, Dr. John Lilly
 published an amazing book
 called "Man and Dolphin."
 He wrote, wow,
 these dolphins are smart.
 They're not like
 what we thought.
 They're not just sea rats.
 They're talking to each other.
 They're social,
 they're advanced,
 and we don't even know it yet,
 but I bet we could
 talk to these sweeties.
So yeah, there was
a big dolphin boom.
Everybody's reading
Lilly's book,
and Carl Satan--Carl--
Carl Satan is a cool name.
Carl Satan is so much cooler
than Marilyn Manson.
- [laughs]
- I so hope someone
watching this
starts a [bleep] bad-ass band
and renames themselves
Carl Satan.
 All right, Carl Sagan's
 reading this book,
 and he's like, whoa.
 If dolphins
 can [bleep] talk,
 what the [bleep], man?
 This book is blowing my mind.
 So Sagan calls a meeting.
 SETI, the search for
 extraterrestrial intelligence,
 their members before
 it even existed are like,
 shit, we all wanted to talk
 to these [bleep] aliens.
 And they're all like,
 dolphins are these
 [bleep] mammals, man,
 and they live in the sea,
 they can talk.
 If we can figure out
 how to talk to them,
 maybe we can figure out
 how to talk to aliens.
 NASA's like, [bleep] man,
 let's do this shit.
 NASA gives John Lilly
 a shit-ton of money.
 So John Lilly starts
 a dolphin laboratory
 in St. Thomas
 in the Caribbean in 1963.
 It's called
 the Communicating--
 Communications Research
 Institute, CRI.
So somehow John Lilly
gets three dolphins.
 And he's looking at them,
 he's like, all right,
 I'm gonna name you Pamela.
 I'm gonna call you Sissy.
 And I'm gonna call you Peter,
 and we're gonna teach you
 how to speak English.
 So someone who works there,
 her name's
 Margaret Howe Lovatt,
 he says to her, listen,
 I wanna give you Peter.
 You teach Peter how to talk.
 Margaret says, I am going
 to teach you English.
 He's like--
 [imitates dolphin noises]
 She'd be like,
 my name is Margaret.
And he'd be like--
[imitates dolphin noises]
And like--
- Doesn't sound like her name.
- No, it's a [bleep] dolphin.
Give him a break.
Imagine if somebody took you
out of the Earth
onto an alien spaceship
and they're like, hey, listen,
talk with your ass.
- [laughs]
- That's Peter's situation.
 So--so she wanted
 to be around
 the dolphin all the time.
 Her bed is next
 to the dolphin aquarium.
 She built her desk in
 a platform above the tank.
She basically moves
into Peter's apartment.
So Peter seems to be learning,
 and Lilly's like, shit man,
 Margaret, I think you and
 Peter are hitting it off.
 But here's the problem.
Dolphins are sexual creatures.
- Uh-oh.
 - So it's like rubbing
 up against her,
 it's humping her leg.
 He's like, look,
 look what's happening to me.
 And--and she's like, oh, wow.
 Like, he needs to [bleep].
 So when Peter
 would get horny,
 they would, like,
 lift him out of the tank
 and put him in the tank
 with the two other girls,
 dolphins.
 - Nice.
- And sure as shit,
 afterwards he started
 learning English better.
 Margaret's like, talk, talk,
 talk, talk, talk time.
 We can talk.
 Now you talk.
 Peter's like, [bleep],
 I think they want me
 to say their monkey talk.
[imitates dolphin chattering]
 But I'm horny.
 She's like, goddamn it.
 Here we go again.
 But moving a dolphin sucks.
 And she's like, I didn't know
 I was gonna become
 a [bleep] Uber
 for dolphin [bleep].
And at some point--
[laughter]
At some point she's like,
 listen, guys, listen,
 we can't do this.
 We don't have the time.
 I'll jerk him off.
 What's the big deal?
 Margaret started
 jerking Peter off
 in between lessons.
- Do you think the handjob
had a special allure for him?
'Cause dolphins
don't have hands.
- I think as a dolphin
Peter was not stuck
on hands or no hands.
 He was just like,
 I'm from the ocean.
 You, I don't know
 what the [bleep] you're from.
 You're some
 kind of monkey thing.
 I think I know what will
 make you happy though.
 That's making me [bleep].
 [laughter]
- My career is over.
- What?
- My career is over, tonight.
[laughter]
So where'd the drugs
get into the story?
- Okay, so John Lilly's
at a party.
 He meets the wife
 of the producer of "Flipper,"
 who gives him LSD.
 Everyone's on acid.
 John Lilly gets the idea,
 if we start giving acid
 to dolphins,
 I bet they'll talk to us.
 [loud sigh]
 - You all right?
 - I'm fine, man.
 - You spinning?
 - I'm not spinning.
 Yet.
I hate spinning.
Is there--
Do you have a solution
to spinning, Doctor?
- Vomiting.
- God, God, that's so evil.
So [bleep] up.
There's nothing else?
- Not drinking so much.
- Goddamn it.
- So the lab, so the LSD.
- [sighs] All right.
 One of John Lilly's dolphins
 was traumatized.
 It'd been hit by a spear gun,
 and it was afraid of humans.
He goes in the laboratory
with a bunch of acid.
 This'll be great.
 We can talk to the dolphins!
 Let's talk to dolphins!
 He gives the dolphin acid.
 The dolphin that was
 formerly scared of humans
 swims up to him
 and looks him in the eye.
 There's a moment
 where it's like,
 wait, maybe this isn't
 about language.
 Maybe it's something
 deeper than language.
 And John Lilly realized,
 wow, this works.
- [bleep] this blowhole
communication.
This is something bigger.
- Exactly!
It's not just the guttural
sound you make
out of your [bleep]
hamburger tube.
[laughter]
 So John Lilly starts
 giving the dolphins acid.
 Margaret is like,
 hey, John,
 do you mind not injecting
 Peter with acid?
 That'd be awesome.
 I don't think he wants acid.
 I don't want you
 to give it to him.
 Margaret's like,
 I love this dolphin.
 I don't know.
 And Lilly's like, no,
 I'm gonna give Peter acid.
 It makes them--it seems
 to make them a little more,
 like, communicative,
 they're a little--
 it seems to excite them
 in some way.
 And he gave it acid.
 So John Lilly is on acid.
 So they're both tripping.
 [psychedelic music]
So, ugh...
 Eventually
 "Hustler" catches wind
 of the fact that Margaret is,
 like, jerking off dolphins
 and writes an article.
 They made it like
 "Hustler" style.
 - Yeah, yeah.
 - Someone at NASA opens it up
 and they're like,
 what the [bleep]?
 I paid a million dollars
 to that asshole,
 and they're out there
 [bleep] the dolphins.
 And so Carl Sagan
 comes in one day,
 and he's like,
 uh, I'm Carl Sagan,
 and I'm a very respected
 scientist.
 I love space.
 You know that.
 I think space is amazing,
 but there's a couple of things
 I think are weird
 that are now happening
 in the universe.
 Number one,
 jerking off dolphins.
 And number two,
 giving them acid.
 And you know what, John?
 When I said let's talk
 to [bleep] dolphins,
 I didn't mean let's teach them
 to speak English.
 Let's learn their language!
 You don't go to Japan
 and kidnap a Japanese man
 and start jerking him off
 and giving him [bleep] acid
 and then ask him
 to learn English!
 John, I'm sorry, I'm angry,
 but really just think about it
 from my perspective, man.
 The next time
 I go to [bleep] NASA,
 they're gonna be like,
 oh yeah, sure, Carl.
 Who you gonna jerk off
 in this experiment, aliens?
 An owl? A partridge?
 What's it gonna be, Carl?
 Oh yeah, sure,
 we'll give you money.
 Get the [bleep] outta here!
[laughter]
 So the lab shuts down, 1966.
 Peter went
 to another laboratory.
 It wasn't a lab
 like the one he was at.
 This was just a [bleep] up
 basic, shitty,
 goddamn dolphin lab.
Peter's heart was broken.
 He loved Margaret.
 So Peter swims to the bottom
 of the aquarium,
and he dies.
He drowns himself.
- Dolphins can choose
not to breathe.
- Yeah, Peter, especially.
 And Margaret's heart
 was broken.
 She was so--she was
 really hurt by that.
This is like the important
point, man.
- Hmm?
 - John Lilly's work
 led to a world-wide
 recognition
 of dolphins and whales
 as intelligent life forms.
 And thanks to his work,
 they passed
 the Marine Mammal
 Protection Act,
 which kept dolphins
 and whales safe.
- In spite of the peculiar
twists and turns of this story,
why was this important history?
- I think Peter taught us that
no matter how bad it seems,
like, you could
make it better.
Right, like, he's like,
if you believe in yourself,
 if you truly believe
 in yourself,
 you can get
 a monkey descendant
 to make you [bleep].
[laughter]
Oh, God, I wish I was born
in the '60s.
