‘Killer Dolphins’ Escape ‘Fabricated,’ Ukraine Says

A tale of a “killer dolphin” escape in Ukraine yesterday took the internet by storm, but it seems the initial reports may have been “absolutely fabricated,” per Russian officials.

The killer dolphin escape was widely reported after the story ran on Russia’s RIA Novosti. According to the reports — which officials say were based off poor quality forged documents — the killer dolphin pod simply made a break for it during a “training exercise,” busting full fin out of the waters in Crimea.

On our earlier post, The Inquisitr noted that the killer dolphin escape tale had some doubters but cited “a military source in Sevastopol [who] stated that the attack dolphins trained to attack enemies can carry special knives or pistols on their heads.” However, as we noted, there was “no evidence [as to] whether the dolphins were equipped with weapons when they made their escape” although they “may be trained to go after certain people.”

It is not precisely clear how the killer dolphins would be able to adequately employ head-mounted weaponry unless their target happens to be swimming in an ocean — and even then, it seems a bit less efficient than a trained killer human in a scuba suit.

The Week did a hilarious takedown of the killer dolphin escape hysteria, quoting Foreign Policy’s Uri Friedman. Friedman reassures the planted that “before you start having nightmares about dolphins shooting out of the ocean with weapons jutting out of their snouts,” you should consider “[the RIA Novosti report] is based on unconfirmed speculation from one expert — and there’s no indication that the dolphins were armed even if they did escape earlier this month.”

Friedman notes that the killer dolphin escape story originated from an “anonymous ‘military source.'”

The site also points out that even the US Navy has said in the past that because “dolphins cannot discern the difference between enemy and friendly vessels, or enemy and friendly divers and swimmers, it would not be wise to give that kind of decision authority to an animal.”