When a young Carl Sagan visited St. Thomas’ Dolphin Point laboratory in 1964, he likely didn’t realize how controversial the setting would become.

Sagan belonged to a secretive group called “The Order of the Dolphin” — which, despite its name, focused on searching for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Also in the group was the eccentric neuroscientist Dr. John Lilly. His 1961 quasi-sci-fi book Man and Dolphin highlighted the theory that dolphins wanted to (and likely could) communicate with humans. Lilly’s writings sparked a scientific interest in interspecies communication that set in motion an experiment that went a bit… awry.

Trying To Connect Dolphins And Humans

Astronomer Frank Drake headed the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. He’d spearheaded Project Ozma, the search for extraterrestrial life through radio waves emitted from other planets.

Upon reading Lilly’s book, Drake excitedly drew parallels between his own work and Lilly’s. Drake helped the doctor secure funding from NASA and other government entities in order to realize his vision: a communicative bridge between human and dolphin.

Lilly then built a laboratory housing a workspace on the upper level and a dolphin enclosure on the bottom. Tucked away on the picturesque shore of the Caribbean, he called the alabaster building Dolphin Point.

When 23-year-old local Margaret Howe Lovatt realized that the lab existed, she drove there out of sheer curiosity. She fondly remembered stories from her youth where talking animals were some of her favorite characters. She’d hoped to somehow witness the breakthrough that could see those stories become reality.

Arriving at the lab, Lovatt encountered its director, Gregory Bateson, a famous anthropologist in his own right. When Bateson inquired as to Lovatt’s presence, she replied, “Well, I heard you had dolphins … and I thought I’d come and see if there was anything I could do.”

Bateson allowed Lovatt to watch the dolphins. Perhaps wanting to make her feel useful, he asked her to take notes while observing them. Both he and Lilly realized her intuitiveness, despite any lack of training and offered her an open invitation to the lab.

Margaret Howe Lovatt Becomes A Diligent Researcher

Soon Margaret Howe Lovatt’s dedication to Lilly’s project intensified. She worked diligently with the dolphins, named Pamela, Sissy, and Peter. Through daily lessons, she encouraged them to create human-esque sounds.

But the process was becoming tedious with little indication of progress.