Margaret Howe Lovatt, The Woman Who Had A Sexual Relationship With A Dolphin
YouTubeMargaret Howe Lovatt with one of the lab’s dolphins.
Margaret Howe Lovatt’s sexual relationship with a dolphin during a NASA-funded experiment definitely qualifies her as one of the weirdest people in history.
Neuroscientist Dr. John Lilly and astronomer Frank Drake partnered together in the 1960s to secure funding for research on how to create a communicative bridge between humans and dolphins.
They built a lab that was part workspace and part dolphin enclosure and when 23-year-old Margaret Howe Lovatt got wind of the facility, she stopped by to check it out. The lab’s director eventually agreed to let the curious young woman help out.
She taught the dolphins in daily lessons with the goal to help them create human-like sounds. She threw herself into the work obsessively and even began living in the lab. She formed a special relationship with one of the dolphins, Peter, and he took a particular interest in her as well.
Peter was obsessed with Lovatt and would express sexual urges by rubbing himself on her. Eventually, Howe relented and began manually satisfying Peter’s urges so she didn’t have to keep returning him to the female dolphins whenever he felt a certain way.
Lovatt insists “it wasn’t sexual on my part … sensuous perhaps. It seemed to me that it made the bond closer. Not because of the sexual activity, but because of the lack of having to keep breaking. And that’s really all it was. I was there to get to know Peter. That was part of Peter.”
Eventually, the lab lost funding and the relationship between Lovatt and Peter ended once he was moved to a lab in Miami. Peter was heartbroken to be separated from his love and committed suicide in his tank.
Ric O’Barry of the Dolphin Project validates the use of the term suicide. “Dolphins are not automatic air-breathers like we are … Every breath is a conscious effort. If life becomes too unbearable, the dolphins just take a breath and they sink to the bottom.”
The story of Lovatt and Peter’s unusual relationship could sound to some people like a tragic love story, but to others, Lovatt simply qualifies as one of the world’s weirdest people.
