US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth addresses kamikaze dolphin rumours

Something seems a little fishy

Yep, that's right, we're over two months into the Iran war and we're talking about weaponised dolphins - because that's what serious governments do.

While Trump's administration has made a number of mental claims and statements in recent months, including everything from AI images depicting Trump as Jesus to Hegseth himself quoting Pulp Fiction as a Bible verse, this latest one is a real zinger.

This all comes after Fox News ran a story claiming that Iran themselves were using 'kamikaze dolphins' against the Americans.

A decades-long dolphin conspiracy

These aquatic accusations of dolphin deployment have long been rumoured amongst the masses, thanks mainly to the mystery of the Cold War.

To the surprise of many, dolphins have actually been used in war before, originally being trained under the U.S. Navy marine mammal programme in 1959.

This programme trained bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions in mine detection, object recovery, and swimmer defence.

Notably two dolphins were deployed in 2003 in the Iraq War to help detect sea mines.

Yes, this picture is real. Credit: Getty.

Thanks to this previous use of dolphins in an actual war zone, and the classified nature of the operations in the Cold War, many started to develop theories about how the US may have evolved the programme since its inception.

Rumours spread that animals might be trained to:

• Attack divers
• Deliver explosives
• Act as “underwater assassins”

Even the Soviets were involved, with rumours spreading that they had reportedly experimented more aggressively with the animal.

Ultimately, these conspiracies have only been amplified by everyone's favourite misinformation machine, the internet.

Coupled with AI, posts have been going about in recent weeks claiming to show dolphins being weaponised against Iran.

'I can't confirm of deny'

Often, when a rumour becomes too big, it normally has to be quashed by the hand of authority, however, we must remember, this is no normal adminstration.

Speaking earlier today about the situation in Iran and notably the Strait of Hormuz, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth addressed the rumours about "kamikaze dolphin", by being rather coy (fish pun intended) about the whole thing.

Almost breaking a cheeky smile, Hegseth said: "I can’t confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins, but I can confirm they [Iran] don’t."

Quite obviously, the whole thing was done tongue-in-cheek, but honestly, at this point who would be surprised if the Trump administration was indeed strapping bombs onto marine life to get an edge in this erratic war.