Listen to a 43-second spontaneous utterance, Play Dolphin Presentation, by a captive dolphin in John Lilly's early work. This utterance shows organized thought from beginning to end. It deserves to be called a presentation. The careful listener will notice that every successive click has a different sound. The presentation builds in intensity, ending in a climax. The climax followed by denouement, which makes it complete. It shows extremely high intelligence. No land animal except humans is capable of such an utterance.

Lilly was a pioneer in the field of cetacean research, particularly focusing on the intelligence and communication abilities of dolphins. He believed that dolphins possess an advanced form of language and consciousness and advocated for interspecies communication research. He believed that dolphins and whales can be regarded as fully conscious aliens on our own planet who deserve the same treatment as humans under international law.

DEEPER ANALYSIS - Why is this dolphin creating this utterance at this time and what is he trying to tells us? Starting with a single voiced sound at the beginning, he then presents 37 intentional clicks, each one with a lower tone than the previous one. He then builds up speed, changes the rhythm, and then starts inserting surprises of voiced sounds. Is he trying to show us how intelligent he is? Why is he uttering this?

In Play Elvar, notice that Elvar always gets the count correct. Can you think of another animal that can count to nine and copy the rising tonality of the final syllable? In Play Peter, Peter starts to get playful and intentionally tease Margaret. What other animal can verbally tease the person they are interacting with?

The body size and brain of the bottlenose dolphin is comparable to that of humans.In terms of structure, dolphin brains have a complex neocortex and exhibit extensive folding, similar to human brains, which is associated with complex information processing. Why shouldn't they be as smart as us? They have all their problems solved living in the water. As we were evolving on land, they were co-evolving with us in the water.

If you really want to be amazed, listen to Audio 4 in which the climax of Dolphin Presentation is slowed down 4 times, or in Audio 5, 8 times. Can you hear the amazing variation within that sound which to us, at normal speed, is not perceivable? This burst of high speed information was intentionally created out by a dolphin, much faster than a human can intentionally control individual vocal sounds.


*These sounds were captured from cassette tapes available from the Human Dolphin Foundation in 1980. Website