Artwork courtesy of defenselink.mil.

This week, the U.S. Navy announced that up to 30 dolphins and other marine mammals may be used to patrol Puget Sound near Seattle to protect Kitsap-Bangor Naval Base from terrorist activities.

Dolphins and marine mammals can locate underwater swimmers and objects and assist with a variety of additional tasks.

But what other interesting intelligence developments are emerging about dolphins that involve sensitive and fascinating insight into human consciousness?

Tucked within a declassified bibliography of "Project STARGATE" reports on extrasensory perception (ESP), "anomalous cognition" and "remote viewing" is a research paper titled "A Remote Action Investigation with Marine Animals."

The Navy has been working with dolphins and marine mammals since the 1960s.

The creatures have been operationally deployed several times, including in war zones and probably for activities not routinely disclosed.

The dolphins, sea lions and other animals are trained and coordinated by the Navy's Marine Mammal Program at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) on San Diego's Point Loma peninsula, home to many Navy activities.

The dolphins and marine mammals have reportedly learned to communicate and work well with their human counterparts.

As well as conducting various operations, Navy research on dolphins and marine mammal intelligence and sonar-like perception has also been conducted.

Marine mammals apparently were also subjects of research as part of a "Program Plan for Anomalous Mental Phenomena."

This effort was conducted as part of government investigations into remote viewing and anomalous cognition.

A declassified bibliography of research papers completed from 1976 to 1990 includes an unclassified 1987 report titled "A Remote Action Investigation with Marine Animals" by Dr. Edwin May and Dr. Charles Pleass.

The research by May and Pleass was conducted for SRI International, Menlo Park, California. SRI has been one of the primary research entities conducting investigations into remote viewing and anomalous cognition for the U.S. military and intelligence services.

Most people have heard about SRI in connection with Project STARGATE, the program that researched ESP, now often referred to as anomalous cognition and the techniques called remote viewing. The program had several other code names during the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

Remote viewing is a combination of ESP-type methods developed by the military and intelligence agencies to gather intelligence and to assist in counterintelligence activities.

The research report connecting remote viewing researchers to marine mammals seems to indicate an association that many people are already aware of, and others probably will find intriguing.

Developing ESP skills in humans is one thing. Examining telepathy and other kinds of anomalous cognition in a highly intelligent species like dolphins takes this kind of research in an even more interesting direction.