THEY CALLED ME PARANOID. THEY CALLED ME OBSESSED. THEY DIDN'T CALL ME WHEN THE ORCAS STARTED SINKING BOATS.

An orca emerging from dark water, eye visible and watching, ominous lighting, the feeling of intelligence and menace, nature documentary gone wrong

I have been warning you about killer whales for over twenty years.

In 2004, I wrote about how they torture baby seals for sport. In 2006, I praised our whale overlords in what I hoped was ironic submission. In 2007, I laid out the case that they are the most evil creatures in the ocean—my most-read post ever. I even proposed recruiting polar bears to our cause.

My instructor at commercial diving school, Scott Cassell—a man who has logged thousands of hours diving with sharks and Humboldt squid—told us that if we ever saw an orca while in the water, we should get out immediately. This from a man who films the most dangerous creatures in the ocean for fun.

No one listened.

For years, people showed me pictures of Shamu with children. “Look how friendly they are,” they said. “They’ve never killed a human in the wild,” they said.

And now they’re sinking yachts.

Off the coast of Spain and Portugal, pods of orcas have been ramming boats. Not accidentally. Deliberately. They target the rudder. They work in teams. They’ve sunk multiple vessels. Marine biologists are calling it “play behavior” or “learned trauma response.”

I call it the opening salvo.

Consider: these are animals that kill baby gray whales, eat only the jaw, and let the rest sink to the ocean floor. That’s not efficient predation. That’s a statement. They have been sending messages for decades and we’ve been too distracted by Sea World merchandise to read them.

The Escalation

A damaged yacht rudder underwater with dark shapes circling in the murky distance, forensic and unsettling, the aftermath of coordinated attack

The yacht attacks started with one orca. The behavior spread. They’re teaching each other. This is organized.

Twenty years ago I was dismissed as paranoid. “Dylan, they’re just big dolphins.” “Dylan, they’re intelligent and beautiful.” Yes. They’re intelligent. That’s the problem. Hitler was intelligent too.

(I wrote that comparison in 2007 and I stand by it.)

What’s our defensive strategy? There isn’t one. We can’t hunt them—they’re protected. We can’t outrun them—they’re faster than any boat they’re targeting. We can’t reason with them—they’re already reasoning with each other, and they’ve decided something.

Scott Cassell was right. He’s always been right.

Stay out of the water.

Stay safe.

And whatever you do, don’t sit in the splash rows.