The 10 Most Bizarre Military

Experiments
By Ian Fortey

We suspect that every military has a secret room full of stoned dudes who stare at the
ceiling and just dream up shit to build. The difference is they have billions of dollars
to make their dreams reality.
In support of our "secret room full of stoned dudes" theory, we offer the following
actual military projects that stretch the limits of the non-stoned imagination:
#10.
The Bat Bomb

Working on the premise any weapon is cooler if it flies in the night on leathery wings,
Bat Bombs were proposed by a dental surgeon in the '40s. Naturally the President
thought it was awesome so a plan was rolled out to make the night unsafe for anyone
that didn't want to have small explosives get stuck in their hair.
The Plan:
Because bats can carry a good amount of weight and tend to sneak into buildings and
such, the plan was to make an army of flying rodent suicide bombers and release them
over Japan. The little fellas had small napalm explosive kits made for them, which
were probably the cutest incendiary devices ever, and then cases were constructed that
would be dropped from B-29s, releasing the bats.
At dawn, they'd flee to buildings until the timers on their little bombs went off. So far,
so fucking crazy.

What went wrong:

Things got sketchy when some armed bats were accidentally released and set up shop
under a fuel tank on an Air Force base. So, yeah, that burnt to the ground. But, hey, it
proved the damn things worked, so the people involved looked at that as a silver
lining.
Given that the bomb casings they'd made for the bats could hold over 1,000 bats, they
assumed just one bomber could hold up to 200,000 little flaming night terrors and
some initial test data concluded these bat bombs were actually superior to regular fire
bombs.
But after a couple million bucks in funding, the plan was scrapped. The plan was
moving forward too slowly, the bats were unpredictable and the guys at the Manhattan
Project were talking about having some kind of miracle bomb that could do the work
of like, a million bats.
#9.
The Great Panjandrum

Getting through enemy fortifications is always tough, what with their insistence on
constructing defenses out of stone and other non-meringue based substances.
Sometimes conventional weapons just can't break through, and such was the case with
the concrete defenses that were part of the Third Reich's Atlantic Wall that ran up and
down the west coast of the European continent. So the Brits came up with the
Panjandrum, insanity's answer to "what could we do to make explosives more
dangerous?"
The Plan:
So how do you get a tank-sized hole in a concrete wall? Well, they created two giant,
wooden wheels joined by a central drum stuffed with explosives. On each wheel they
strapped rockets as a means to propel it forward at speeds of about 60 miles an hour.
Life imitates art, and sometimes military life imitates Wile E. Coyote cartoons.

What went wrong:

You can probably guess. The rockets that moved the thing had a habit of flying off
during tests, sending the entire structure off course, which we're thinking created a
number of safety issues. After adding more rockets and another wheel, it was tested
again and this time it turned right back to sea.

Finally, after many tweaks, it was ready to be tested in front of Navy officials,
scientists and journalists. How could this go wrong?
The ridiculous thing started rolling off as planned, but then like a drunken hussy with
vertigo on a dance floor, it started careening all over the place before making a
beeline for the assembled Navy brass, discarding rockets and wobbling around before
thankfully collapsing and exploding. Moments later, the Roadrunner went zipping by.
#8.
Project Orcon

A real pain in the ass during WWII was the enemy constantly trying to not get
bombed. Ways of jamming guidance systems for homing missiles meant a lot of
targets went unblown up, so effort was put into finding a way to guide a missile that
couldn't be jammed.
The Plan:
Every psych 101 students' favorite sleep aid, BF Skinner, proposed the idea of using
pigeons. Put a pigeon in a bomb and have the target displayed on screen for it. The
pigeon would constantly correct the course by pecking on the image of the target in

the center of the screen. Jam that, Nazi assholes.

What went wrong:

Even though a chunk of change had been dropped on the project, the military
abandoned it. Some say it was just too weird for them, while the time involved in
training the pigeons had also been cited. One of the problems was the range of the
weapons, as they relied on an optical system, since the pigeons had to see what they
were pecking at. If the bomb went too far off course, the pigeons would have to
correct for themselves and the bomb. Another problem was that it was a bomb guided
by a fucking bird.
#7.
The Sun Gun

Destroying your enemies from space is the goal of every angry 4th grader and
Scientologist. Unbeknownst to many, it was also the goal of the Nazis, who figured a
space station/death ray combo would have been gangbusters.
The Plan:
Appropriating the work of less genocidal minds, Nazi physicists began work on an
idea that would put a giant mirror in orbit. The mirror, which they planned to design
from about one million tons of metallic sodium, would burn cities to the ground, boil

reservoirs, crisp people like bacon and probably make all kinds of kids with
magnifying glasses huddled over ant hills feel grossly inadequate.
The mirror would be on a space station manned by Nazi spacemen with magnetic
boots to help overcome weightlessness, with oxygen provided by on-board pumpkin
patches and electricity provided by solar powered steam dynamos. The cafeteria
would presumably have food deep fried in love and the rec room would be structured
out of the dreams of children and unicorn gonads.

What went wrong:

We did. "We" being all the non-Nazi assholes, the more colloquial name for the Allied
forces. When it became clear that we were going to win the war, the US began taking
German scientists out of the country and this plan, along with many others, was
abandoned. Also, the epic, grand scale, and mind-bogglingly retarded nature of the
entire idea was apparently a roadblock that needed to be overcome too, since we
couldn't even build the damned thing now, in 2008, if we wanted to.
And trust us, we want to.
#6.
Project Habbakuk

When Winston Churchill got a hankering to smite his enemies, he aimed for the sky.
Actually, he aimed for the ocean, where he wanted to build Holy Fuck That's Insane
island. That was renamed Project Habbakuk. It was an aircraft carrier. It was an
iceberg.
The Plan:
Wanting to make an unsinkable aircraft carrier that would be so intense as to make
enemies shit themselves uncontrollably, and with good reason, the Brits came up with
the Habbakuk. Constructed from ice (ever try to sink an ice cube?) the plan was to
make it 2,000 feet long with a deck to keel depth of 200 feet and walls 40 feet thick. It
would displace 2,000,000 tons (compared to the Navy's current Nimitz class carriers
that displace 100,000 tons). So, it was like, really big.
When ice proved to be not entirely feasible a material to build an aircraft carrier out
of, they switched to something called Pykrete, which was just ice and wood pulp. It
was intense stuff that deflected bullets and since this idea was already probably the
craziest thing anyone had ever heard of, why the fuck not?

What went wrong:

Practicality. A small version had been constructed in Canada that weighed 1,000 tons
and was only 60 feet long to show that the idea could work. It took three summers to
melt the damn thing. The full-scale model would take $70 million, 8,000 people and

eight months to finish, the finished product could only travel at six knots and once it
arrived where it was going, it would still be made of fucking ice.
#5.
The Stargate Project

Sadly having nothing to do with fighting aliens who pretend to be Egyptian gods, the
Stargate Project was the CIA's way of saying goodbye to $20 million, but getting a
fun story to tell the grandkids as a result. The project was an effort to discover if
psychic remote viewing was real, because if it was then that would make spying a
whole lot easier.
The Plan:
Apparently the Commies were spending a lot of money on paranormal research
during the Cold War. So if they were doing it, the CIA wanted a slice too, before the
Reds whipped out some dude who could kill the President with his mind. They started
the Stargate project in the '70s with a crack team of gifted psychics provided by the
Church of Scientology. Seriously.

What went wrong:

They realized right away there probably wasn't anything to the whole psychic/remote
viewing thing. And by "right away" we mean 25 years later. The project lasted until

1995.
Research into the project's validity concluded that while the remote viewers could get
some details right, they were also doing a stellar job of getting a shitload wrong. In
fact, many say the results were exactly the same as having a group of random hobos
make wild guesses, and that you could just as accurately uncover enemy hideouts by
having a camel spit at a wall map.
Hey, did we mention that we spent $20 million to find that out? Don't feel bad, the
Soviets spent 500 million rubles to find out the same thing.
#4.
The Gay Bomb

In terms of great military plans, from the first ape-man who threw a rock at some
other asshole ape and likely stretching into our Jetsons-like future with lasers and
nanobots that will melt the faces of those who displease us, nothing is likely to ever
top the Gay Bomb. The Gay Bomb is exactly what it sounds like; a weapon that
would rend our enemies asunder with gay. Actual, weaponized gay.
The Plan:
Wright Laboratory in Ohio proposed a number of non-lethal weapons to the Pentagon,
as methods of crowd control are highly in demand these days and tear gas is about as
cool as hippie daisies and beaded curtains. Instead, why not bathe your targets in an
aphrodisiac chemical so strong that it caused all the enemy combatants to line up for
mustache rides?
So maybe it's not a room full of stoners coming up with these ideas, maybe it's a
house full of frat guys.

What went wrong:

In concept, it's probably true that an enemy is less effective when engaged in a
massive, frenzied man-orgy. However, science has not actually perfected a way to
make this happen to just any group of males.
Apparently the "how" was not the job of the idea department here, as the same lab
proposed other weapons that would make bugs and rodents attack enemies, give them
bad breath or mark them with a stink so they couldn't hide in general population.
Again, that's all fine and good, if and when ways of doing those things actually exists.
Despite that, the Pentagon kicked this idea around for at least seven years, perhaps
based on nothing more than the private fantasy of one frustrated general.
#3.
The Pain Ray

The Active Denial System, often referred to as the Pain Ray, is a futuristic sounding
way of making sure someone is about to have a really terrible day or improperly
cooked microwave burritos. Designed as a method of crowd control, the ADS does
just what the nickname suggests, it causes pain. At a distance!

The Plan:
In certain situations, it seems the military doesn't want its own people getting too
close to the danger, but at the same time doesn't want to start picking off rowdy
crowds with a sniper hidden on some kind of grassy knoll because that makes for very
bad press. So developing non-lethals that make people do what you want has recently
become very popular.
Thus the Active Denial System is born, a long-range weapon that uses
electromagnetic radiation at a high frequency and can be directed at targets close to
500 yards away. It causes the water molecules in a person's skin to get "excited,"
which is a pleasant way of saying it microwaves you. But not in a permanently
damaging sort of way. Maybe.

What went wrong:

Nothing, yet. They've built the thing, and it works. The ADS was first developed over
a decade ago and after many trials and tests, the US military seems to have a
hankering to get them into Iraq very quickly.
A lack of research into long-term effects or prolonged exposure to the weapon have
some people wondering if it's such a great idea, since probably no one has volunteered
to have their eye microwaved yet to see what that's like, but meh. It's called the Pain
Ray, not the Rainbow Shooter. That's what you get for not dispersing on your own,
angry mob!
#2.
Malodorants

Another non-lethal method of crowd control and also a psychological weapon,

malodorants, or stink bombs, are supposed to create a stink the likes of which you
can't imagine. Worse than rotten meat, backed-up sewage or another trip to the dump
with dad to find mom an anniversary present.
The Plan:
Military forces have been playing with this idea for decades. A number of smells have
been patented, including the smell of human feces, which makes us think we probably
owe a hell of a lot of royalties to someone every day at about 8AM. In the Second
World War, some intrepid people invented the hilariously named Who Me? as a way
to make Germans disperse as well as humiliate them by making them smell worse
than people on the bus.
The US has something called US Government Standard Bathroom Malodor which is
apparently so bad, people who have experienced it actually start screaming within
seconds. Written accounts describe it as smelling like every bad smell you can think
of, put together, times ten. Reports say it actually creates visible cartoon stink lines in
the air. The military thinks that's as hilarious as we do and wants to throw it at people.

What went wrong:

Though the ideas are still being developed, the fact is, historically, they don't work out
so well on account of you're going to end up smelling like unbelievable ass too. Back

in WWII, Who Me? couldn't really be effectively used since it not only made the
target stink, it made the bomber stink and the entire area where the bomb went off
stink.
Stink is a fickle mistress, and obeys no master.
#1.
Project Acoustic Kitty

When you think of spying, odds are you think of jamming a radio inside of a cat so it
can listen in on stuff. And if you don't, you really need to have a good, long think
about what kind of person you are. Anyway, in the '60s, the CIA hatched this idea to
make a cat into a listening device and stick it to some dirty Commies.
The Plan:
The how and why of this project was probably torn up and shat on by whoever came
up with it in an effort to save a shred of dignity, but nonetheless, what has survived is
a plan to implant a battery and a microphone in a cat, with the antenna running up
through its tail. They could let the cat loose and no one would be any the wiser of the
mystery cat sitting nearby.

What went wrong:

Public transportation. It turns out, in a strange twist of logic, that once you put a
battery, a microphone and an antenna inside a cat, it is not immune to taxis. So, after
spending several millions of dollars and years in research, the CIA released their spy
cat on its test run and a cab ran it over.
The project was then scrapped and no one spoke of it again.