The US army is always looking to develop new weapons and methods of attack – but not all weird military projects end in success – in fact, some of the things they have tried are just really dumb.
Weird Military Projects
Acoustic Kitty
At one point they even tried training cats to spy on the Soviets. It was called Operation Acoustic Kitty – which, let’s be honest, sounds like a punk band. In fact, it was a 20 million dollar project to infiltrate Moscow. It involved implanting tiny listening devices into cats ears, and a radio transmitter at the base of their skull. Then they would be released near Soviet embassies, to hopefully pick up on state secrets. Everything the cat heard up close was recorded and transmitted back to it’s handlers, potentially giving a behind the scenes view on Soviet policy. The problem is though… they’re cats.
Cat’s basically have ADD. So the only things recorded was them running around the street and fighting. Great effort was put into keeping the cat focused. And just when it seemed to be working, their first spy cat was hit by a passing taxi. The entire operation died with that cat, as the fools in charge decided not to keep funding it. This was 1967 – and I really believe spy cats could have won the cold war sooner. Cat’s are not the only animal to be weaponized though.
The Bat Bomb
During world war 2, the Americans wanted to send a million bats into battle. In 1942, strategic bombing of Japan had already began, but what the allies really wanted was to destroy large areas. At the time, most Japanese houses were made almost entirely of wood. And that would turn out to be a major design flaw.
The idea came from a dentist, who wrote a letter to the White House detailing his bizarre scheme. It involved building a time release bomb shell capable of holding a thousand bats. When dropped from a bomber, the casing would open up, allowing the bats to fly freely into Japanese airspace. Inevitably, they would disperse and hide among wooden buildings within a 40 mile radius. That in itself is just a minor nuisance. Japanese people are famously unafraid of bats, but these were no ordinary bats. Bound to them were small incendiary devices – ones that in time would ignite and burn down wooden houses. A thousand small fires could easily spread through a whole city. In theory, one bat bomb could destroy all of Tokyo.
The Green Light
And so the air force got to work, gathering Mexican free-tailed bats – which by the way were in mid hibernation. Government approval was given, and it was decided the bats would be armed with napalm. So in 1943 they actually began testing this ridiculous weapon – and amazingly, it went well.
Deep in the desert, a replica Japanese town had been built specially to be destroyed. As expected, the bats took shelter in roofs and attics, and just a short while later, the wooden town was no more. For the air force, this was proof of concept, and the bat bomb was given the go ahead for combat. Analysis showed each each bomb could result in 4 thousand individual fires, making it surprisingly cost effective. But then the worst thing possible happened. One day, a group of the bats got loose and set fire to a nearby airbase. This, combined with the general stupid nature of the project resulted in it being cancelled totally. That is how the greatest weapon ever created never saw use in battle.
Walking Into A Nuclear Bomb
Speaking of bombs, soldiers were once ordered to march directly into a nuclear explosion. Part of the Desert Rock Nuclear tests, a series of weird military projects involving nukes, it was not entirely clear how and when this new class of weapon would be used. So they did all kinds of wacky experiments – firing nukes out of cannons and blowing them up underwater. And that’s just what the American’s were doing. We can only imagine what kind of hilarious stunts they were doing in the Soviet Union.
By the mid 1950s, it was known that radiation could be deadly, but many believed this was only over a long period of exposure. So to find out how soldiers would react to a nuke being deployed in battle, they set up a trial. That’s the story of this footage. They literally just wanted to see what would happen. Most chilling is how the soldiers poke their heads up to see the mushroom cloud – just in time for the radioactive shock wave to rush by. They had no idea how much danger they were in.
Then to somehow make the situation worse, they were ordered to walk stupidly close to the blast. It’s such an insane video a lot of people assume it’s a scene from a movie.You might also assume these soldiers got superpowers – but no. Turns out radiation just kills you. Soldiers involved in these tests are known as “Atomic Veterans” – and more often than not, they were sworn to secrecy, no matter what health problems would result. To make it worse, almost a thousand nuclear experiments were carried out in the desert of Nevada, causing residents of surrounding towns to experience all kinds of abnormalities.
The Canadian UFO
To be fair, a lot of weird military projects were going on at the time – projects like VZ-9. A joint project with Canada, it was a real life UFO that in theory would be more efficient than any existing craft. Based on a scientific principle too boring and lame to get into right now, it was intended to fly at high speed and be combat ready. But as always, the scientists were dumb. Turns out building a UFO is harder than it sounds, and the project was repeatedly scaled back. After a year of development, the project had become stupidly expensive, but in 1959 a test flight did take place.
Sadly, it could only hover a few meters above ground, and not for very long. When power was increased, the UFO lost stability and had to be shut down. Only two models were ever built, with the project being cancelled in 1961. Yet some believe the US government secretly continued to experiment with UFOs. After all, those initial flights did technically provide proof of principle. Maybe that is why reports of UFO encounters have only increased in following decades. Or maybe I’m just a moron.