The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon

Though not frickin’ sharks with frickin’ lazer beams, Project Orcon, for “organic control,” was funded by the US military in World War II.

The control system involved a lens at the front of the missile projecting an image of the target to a screen inside, while a pigeon trained (by operant conditioning) to recognize the target pecked at it. As long as the pecks remained in the center of the screen, the missile would fly straight, but pecks off-center would cause the screen to tilt, which would then, via a connection to the missile’s flight controls, cause the missile to change course. Three pigeons were to control the bomb’s direction by majority rule.

The other animal-related defense funding in World War II I dug up was the Bat Bomb.

The plan was to release bomb-laden bats at night over Japanese industrial targets. The flying bats would disperse widely, then at dawn they would hide in buildings and shortly thereafter built-in timers would ignite the bombs, causing widespread fires and chaos. The bat bomb idea was conceived by dental surgeon Lytle S. Adams, who submitted it to the White House in January, 1942, where it was subsequently approved by President Roosevelt.[1] Adams was recruited to research and obtain a suitable supply of bats.

The only reason the latter project failed was because “it would likely not be combat ready until mid-1945.”

I would love to know what crazy projects the US military is wasting money on these days if those two got any significant traction in only the last century.