02x05 - Bizarre Weapons

[bunniefuu]

Tonight on "secrets declassified,"

weapons so big, so
deadly, and so strange

that governments stop at
nothing to keep them secret,

from the 511-foot super g*n

with a target that's out of this world...

Big Babylon will be the
biggest g*n in history.

To an armed battalion of bats.

Bats go into the attics,
and the burning commences.

And a kgb weapon
designed to k*ll without a trace.

There's no bang to draw attention.

There's no b*llet to
become forensic evidence.

It is the perfect weapon.

These are the astonishing
and sometimes terrible weapons

created by governments

and the people who work for them.

It's time to bring them to life.

It's 1956.

The ussr now has nuclear missiles,

and the U.S. faces the prospect
of widespread destruction.

So when a former
elevator repairman suggests

the only way to defend
against the Soviet attack

is by blowing up the
Great Lakes, no one laughs.

Why?

Because the nation's
top scientists realize

it's so crazy, it just might work.

America is learning that the Soviets have

developed intercontinental
ballistic missiles

that are armed with nuclear warheads

that can reach any part
of america in a half hour.

Our m*ssile interceptors
are not yet reliable enough,

so this is a real problem.

To defend the U.S. from armageddon,

military planners turn to an unlikely hero.

Nicholas christofilos is not
typical Pentagon material.

Born in Boston but raised in Greece,

he was a trained electrical engineer

who worked as an elevator repairman.

But he was always
obsessed with physics,

and specifically, nuclear physics.

In the early 1950s,
christofilos returns to the U.S.,

where he lucks out
and is recruited to the lab

that created the U.S. hydrogen b*mb.

Now, his bosses see that
behind all that eccentricity

is in fact a brilliant mind.

So christofilos starts helping to solve

the Soviet m*ssile threat.

His unconventional mind

soon conjures up a bizarre solution.

Christofilos comes up with the idea

of using high energy electron beams

to sh**t down these missiles

before they reach American soil.

It sounds simple.

Focus fast-moving
electrons into a beam,

train it on an incoming m*ssile,

and when they hit it,
the shock wave of energy

will destroy the m*ssile in an instant.

There will be no bang,

no expl*si*n, no falling debris.

One second, it's here,
the next second, it's vapor.

The U.S. government is intrigued.

Christofilos gets the
green light to investigate

under the code name operation seesaw.

But accelerating electrons

to the speeds required for this beam

brings its own unique challenge.

Christofilos needs to construct

a super long tunnel with magnets

that can accelerate these electrons

to these high energies.

This tunnel needs to be massive.

I'm talking hundreds of miles long.

How does he plan to achieve that?

A nuclear-powered underground borer.

The problem is, that
hasn't been invented.

Even by cold w*r
standards, this is a wild idea.

But designing a nuclear-powered

boring machine isn't
even the craziest part.

The real challenge is power.

Christofilos's particle beam requires

an unimaginable amount of electricity,

literally more than the
entire U.S. grid can provide.

And listen, this electricity
can't be generated in advance

and stored in a battery.

It needs to be generated all at once

in the very same instant
that the weapon is discharged.

Christofilos decides

the only way to run his particle beam g*n

is with water power.

He comes up with an idea:

Blow up the Great Lakes.

Christofilos wants to
place giant trap doors

on the lake bed.

But beneath those trap doors,

he'll place giant turbines,
and beneath those turbines,

giant nuclear bombs.

So as soon as the
Soviet m*ssile is detected,

he'll explode the bombs
and release the trap doors.

All the water in the
lakes, 6 quadrillion gallons,

rushes from the lakes

into the cavities created by the bombs,

turning the turbines on the way,

creating an epic amount of power.

According to christofilos's calculations,

his plan will achieve more energy

than even the entire U.S. electrical grid,

and in only minutes.

When christofilos presents the idea

to his colleagues, the room is stunned.

One of them actually says,

"my god, Nick, that might actually work."

So I guess if you had to pick between

saving the Great Lakes
and saving the lives

of millions from nuclear
armageddon, bye-bye, lakes.

A serious plan is drawn
up to drain the Great Lakes.

But the problem for the government isn't

the ambition or the science.

It's the budget.

By the late 1960s,

project seesaw has
consumed $27 million.

But it remains little
more than a collection

of lab experiments and theories.

Christofilos asks for another $300 million

to scale the project,
but the Vietnam w*r is

eating up defense spending,
so he doesn't get his funding.

Project seesaw is quietly shelved.

Its files are stamped classified,

and the Great Lakes
live to see another day.

Despite its failure, project
seesaw's theoretical work

paves the way for
Reagan's star wars initiative

in 1983.

And only in 2010 is
this remarkable project

declassified.

Ideas like draining the Great Lakes

to power the particle beam...

it all sounds so ridiculous
and so Hollywood.

But during the cold w*r,

conventional thinking
could only carry them so far,

and they needed people that
came up with outrageous ideas.

In the cold w*r, the U.S. thinks about

blowing up the Great Lakes,

but in Vietnam, American
military planners ask,

what if you could weaponize
water in a different way,

by creating the mother of all monsoons?

In 1965, the Vietnam w*r is intensifying,

and the U.S. military is desperate

to find a way to gain an upper hand.

Now, one way they try to do this

is to disrupt the viet
cong's key supply route,

the h* chi minh trail.

The h* chi minh trail snakes
through Cambodia and Laos

and is used to move all
sorts of men and weapons

and supplies to the viet cong.

The problem is, no matter
what the U.S. throws at it...

bombs, mines, chemical defoliants...

the supplies just keep on flowing.

So the Pentagon gets
desperate, and they wonder,

what if they can flood
the h* chi minh trail?

If they can somehow make
it rain heavily above the trail,

then the jungle roads will be swamped

until they're impassable.

Weaponizing the weather is a wild idea,

but the Pentagon knows who to turn to.

The naval weapons center is

a military research
organization in California.

It has been looking at ways

to promote rainfall from clouds,

partially to ease the drought in California,

but this is also something
that could be useful in warfare.

They've refined a technique
known as cloud seeding,

where they spray silver iodide into clouds

to make it rain, and it seems to work.

Watering farmland in
California is one thing.

Using this tech to wipe out a supply route

halfway around the world,

that could cause a diplomatic disaster.

The h* chi minh trail runs
through Laos and Cambodia.

But because these countries
are neutral in the conflict,

nobody wants the U.S. to be seen

messing with their weather.

Military planners decide
to go ahead anyway.

The operation is code-named pop eye.

Operation pop eye is so secret

that even congress is not briefed on this.

In total secrecy, the U.S. air force

prepares to cloud seed on a scale

never before attempted.

Now, the engineers have to figure out

how to actually get the
silver iodide into the clouds.

And the solution that they come up with

is to fill 40 millimeter
cartridges with the material.

They put these cartridges into racks

that can hold 104 each.

And these racks are loaded onto planes.

And as they fly through the clouds,

they release the cartridges.

In march 1967, the first flight takes off.

A c-130 slips quietly up over Laos,

releases its canisters,

and the clouds open up, and rain pours.

More flights are sent up

and more clouds
seeded with silver iodide.

The defense intelligence
agency estimates

that it increases the
rainfall by up to 30%.

Roads wash out, and
convoys are delayed.

Now, it doesn't shut
down the trail completely,

but it does slow the flow.

And in w*r, that can be just as valuable.

U.S. pilots involved
start using a new phrase,

"make mud, not w*r."

The deluge is only just beginning,

but congress still hasn't been informed.

When the monsoons return, they target

larger areas of Laos, north
Vietnam, and Cambodia.

By 1972, $21.6 million

has been spent on operation pop eye.

And 47,000 seeding
units have been dropped.

All the while, the U.S. military has

kept this weapon
concealed from the world.

But then a disgruntled official

reveals all to a journalist.

In 1972, "the New York times" breaks

the story of operation pop eye.

They report that the
United States government

has been trying to modify
the weather in Vietnam.

The reaction in the
U.S. congress is outrage.

We're dumping chemicals into the air

above nations that we're not at w*r with,

and this is a very provocative move.

The political pushback is immediate.

Popeye is shut down within 48 hours.

The mission's planners are brought

to congress for a hearing.

The hearing ends with
a new law advanced

that strictly forbids

the modification of the environment

without first receiving
permission from congress.

Operation pop eye remains the only time

the weather has ever been weaponized

on a live b*ttlefield...
at least that we know of.

Moscow often turns to
poison to take out its enemies.

In 2006, a Russian defector dies

after drinking a cup of tea
laced with a radioactive toxin.

In 1978, a Bulgarian dissident

is stabbed with a poison-tipped umbrella.

But before all that,
one Ukrainian nationalist

falls victim to something
even more sinister...

a cyanide g*n hidden
inside a newspaper.

It's 1957, and Moscow has a problem.

There are Ukrainian nationalists

in west Germany who
are talking about revolution

and hell bent on independence.

At the time, Ukraine is part of the ussr.

But these nationalists
want an independent nation

not controlled by Russia.

One of their most important
leaders is Stepan band era.

He's essentially enemy number one,

as far as Moscow is concerned.

Moscow wants him
gone... permanently gone.

For Moscow to want
to take out band era,

having to do so in west Germany,

this would be a violation
of the highest order.

That could possibly kick
the cold w*r into a hot one.

So they're looking for
a way to get rid of him

that's untraceable.

Kgb engineers are tasked

with creating the perfect
weapon for the job.

k*lling people is easy.

Anybody can do that.

The challenge is to k*ll someone

and make it look like you didn't k*ll them.

sh**ting? Too noisy.

Bombs? Too messy.

So the kgb engineers decide to abandon

b*ll*ts and bombs for chemistry.

Soon, they have their ideal solution:

A poison spray.

They vaporize a k*ller compound

called hydrogen
cyanide into a lethal mist.

If you inhale just a fraction of a gram,

you'll be dead in a matter of seconds.

Hydrogen cyanide blocks the cell's

ability to use oxygen.

So to a pathologist
conducting any regular autopsy,

the tiny dose is untraceable,
and the cause of death

would easily look the same

as, like, a massive coronary failure.

Creating the lethal spray isn't hard.

Creating a weapon to deliver it,

that's the real challenge.

An assassin needs to be
right up close to the victim

to deliver it, or else
any change in the wind

risks it blowing back in your face

or taking out an innocent bystander.

So to direct the poison,

Soviet engineers build a small metal tube

about 8 inches long,
less than an inch wide.

And this tube needs to be positioned

as close to the victim as possible.

You sh**t it out

by pressing a spring-loaded metal bar.

That smashes the vial
and causes the poison

to sh**t out the end of the tube.

There's no bang to draw attention.

There's no b*llet to
become forensic evidence.

It is the perfect weapon.

The only problem is how
to conceal the weapon

so an assassin can get close enough

to use it without drawing attention.

To do that, the Soviets reach for

the most ordinary cover imaginable...

a rolled up newspaper.

In 1950s Europe,
newspapers are ubiquitous,

so this makes them a perfect object

to hide weapons inside.

The designers slot the weapon

inside of a rolled up newspaper.

They cut a slit into the newspaper

near the trigger for fingertip access

so the assassin can fire
it without being noticed.

Now the kgb just needs the right person

to use this new weapon
to take out Stepan band era.

They pick bohdan stashynsky.

Bohdan stashynsky has
been working undercover

for the Soviets since the early 1950s.

He's young, expendable,

and the kgb think that he's loyal.

So in September 1957,

his handlers give him the poison g*n.

When stashynsky
begins to surveil band era,

however, he hits a problem.

Bandera is always
accompanied by a bodyguard.

The original newspaper
g*n gives you one shot.

But if band era has a bodyguard,

the kgb is going to need two shots.

And they can't be walking around

with two rolled up newspapers.

That would be ridiculous.

So instead, the kgb develops
a double-barreled version

to take out two people.

The engineers get to work,

and they produce a twin pipe g*n...

two barrels, two triggers,
and two capsules...

and stashynsky is
handed the new weapon.

Stashynsky spends
months tracking band era.

One night, he waits outside
of bandera's apartment.

Miraculously, band era is alone.

His bodyguard is nowhere to be seen.

As band era fumbles with his keys

outside of his apartment,
stashynsky approaches.

He raises his newspaper
weapon and fires.

However, he accidentally shoots

both streams of poison at once

instead of the one that
he was supposed to.

Bandera instantly collapses.

Bandera is dead.

But doubling the lethal
dose of hydrogen cyanide

means it is no longer untraceable.

Because stashynsky fired both barrels,

the cyanide has left a
more permanent residue

in his victim's organs,

and this is traceable in the autopsy.

It's clearly not a natural death.

The authorities in west Germany

don't have any witnesses.

They don't have evidence of a weapon.

But that poison residue is
enough to convince them

that this could be an assassination.

The west German authorities

start to look for an assassin.

For two years, stashynsky stays silent.

Then, the pressure becomes too much.

Stashynsky cracks.

He surrenders to west German police

and confesses everything

in return for asylum and information.

Stashynsky is tried a year later,

and during this trial, he describes

the newspaper-wrapped
poison g*n in great detail.

Suddenly, this strange
and very unique weapon

is front page news all across the world.

Stashynsky is found guilty.

In exchange for exposing
the kgb's lethal tactics,

he is released after just five years in jail.

Then he vanishes,
reportedly given a new identity

to escape the kgb's revenge.

Some of the wildest
weapons are dreamed up

in w*r rooms or secret labs.

Others come straight from the top.

In 1940, Winston Churchill floats

a wartime idea that remains
classified for 30 years:

Knock out German cities
with a barrage of balloons.

During world w*r ii, the
skies above britain's cities

are filled with hundreds and hundreds

of huge hydrogen balloons

tethered to the ground
by massive steel cables.

They're known as
blimps and are a key part

of the UK's defense
against the German bombers,

forcing enemy planes to fly higher,

making bombing less accurate.

One night in September in 1940,

you have a huge storm that sets in,

with winds of upwards
of 40 miles an hour.

And these gusts rip
dozens of these blimps free.

The balloons float out
across the north sea,

and they begin to descend
once they're over Sweden.

And the cables that are
hanging from the balloons

begin to bump into electrical components

in the Swedish power grid.

They hit power lines,
causing massive short circuits

and blackouts that
plunge towns into darkness.

Where everyone else
sees a diplomatic disaster,

britain's prime minister,
Winston Churchill,

spies an opportunity.

If a few stray balloons can
wreak havoc in Sweden,

what might thousands
do over Germany?

Churchill orders

the construction of thousands
of free-floating balloons

with dangling conductive wires.

These are to be launched
across the English channel

and ride the jet stream

straight into the heart of the third reich.

Churchill's idea is
code-named operation outward.

Design begins in extreme secrecy.

Naval engineers design
a latex balloon 8 feet wide.

And trailing below each balloon,

they add 1,000-foot-long
conductive wire.

If you launch enough
balloons trailing enough wires,

some of them will hit
some very valuable targets.

The task of assembling these balloons

is given to the wrns, the
women's royal naval service.

In makeshift tents,

they construct these huge balloons,

fit them with their destructive trails,

and ready them for launch.

The women's royal naval service

took advantage of the opportunity

to send a little bit of a message

to the Nazis as well, writing things like,

"take this, you b*stards,"
on the actual balloons.

What this barrage of balloons needs now

is a launch site.

The perfect place to
launch these balloons

happens to be at a golf club

in a town called felixstowe.

It's very close to the English channel

and continental Europe.

There's also a prevailing westerly wind

that will carry the balloons into Germany.

On march 20, 1942,
operation outward lifts off.

The balloons are set free
to float eastward on the wind.

Now there's nothing
Churchill can do but wait.

It's not long after

that British intelligence
agents in Germany

report that the plan is working.

The balloons and their cables
are striking the power grid.

They're starting fires,
they're knocking out power,

and they are creating complete chaos.

The balloons are also
infuriating Adolf Hitler,

something that Churchill
is always excited to do.

Buoyed by success,

britain's balloon factories go full tilt.

That summer, the British are
launching nearly 1,000 a day.

Then the operation has
its biggest success yet.

On July 12, 1942,

an operation outward
balloon creeps towards leipzig,

the fifth largest city in Germany.

The wind puts it on a collision course

with leipzig's main power station.

The trailing wire hits a 110,000-volt

transmission line, and in an instant,

electricity leaps from
the cable to the wire.

Immediately, the site is up in flames,

and a chunk of Germany
is plunged into darkness.

It's estimated that this
one balloon causes damage

that's worth at least $60
million in today's money,

so not bad for a balloon

that just costs around the
equivalent of 100 bucks.

Launches continue until 1944,

when the d-day landings
increase allied air traffic

over Europe, and operation
outward is scaled back.

The final balloon is let
loose on September 4, 1944.

It's balloon number 99,142.

The w*r ends in 1945, but
the technology is so cheap,

the brits fear if they release the details,

someone could easily
use it against them,

so operation outward remains buried

in government archives.

It's quietly declassified

by the British government decades later.

Then in 2016, a British
journalist tells the story.

The British media goes wild for this story

of how this stroke of
genius from Churchill

just wrought havoc on
the German w*r machine.

By 1988, eight countries on earth

have managed to put a satellite in space.

Iraqi leader S*ddam Hussein

decides he wants to join the club.

To get there, he's not
going to use a rocket.

He'll build the biggest g*n on the planet.

It's 1988, and S*ddam
Hussein is in trouble,

because Iraq's enemy, Israel,

is about to launch its
first satellite into space.

To level the playing field, S*ddam wants

his own spy satellite in space.

The problem is,

S*ddam doesn't have
a space program at all,

and building one from
scratch will take years.

So he turns to a quick fix shortcut.

Gerald bull is a
Canadian-born ballistics expert.

This guy has been obsessed

with one idea throughout his career,

and that is building a g*n so large,

it can fire a satellite into space.

He's peddling his ideas
to anyone who will pay.

It sounds like the perfect solution

for getting S*ddam to space fast.

S*ddam gives him
$25 million to work with.

But what bull doesn't know

is that S*ddam has
a second secret plan.

S*ddam imagines a g*n so powerful,

it could fire a shell
filled with chemical glue,

that, detonating near an enemy satellite,

would coat its lenses
and blind it completely.

If his enemies can no longer spy on Iraq,

then S*ddam believes
he will also be able

to build whatever weapons
he wants on the ground

without them knowing.

Soon, bull has a design for the g*n.

It's called big Babylon.

Big Babylon is going to be massive,

the biggest g*n in history.

It'll weigh over 2,00 tons,

and its bore will be a meter wide.

So if it works, it'll hurl
a 440-pound satellite





To be launched permanently into orbit,

it needs to reach a
height of tens of thousands

of miles into the sky.

Even though bull's
Cannon is big and large,

it's not quite enough.

So he comes up with a clever solution.

He attaches a three-stage
rocket to the payload.

Each one kicks in at a particular altitude

that makes the projectile
go faster and faster

until it reaches orbit.

To put this innovative design to the test,

bull's team construct
a miniature prototype.

It's no normal prototype.

It's 150 feet long with
a 350-millimeter bore.

It's a monster within its own right.

They begin testing the prototype

with lead slugs bigger than basketballs.

The recoil on this thing is insane.

If you've ever fired a g*n
and felt that kick back at you,

you know that alone can leave a bruise.

This thing's kicking back
several meters with every fire.

But as it does so, these
slugs go sailing out...

they're flying at 2
miles per single second.

And it shows that this
g*n does, in fact, work.

S*ddam green lights the full scale build,

but there's a catch.

Iraq is subject to international sanctions

designed to prevent the production

of this kind of weapon.

Big Babylon requires
specialized components

and composite materials

that the Iraqi engineers
on their own cannot create.

To get around sanctions,
bull creates a network

of secretive shell
companies across Europe.

Despite all of bull's clever planning,

his work starts to come to the attention

of rival intelligence services.

Israel, Iraq's military
rival, pays close attention.

By 1989, its security agency, Mossad,

is reportedly tracking bull's every move.

Fast forward to march 22, 1990.

Bull's visiting home in Belgium,

and one day, he walks
up to his front door.

A man emerges from behind him.

The man pulls a g*n
and shoots bull five times.

Twice in the head,
three times in the back.

Gerald bull is dead.

No witnesses, no suspects.

Bull had $20,000 in cash on him.

And whoever k*lled him,

whoever fired five shots into the guy,

left that behind.

So it's clearly not a robbery.

This is undoubtedly a hit.

To this day, we don't
know who k*lled bull.

After bull's death,

the weapon might have
remained hidden forever.

But the Gulf w*r in


Soon after bull is k*lled,
the Gulf w*r begins,

and S*ddam Hussein never has time

to get back to the project again.

After the w*r, UN inspectors in Iraq

find the remains of big
Babylon and its baby sister...

And the world discovers just how close

S*ddam came to creating
a super g*n to reach space.

In 1999, the full details

of Gerald bull's involvement
in project Babylon

are released by the CIA.

Little boy, the cookie, bouncing Betty.

It's like a rule with bombs.

The nicer they sound,
the more you should worry.

In 1962, another weapon
joins this deadly list.

The U.S. calls it the atomic watermelon.

In the late 1950s in Europe,

Soviet forces outnumber
NATO forces 10 to 1.

And as a result, the United States are

terrified of a Soviet invasion.

They especially fear the Soviets sending

thousands of tanks across
what is known as the fulda gap.

The fulda gap is a geographical feature

right along the border in Germany,

two open plain areas

that would make it easy
for communist bloc nations

to stream from east toward the west.

If Russian tanks roll
through the fulda gap,

there won't be enough
time for america to scramble

its strategic nuclear bombers.

U.S. military planners know,

if they want to protect the free world,

they need to find a way
to defend the fulda gap.

For that, they decide they
need a brand-new weapon.

What the U.S. army needs is a tactical

low yield nuclear weapon.

It needs to be scary
enough to make the Soviets

think twice about
invading, but small enough

to race along the west German front line

at a moment's notice.

In 1959, los Alamos national laboratory

engineers begin work to design

the smallest ever nuclear weapon.

Engineers use a new form

of highly-enriched plutonium 239.

This new miniaturized
device has an expl*sive yield

equivalent to about 20 tons of tnt.

That's similar to the
largest conventional bombs

ever constructed, and it
weighs only around 50 pounds.

That's less than 1% the
weight of the Hiroshima b*mb.

And this is a device that's
less than 11 inches in width.

Its size and shape inspire a nickname,

the atomic watermelon.

Now the military needs
to see if this melon

can deliver the destruction
they're hoping for.

There's a test detonation of the warhead

at the Nevada test site in July 1962.

This is designed to prove
that the weapon system

is capable of functioning.

There's a bit of theater
associated with this test.

There are bleachers that are built.

Those who are invited to attend the test

and observe it, they're
given special goggles

so that they won't be blinded
by the blast once it occurs.

There's a vip seating area.

Robert f. Kennedy is there.

The target is a point
in the dry desert basin

nearly 3,000 meters away.

At 10:00 A.M., the weapon is fired...

And it works.

The round was set for
a low height of burst.

It detonated perfectly,

releasing its lethal radiation.

The launcher, the delivery system,

the warhead all work
flawlessly, exactly as designed,

and tests at the delivery
site show radiation levels

that confirm that
anyone within 200 meters

would have been k*lled instantly.

The atomic watermelon is a success.

It's loaded into jeeps
across west Germany,

ready to race to the front line.

Over 2,000 atomic
watermelons are manufactured

and distributed across
Europe to face the Soviet threat.

Each weapon is handled
by a five-man team,

who are only to use the
weapon if they are faced

with an imminent threat of being overrun.

sh**ting a nuke from a
short range rocket launcher

comes with one very real risk.

That five-man team will move forward

at high speed using the vehicle.

They'll fire the weapon,

and then immediately upon releasing it,

they will move as fast as possible

out of the fallout range of the weapon

so that they themselves do not
become irradiation casualties.

Despite the danger,
the atomic watermelon

is judged such an effective deterrent

that it's deployed to
other vulnerable outposts,

including Korea, Guam, and Hawaii.

The atomic watermelon is a key part

of American defense for
the better part of a decade.

But by the late 1960s,

it still hasn't been used in combat.

Plus, advances in m*ssile guidance

have essentially rendered it obsolete.

So it's retired in 1971.

The story of the atomic watermelon

remains buried in classified
archives for decades.

Only after the end of the cold w*r

are the full details revealed to the world.

It's 1942.

The U.S. is trying to find a way

to win the w*r in the pacific

when a dentist writes
to Franklin Roosevelt

with a plan to attack Japan

with bombs strapped to live bats.

Even crazier than that,
the president says yes.

Dr. Lytle s. Adams is on vacation

at carlsbad caverns in new Mexico.

He's a dentist, but he's desperate

to help the U.S.'s w*r
effort against Japan,

and he's willing to do
some out-of-the-box thinking

to make that happen.

With the closing of sunset one evening,

large formations of
bats issue from the cave

out into the air.

And it's that inspiration that will lead us

to one of the wackiest
moments in world w*r ii history.

Then he gets this great idea.

What if each bat were
carrying an incendiary b*mb?

A bat b*mb.

It sounds incredible, but Adams thinks

it could target one of
Japan's biggest weaknesses.

Adams knows that
Japanese cities at the time

are built mostly of wood and paper.

So if thousands of bats
carrying miniature firebombs

could fly into a Japanese
city and roost in its crevices

and then ignite, you would create

an inferno that would level that city.

Is it bizarre?

Absolutely, without a question.

But is it genius?

Maybe?

An idea like this wouldn't usually land

on the desk of the U.S. government,

but Adams knows just the right person.

There are plenty of
people during world w*r ii

who have wacky but brilliant ideas.

Not all of them have
a personal relationship

with Eleanor Roosevelt,
but lytle s. Adams did.

So he writes to president Roosevelt.

Amazingly, fdr is on board.

He actually says,
"sounds like a wild idea,

but worth looking into."

Adams' bat b*mb is
fast tracked for testing.

It's code-named project X-ray,

and Adams gets a promotion.

Dr. Adams leaves his
day job, and within weeks,

has assembled this crack
team of mammalogists,

engineers, pyrotechnicians,
and military officers

to figure out how to turn bats into bombs.

Their first task is to find the right bat.

The team settles on the
Mexican free-tailed bat.

Those bats weigh
about 10-12 grams each.

That's only as much as two nickels,

but experiments have
shown that they can fly

while they're carrying
an incendiary device

that weighs slightly more than they do.

So with enough bats,
this plan just might work.

Now Adams has a bigger challenge...

designing a bat-sized b*mb.

The team designs a
small b*mb about the width

of a golf ball that is ignited via a timer,

and it creates a 1-foot-wide

strip of napalm that can
burn for about four minutes.

In June 1943,

they plan a test in the new Mexico desert

near carlsbad caverns.

But as it turns out, unlike b*mber pilots,

bats don't obey orders.

In one test where bat
bombs are released,

the animals then fly into a hangar,

a hangar that was
very much being used.

The bats fly into it,

the incendiary devices on the bats go off,

and they set the hangar on fire.

They also do the same thing

by flying underneath a general's staff car,

and they set it on fire too.

Bats have proven they're capable

of inflicting serious destruction

on the wrong targets.

What happens if they hit the right ones?

To find out, the U.S.
military builds a town,

a mock Japanese village in the desert.

Then they let the bats loose.

The bats go into the attics and eaves

of this fake town.

The outcome is terrifying.

The napalm bombs go off,
and the burning commences.

Calculations show that this technique

is 2,000% more effective

than other incendiary
bombs in use at the time.

It seems that america is on the verge

of a new kind of warfare.

Plans are drawn up to deploy
the bat bombers in Japan.

They're to be placed in 5-foot canisters

and dropped from high-altitude planes.

But transporting the bats isn't easy.

Adams comes up with a solution

of basically putting them into a stupor

by making them very cold,

the idea being that as they
fall and reach warmer air,

they'll naturally wake up and go into roost

in eaves of houses and other buildings.

The problem is, the bats
don't always wake up,

and those who don't
just plummet to earth

like little stones.

Problems transporting the bats

means that by December 1943,

deployment still isn't
expected for over a year.

In the meantime, the military
develops napalm cluster bombs,

a far simpler and cheaper way

to rain down fire on the enemy.

In theory, it's a good idea.

But in practice, can't
really compete long term.

In 1944, project X-ray
is quietly scrapped.

Adams returns to civilian
life and to dreaming.

And eventually, he becomes famous

not for weapons, but for inventing

a fried chicken vending machine.

As for the bat b*mb, it's entirely forgotten

once the atomic age dawns.

The story stays hidden
for nearly half a century,

until one of the original handlers

is granted access to project X-ray's files

to write his memoirs...

And the public finally
learn about the time

a dentist tried to turn bats into bombers.

From bat bombs to m*ssile beams,

when it comes to
taking out their enemies,

no idea is too bizarre
for a government to try.

Luckily, most are found out in the end.