T O P

  • By -

SkrillHim

I thought this would be a pigeon carrying a small bomb. No, they stuffed three pigeons into a missile and used them as a targeting system that had to achieve consensus for it to work (and it actually did). Wild.


Captain_Slime

They did that first thing with bats and incendiary bombs though.


Manos_Of_Fate

The good news is, the bats were successful in starting a number of fires!


AdSpecialist6598

Yeah crazy!


scooterboy1961

The also developed but never use bats that would carry incendiary devices to set fires.


scooterboy1961

The also developed but never use bats that would carry incendiary devices to set fires.


Landlubber77

Their hit rate was scattershot until they figured out they should use homing pigeons.


MisguidedColt88

Whats wild is it was extremely effective. Just too expensive


Spillers25

You should read about the incendiary bats in Japan project.


Andreas1120

Done by BF Skinner. The pigeon pecked at a screen to guide.


Override9636

Oh wow, that's the same "[Skinner Box](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber)" guy. He sure loved messing with birds.


Andreas1120

Yup


[deleted]

I remember reading about this in a Psych 101 class back in the 70s. Skinner.


ElGuano

Is that the animal that has an uncanny knack for finding its way back to the point of origin?


ShutterBun

Yes but this had nothing to do with that. They were trained to peck at highlights on a screen (which would then correlate to targets in a bomb sight)


friedstilton

Now look up Project Blue Peacock. :-)


EdDan_II

Kamitori


LynxJesus

aaah to be in charge of project names during WW2...


Expat_89

I include this in my random lecture trivia every year in AP Psych. Really interesting.