Not All Ideas are Good Ideas There have been a lot of what I like to call crazy ideas over the years, ideas some people actually gave consideration to. When I look at some of these ideas, I find it extremely hard to see why anyone wouldn’t eliminate them immediately. One of those ideas was put forth in World War II. The allies realized there were a lot of wooden buildings in Japan, so when a dentist came to the military with an idea to burn down these buildings, the military was all ears. Unfortunately, the idea was to attach incendiary devices to sleeping bats and drop them over Japanese cities with the hope the bats would wake up and nest in the buildings and the charge would go off setting the buildings on fire. Tests were conducted throughout 1943 and 1944 but to no avail. If we had the planes to do this, we might have been much better off dropping many bat sized incendiary bombs instead. Later we made up for this with a fire bomb attack on Tokyo. The atomic bomb may have been more frightening, but the fire bombs were even more deadly. Many UFO investigators believe we were warned off the moon by aliens and that is why we never went back after the Apollo missions. Perhaps it was true and maybe the aliens found out about our plans to nuke the moon? In the late 1950s some scientists put forth a study known as Project A119. The study was examining the feasibility of setting off a nuclear bomb on the moon. Why would anyone even consider doing something like this? Could there possibly be any benefit to it? What the scientists said was they thought it would help with some of the mysteries of planetary astronomy and astrogeology, whatever that means. Was this the real reason? I don’t think so, but I am not a scientist. Early nuclear testing was just that, testing. Soldiers were put close to explosions to see what would happen and the military just didn’t care. People were moved off of islands so they could be blown up and all sorts of things were done which would give one the shivers today. The U.S. Army decided they were going to build a hybrid airship. The idea was for an unmanned airship to provide continuous surveillance over Afghanistan. The military did what they always do, overpaid. The project cost 297 million dollars and the ship was too heavy to fly being 12,000 pounds overweight. IN 1958 Project Iceworm was born. Iceworm was studying the feasibility of placing hundreds of ballistic missiles below the ice under Greenland’s icecaps. Camp Century was built and was supposedly a scientific research station, but it wasn’t unless you consider a missile launching base one. The government cut dozens of tunnels out around the base and braced them with steel. There was even a nuclear reactor to provide all the power needed. Over a short period of time the ice began to shift destroying some of the tunnels. The powers that be realized this was not going to work and gave up on the idea. President Ronald Reagan okayed a plan to keep 50 ICBMs on railroad cars around the country. They would be in reinforced tunnels and ready to go on a minute’s notice if a war broke out. The idea was to have a missile force which could move around and not be a sitting duck for Soviet missile strikes. There was 120,000 miles of track across the country where the missile trains could be moved to. The program proved far too expensive and was concluded in only five years. It was called the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison and in 1986 it was gone. It made no sense since the Soviets had mobile missiles which were carried on trucks which was a much cheaper way to go. I often wonder why we don’t have the same thing? Maybe we do and it is secret. During World War II the allies looked at the Atlantic Wall and wondered how would they ever get through it. After all it was constructed with concrete and steel and was very thick. The British thought of a way which Rube Goldberg would have given them a medal for. It was called the Great Panjandrum. The Panjandrum was composed of two large wheels with a large drum full of explosives in the center. The idea was to send the device into the wall thus blowing a large hole in it. To do this they would need a way of moving these things, so they attached rockets to it. It must have seemed like a good idea to someone, but in actuality it was not so good. The first time they fired the rockets the thing weaved off course and a wheel fell off. They tried again and this time the rockets fell off. Again, they tested the device, only this time as it raced toward the test target it turned around and headed for the brass who were watching the test and they all scattered. Luckily the thing flipped over on its side and exploded before reaching them. Thus ended the Great Panjandrum project. There has been a lot of work done on non-lethal weapons. Some of these weapons are in use today and some never made it. One which was worked on was a sort of stink bomb. The idea was to make a weapon which would create a stink the likes of which were never smelled before. To this end inventors have patented some terrible smells so no one else could use them. The Who Me stink bomb was developed in World War II to be used against the Germans. The Americans developed the U.S. Government Standard Bathroom Malodor which stinks so bad it is said people scream and immediately try and run away. When someone was asked to describe the smell, they said to think of every bad smell you ever smelled and multiply that by at least ten times. You could see the lines of stink rising in the air. Sounds like a restaurant I made the mistake of going into a few years ago. Lastly here is something many people do not know about the U.S. war effort in Vietnam. The CIA tried to defeat North Vietnam by controlling the weather. They busily went about seeding clouds with iodine and silver flares. They also did this in Cambodia and Laos. They were trying to extend the monsoon season and interfere with communications. The CIA did this for five years and we still lost the war.
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