Unbelievable military experiments of the 20th century

[jw5]

Green light for the goo gun?​

The goal was to create something so strong that it could stop a moving vehicle in its tracks. However, it's reported that they ran into issues due to the risk of suffocating living targets.

 

[jw5]

Raccoon vision​

Seeing in the dark is extremely important in the field, so night vision goggles are a common part of a soldier’s ensemble. But the Navy wanted to take it to the next level by developing a night vision pill that imitated the ocular capabilities of a nocturnal animal like the raccoon.

 

[jw5]

Infrared light​

Raccoons have pigments in their eyes that allow them to see infrared light, which is invisible to humans. The goal was to allow soldiers to be able to detect infrared signals, facilitating the communication of secret messages. However, it doesn't seem to have come to fruition.

 

[jw5]

The airborne aircraft carrier​

Aircraft carriers are usually large ships. This makes sense, as they're supposed to be able to carry fighter jets and other aircraft that weigh tons! However, in the 1930s, the US military experimented with putting an aircraft carrier in the sky.

 

[jw5]

An airship longer than two football fields​

They created two such airships, called the USS Akron and the USS Macon. They were 800-feet- (244-m-) long beasts that looked like blimps and could carry five airplanes each. Unfortunately, they both eventually crashed, so the experiment was abandoned.

 

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Dropping biological weapons on home soil​

It’s reported that the US military regularly dispersed chemical weapons over unsuspecting cities to test how they spread. In many cases they would be harmless microbes, simply scattered to get an idea of how a more dangerous compound could be used in biological warfare.

 

[jw5]

San Francisco, 1950​

There are few notable occasions, however, where the chemicals they released over their own unsuspecting citizens were not so harmless. In 1950, a US Navy ship used a giant hose to spray a bacteria into San Francisco’s famous fog. Shortly afterwards, a patient at a local hospital died after becoming infected with this unusual bacteria.

 

[jw5]

Tampa, 1955​

It’s reported that the CIA released the whooping cough virus over the city of Tampa, Florida in 1955. Cases of whooping cough in Florida tripled, and 12 people in Tampa died.