3 ms·
Everything about the old story of the idea to arm a large quantity of bats with incendiary explosives, to attack a fire-prone city reads like information that m
by hoodwinkers 8y ago
Everything about the old story of the idea to arm a large quantity of bats with incendiary explosives, to attack a fire-prone city reads like information that might be fed to suspected moles in a counterintelligence operation.
The idea being that you wouldn't knowingly jeopardize real plans, by gambling their exposure among an untrustworthy audience, but, since counterintelligence is an understood expense, allocate some funds for seemingly outrageous boondoggles, and see if those secrets circulate.
The bat bomb plan was stamped “top secret” and
assigned the suitably sci-fi code name Project
X-Ray.
Figure there were three types of people that were granted access to the classified information, while it was still classified: those hunting for moles, suspected moles, and authorized individuals kept unaware of the mole hunt, but confirmed as definite non-moles. Assume FDR was probably clued in on the nature of the exercise.
Why take it so far? Probably victimization by sunk cost fallacy, plus persistent suspicion and paranoia. Plus, when the time came to retire the project, it might have gained some extra inertia all its own.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Retric 8y agoI suspect it would have been slightly more effective in terms of cost vs result than you might think. So even if it started as counter espionage it may have continued based on results being more effective than initially supposed.
- TooBrokeToBeg 8y agoThis story was part of a news report sourced by the daughter of a general on NBC. I saw it between 1987ish (I may be off by a year). > The project never recovered from this ignominious retreat, and it was canceled in 1944. It was "cancelled" after a shockingly effective test because the first A-bomb was going to be ready. Multiple projects were going on in parallel. Because bat-instigated fire was still an uncontrollable and unpredictable force to unleash on a population, it was wisely cancelled (the research kept, which is all that mattered) in favor of a more pointed and well-understood system. A big targeted explosion.
- Someguywhatever 8y agoI don't think that the effects of the bomb were as well understood as we imagine, I think that unleashing the bomb on Japan was also a test. It was targeted at civilians and they just HAD to see what it would do, they knew that what it would do was going to be bad, but they didn't really know how bad. IMO they didn't really care how unpredictable or targeted it would be, they knew it would affect Japan only though, so thats all that mattered.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]