US military pondered love not war
US Air Force B-52 bomber
The unconventional proposals were made by the US Air Force
The US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make
enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government
papers say.
Other weapons that never saw the light of day include one to make
soldiers obvious by their bad breath.
The US defence department considered various non-lethal chemicals
meant to disrupt enemy discipline and morale.
The 1994 plans were for a six-year project costing $7.5m, but they
were never pursued.
The US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, sought Pentagon
funding for research into what it called "harassing, annoying and 'bad
guy'-identifying chemicals".
The plans were obtained under the US Freedom of Information by the
Sunshine Project, a group which monitors research into chemical and
biological weapons.
'Who? Me?'
The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical
that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops,
causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely
non-lethal" blow to morale.
Scientists also reportedly considered a "sting me/attack me" chemical
weapon to attract swarms of enraged wasps or angry rats towards enemy
troops.
A substance to make the skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight was also
pondered.
Another idea was to develop a chemical causing "severe and lasting
halitosis", so that enemy forces would be obvious even when they tried
to blend in with civilians.
In a variation on that idea, researchers pondered a "Who? Me?" bomb,
which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks.
Indeed, a "Who? Me?" device had been under consideration since 1945,
the government papers say.
However, researchers concluded that the premise for such a device was
fatally flawed because "people in many areas of the world do not find
faecal odour offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis".
Captain Dan McSweeney of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at
the Pentagon said the defence department receives "literally hundreds"
of project ideas, but that "none of the systems described in that
[1994] proposal have been developed".
He told the BBC: "It's important to point out that only those
proposals which are deemed appropriate, based on stringent human
effects, legal, and international treaty reviews are considered
fordevelopment or acquisition."