By now, most people have heard the
rumored-but-never-really-
confirmed
stories about the
military training
dolphins to attach
bombs to the
hulls of
enemy ships, but it is a little-known
fact that in the mid-
1970s, the
United States government tested a
top secret defense system using
marine mammals as
missile payloads!
According to
Pentagon files
declassified in the late-
1990s, the
Navy developed a
jetpack that could be slipped over a
dolphin, a
seal, or even a
small whale. When activated
remotely, it could
launch the
animal out of the
water and guide it to a
target, where the jetpack would
explode. The
Pentagon hoped that the
MMEDS (
Marine Mammal Explosive Delivery System) would prove to be both
destructive and
demoralizing to enemy
troops (
flying,
exploding killer whales would indeed
scare the hell out of just about anyone), but the
project was scrapped due to
expense (it was much
cheaper to just launch the jetpacks at the enemy),
public relations concerns (the possibility of public
lynchings of the
Joint Chiefs was considered fairly likely), and the
difficulty of getting the harnesses on the
whales.
And wait'll they see my exploding nodeshell missile!