In the last century, America tried to turn pigeons into guided bombs

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During World War II, the Germans developed a number of weapons that many described as ahead of their time. In addition to the jet plane, the first ballistic missiles, tanks, and giant cannons, the Germans developed the Fritz X bomb, which was classified as one of the first guided bombs. After throwing it from the plane, the pilot directs it via radio, based on a remote signaling system.

Between 1943 and 1944, the Americans also tried to create a guided bomb capable of hitting its targets accurately. Based on this, Project Pigeon emerged with the aim of producing a type of bomb guided by pigeons.

Starting in 1943, the United States of America looked for a way to increase the accuracy of aerial bombing operations and ensure that bombs fell on their targets. At that time, controlling classical bombs was impossible after they were dropped. Faced with the limited control systems at that time, the United States of America tended to fund projects to provide guided bombs capable of hitting and sinking Japanese ships in the Pacific Ocean.

Within this context, the American psychologist and behavioral specialist Burrhus Frederic Skinner came up with a unique idea, as the latter spoke about the possibility of training pigeons and exploiting them well to direct bombs towards their target accurately.

According to the idea of ​​the psychologist and behavioral specialist Burrhus Frederick Skinner, reliance will be placed on the pigeons’ ability to distinguish and differentiate between images, and these birds will be forced to acquire new behaviors through what is known as a reward system, which for the pigeons is represented by some food. Skinner then proposed placing a trained pigeon at the front of the bomb so that it was in front of a screen displaying an image of the target. When a pigeon is trained to peck an image of a ship, it will try to keep that image in the center of the screen. Meanwhile, the pigeons' clicks will turn into electrical signals that control the bomb's guidance. Also, this American psychologist and behavioral specialist talked about using 3 pigeons with one bomb to increase accuracy, as their responses and clicks are all combined to determine the desired direction.

After faltering beginnings, Burrhus Frederick Skinner succeeded in convincing American military officials of his idea. By June 1943, the latter had received $25,000 in funding to continue his research. The US administration was convinced at the time of Skinner's idea because of the high cost and complex systems of remote control technology. In contrast, the idea of ​​using the bathroom was less expensive and less complicated.

Surprisingly, on October 8, 1944, the American administration abandoned Burrhus Frederick Skinner's pigeon project. Despite the promising experiments conducted by the latter, experts suffered many difficulties in translating the movements of the pigeons and clicking on the screen to control the bomb.

After World War II, in 1948, the US Navy revived the pigeon project to equip guided bombs. The new project was then called Orcon and remained under research until it was finally canceled in 1953.