According to the philosopher and behavioral psychologist Burrhus Frederick Skinner from the United States, the “Eureka moment” came to him, in the purest Archimedean fashion, as it did to the distracted sages: gawking at the sky. To be more valuable watching the flight of birds.

It was the early 1940s, World War II. The winds of World War II were rising, and Skinner and most of the rest of the United States were contemplating how to improve the purpose of the missiles it was attacking on Axis targets. They had good planes and bombs, but they shot them down once… From then on, their success depended on something. mix of luck and engagement.

Skinner pondered this problem when he looked up to see a flock of birds flying in a perfectly coordinated manner, as if they were being steered from a distant place. “Suddenly I saw them as ‘devices’ with excellent vision and extraordinary maneuverability,” he later recalled: “Couldn’t they be able to direct a missile?

— “Is the answer to your question waiting for me in my own backyard?” -he asked himself.

Aim, shoot and peck

He was convinced it was, so he decided to take advantage of his wonderful tool, behavioral psychology, and Pavlovian conditioning. Maybe the Allies didn’t have kamikaze pilots willing to crash into enemy targets and risk their lives on the mission, but… what if they could use trained birds to take on that role and guided missiles Towards Nazi ships?

It sounded crazy, but BF Skinner had used pigeons before in his research and knew that with the help of good training and stimuli, they could put up with the levers. So why not “pilot” missiles? Taking advantage of animals in suicide missions was not a problem in times of war, either. In the USSR, for example, they used explosive-laden dogs to detonate German tanks as they advanced towards Moscow.

He was so sure it would work that Skinner knocked on the door of the National Defense Research Committee and presented his proposal. There, the thing about pigeons and bombs sounded almost like science fiction but the country was at war and you know, desperate problems, desperate solutions. The committee decided to try their luck and $25,000 USD it was pulling.

Program codename: Project Pigeon. Clear and self-explanatory, yes, but certainly not as decipherable as the best ciphers for the Axis powers.

Skinner’s idea was relatively simple, at least on paper. He trained a group of pigeons—selected for their qualities, including excellent eyesight—to recognize a particular pattern and peck at sight. The animals knew that if they acted like this, they would get the food they had been conditioned to. as needed, as needed History WiredSkinner was able to get a trained bird to peck an image more than 10,000 times in 45 minutes.

So far so good, but… what good is it when it comes to guide glider bombs?

Skinner’s suggestion was to use this crazy pecking to divert explosives. His team built a cone-shaped device with three compartments, each holding a securely tethered pigeon inside. The mechanism included several sensors and lenses that showed the animal the target with which it should direct the bomb. Pigeons conditioned by Skinner would peck when they saw the model they were trained in (for example, a Nazi navy ship). These moves were what helped to direct the bomb at the enemy.

“Skinner and his team developed a method to create the first smart pump, using trained pigeons and hydraulic guidance. guide you to your destination with great precision to save innocent lives. There were no guided missiles in those days. When a bomber drops a bomb from an airplane, he can only hope it hits its target,” explains the University of Arkansas and a gallery of images of the strange device.

Inside Smithsonian Magazine He states that one of the keys to the prototype was a cable system attached to the pigeons’ heads, helping to precisely guide the bomb. “It was believed that by pecking three pigeons, you could point in one direction,” Peggy Kidwell of the American Museum of History’s Department of Medicine and Science told the magazine.

BF Skinner’s plan was ingenious, and there were some successful demonstrations—we still have videos of pigeons pecking at the faint silhouettes of ships—but in the end the authorities lost interest: their funds were diverted to other projects.

Kamikaze pigeons still one more chance in the United States. After WWII, in 1948, authorities reopened the project, renaming it Project Orcon – “organic control” and leaving it in charge of the Naval Research Laboratory.

“Tests have repeatedly shown that pigeons can successfully guide missiles at a target under ideal conditions, although clouds, waves, and shadows can cause them to deviate from course,” explains William Wolf in his article. Off Target: America’s Guided Bombs, Missiles and Drones 1917-1950.

No chance then. In 1953, the authorities decided to cancel the program. Electronic missile guidance systems showed promising results and were considered a more interesting option than the old ‘Chicken Run’ warheads guided by pigeons.

We still have the idea, impressive images… and a new concept from pigeons.