Gay bomb

The IG Nobel Prizes are known for spotlighting research that "first makes you laugh, then makes you think. September 25, Interesting. This bizarre proposal was part of a six-year non-lethal weapons development project that spanned from to and.

Founded in by Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research, the IG Nobel Prizes were originally intended to highlight work that "cannot, or should not, be reproduced. The United States Air Force once conceived of an audacious plan for a ‘gay bomb’ that would deploy chemical aphrodisiacs to render enemy soldiers irresistibly attracted to one another, causing their units to crumble under the weight of internal distraction and conflict.

September 23, Interesting. The concept involved dispersing sex pheromones to induce mutual sexual attraction among enemy soldiers, with the intention of causing confusion and disrupting military cohesion. The concept of a “gay bomb” sounds like something out of a bad science fiction movie.

September 21, Interesting. The "gay bomb" proposal has since earned its place in the annals of bizarre military history, standing gay as one of the most outlandish and controversial ideas ever to emerge from a weapons research program.

Damjan Published in Weird. September 20, Interesting. " Gay bomb " is an informal term referring to a proposed non-lethal psychochemical weapon that was speculated by the United States Air Force in the s. A bomb that would drop a mixture of chemicals on the enemy and literally make them fall in love with one another to distract them from their wartime duties seems like such an impossible, far-fetched, ludicrous.

The aim of the weapon was to disrupt enemy units by causing soldiers to become irresistibly attracted to one another, ultimately weakening cohesion and combat effectiveness. According to documents obtained by the Sunshine Project, an organization opposed to biological weapons, the concept was indeed being considered seriously at the time.

While never developed or deployed, the concept continues to capture public imagination and serve as a cautionary example of how unconventional thinking in defense can sometimes veer into the surreal. The concept has since been widely ridiculed.

The proposal, believed to have originated at the Wright Laboratory inwas bomb of a wider weapons development program that, perhaps unsurprisingly, was eventually abandoned. Interestingly, the scientists involved in the so-called "gay bomb" concept were recognized in with an IG Nobel Prize, a satirical award that honors quirky, unconventional, or downright absurd scientific achievements.