When the United States Tried to Weaponize Bats

 

In 1942, while most people were thinking about tanks and torpedoes, Lytle S. Adams, a Pennsylvania dentist, was thinking about bats.

He’d just visited Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and watched millions of Mexican free-tailed bats explode out of the cave like a living thundercloud. Instead of admiring nature, he saw an opportunity.

What if each of those tiny flying mammals carried a small incendiary charge?

He wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And here’s the strange part — Roosevelt didn’t toss the letter in the trash. He reportedly called the idea “perfectly wild,” which in wartime apparently meant, “Let’s try it.”

The plan became Project X-ray.

Thousands of bats would be collected, chilled into hibernation, and packed into special bomb casings. Planes would drop the canisters over Japanese cities. A parachute would open midair. The bats would wake up, flutter into attics and rafters — and then, minutes later…

Fire.

Tests took place at Carlsbad Army Airfield and later at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. During one test, a few armed bats escaped early and did what bats do best: hide in buildings. Soon, parts of the base were on fire.

The bats, it turned out, were extremely committed to the assignment.

The project advanced far enough to receive funding and serious military attention. But it was canceled in 1944.

Not because it was ridiculous, but t because something bigger was in the works.

The Manhattan Project.

History nearly gave us weaponized Dracula. Instead, it gave us the atomic bomb.

Somehow, that feels even stranger.