The job of the Defense Department is to keep the country safe by preparing for all possible contingencies, from an invasion by Russian forces to North Korea launching nuclear missiles at Japan. This mandate also means they must get ready for some pretty unlikely scenarios.
From wars in space to aliens, here are five of the Pentagon’s strangest plans.
Related: Iranian Caught Stealing Plans for DOD's $1.5 Trillion Jet
Zombies - A new document shows that the Pentagon has plans to respond to an attack by zombies. DOD goes as far as to classify different kinds of zombies, from vegetarians to zombies from outer space.
The Pentagon said that the plans are fake and are meant as a thought experiment, as well as entertainment for soldiers. But just in case there’s a zombie apocalypse, DOD will be ready.
Star Wars - During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States had plans for space warfare. Both sides developed (or attempted to develop) missiles that could function in space, electronic equipment to cut off space communication, and lasers that could take out targets from space.
Thankfully the war in space, just like the war on earth, remained cold. There have only been a few instances of weapons ever being used in space, and in each, they were used to take down redundant satellites.
Related: DOD Is Stuck with a Flawed $1.5 Trillion Fighter Jet
Aliens - The Pentagon has been toying with plans for an alien invasion for decades. From 1947 to 1969, the Air Force formally studied unidentified flying objects.
Ronald Reagan was reportedly obsessed with aliens. He puzzled the world when he addressed the United Nations in 1987, raising the possibility of first contact with aliens.
“I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world,” Reagan said.
According to Professor Paul Springer from the U.S. Air Command and Staff College, plans to combat an alien invasion are ongoing. In 2012, he told an Australian television show that he had been ordered to draw up plans in case aliens tried to take Earth.
Related: F-35 Plagued with Even More Problems
Invading Canada - Most Americans view Canada as a friendly, benevolent neighbor to the north. However, in the 1920s and 1930s, this was not the case.
War Plan Red assumed that Great Britain would try to invade the United States through Canada. Military planners drew up sophisticated strategies for how to repel this invasion and then occupy parts of Canada.
The Gay Bomb - In 1994, strategist at Wright Laboratory in Ohio devised a hypothetical non-lethal chemical weapon that would make soldiers gay. The weapon would contain pheromones that would make soldiers of the same sex attracted to one another.
For their work, in 2007 Harvard University awarded them the Ig Nobel Prize, a parody of the Nobel Prize, for “instigating research and development on a chemical weapon …that will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other.” The researchers declined to accept the award in person.
Top Reads from The Fiscal Times
- U.S. Plays Catch-Up with China on Cyber Warfare
- Scramjet: DOD’s New Screaming Fast Hypersonic Weapon
- Four Reasons Why Putin Pulled Back His Troops
