Suicide bombers? (Photo : NOAA)
A top secret U.S. Navy program during the Cold War sought to weaponize sharks into suicide bombers trained to swim next to Soviet Navy ships that they blew up with explosives strapped to their backs.
This jaw dropping experiment was hidden under the appropriate name "Project Headgear" and ran from 1958 to1971. It was only recently exposed by Mary Roach, an American author from New Hampshire specializing in popular science and humor, who stumbled upon the hush-hush project after she found a reference to it while writing her latest book
She found the shark biologists and weapons specialists behind Project Headgear wanted to attach bombs to sharks, which would be turned into zombies by means of an electronic navigation box attached to the shark's head. This headgear had electrodes inserted into the shark's shoulders.
The suicide shark's human controllers controlled and maneuvered the suicide fish towards its warship target by zapping the shark with electric shocks if it veered off course. The box delivered electric shocks ranging from 5 volts to 25 volts to get the bomb-laden shark to swim towards its target. Controllers detonated the explosive once the shark was near enough to the enemy warship.
Roach got much of her information from the formerly secret final report about Project Headgear written by Perry Gilbert, a noted shark expert and former director of Mote Marine Laboratory, and marine engineer James Marion Snodgrass. Both men are deceased.
The report explained that sharks were chosen over dolphins since the latter were too smart and couldn't be trusted to follow orders. It also revealed tests were carried out with the sharks on tethers.
The report said four versions of the headgear were developed from 1958 and 1967. Initial tests using the headgear were promising but later results were resounding failures.
If the electrical signals shocking shark were too weak, the shark ignored them. If the signal was too strong, however, the shark began to take radical and even violent movements and wouldn't go where it was being commanded to go.
Scientists found none of the sharks would continue swimming towards an enemy target for more than half an hour, or three-quarters of a nautical mile. The report noted that a separate study by other researchers found sharks weren't suitable for carrying any kind of payload of any type of weight.
In the end, Project Headgear was declared a colossal failure.
