Pentagon: 'Sex Bomb'
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON — Those who complain the military should make love, not war, may be happy to know that on at least one occasion, military scientists were searching for ways to break down the enemy with aching desire.
Now known as the "sex bomb," or in saucier headlines, the "gay bomb," scientists considered developing a chemical weapon with aphrodisiac qualities that would make enemy soldiers hopelessly, physically attractive to one another so as to paralyze their ranks and destroy morale.
The plan was unearthed by a government watchdog group that said it was just the tip of the iceberg of covert chemical and biological programs in the U.S military.
"They've had some ideas that have been pretty nuts," said Edward Hammond, head of the Sunshine Project (search), which posts dozens of government documents it has fought to declassify under the Freedom of Information Act (search). The latest release is called "Harassing, Annoying and ‘Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals," dated 1994, which details proposals for non-lethal weaponry by Wright Laboratory at Patterson Air Force Base (search) in Ohio.
Aside from the love bomb, other proposals in the declassified document include a chemical that would make the enemy's breath so bad he would stand out in a crowd of civilians, and one that would make the enemy attractive not to other humans, but to angry wasps and other predatory insects.
