Yes, you read the headline correctly. In 1994, an Air Force laboratory submitted a three-page proposal to develop a hormone bomb that would turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals.
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“The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistibly attractive to one another,” reported Edward Hammond of bioweapon activist group the Sunshine Project.
The Air Force requested a $7.5 million grant and six years to create the bomb and other non-lethal weapons according to their project, “Harassing, Annoying and ‘Bad Guy’ Identifying Chemicals.”
Aside from the “gay bomb,” the laboratory also included similarly questionable ideas, such as bad breath bombs, flatulence bombs and bombs designed to attract stinging insects.
After the program was revealed, the Pentagon responded (via the BBC):
Captain Dan McSweeney of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at the Pentagon said the defence department receives “literally hundreds” of project ideas, but that “none of the systems described in that [1994] proposal have been developed”.
He told the BBC: “It’s important to point out that only those proposals which are deemed appropriate, based on stringent human effects, legal, and international treaty reviews are considered for development or acquisition.”
For their attempt to bring such innovative ideas to the battlefield, the Air Force research group was awarded the IG Nobel Peace Prize – a parody set of the Nobel Prizes – in 2007.
This short video demonstrates how the ‘gay bomb’ would work in real-life: