5 Certifiably Insane Cold War Projects

Cracked.com:

The upcoming movie The Men Who Stare at Goats tells the story of a military operation that attempted to create Jedi warriors who could teleport through walls and kill goats by staring at them. It all sounds pretty far-fetched ... until you realize that it's based on a true story, and it's just one of many bizarre operations Cold War-era militaries pursued seriously.

See, the Cold War was never really about physical combat. It was more like telling stories around a campfire: Whoever had the scariest idea, wins. And killing goats with your eyes was just the tip of the pant-crappingly crazy iceberg.

Read the whole story: Cracked.com

Comments

[guntotinganglion]

"Atoms for Peace"

Swords to Plowshares, nukyalicity for all, and it's cheap! Ok...not cheap...actually, insanely expensive, but cool nonetheless! Cold War spin to try to sanitize nuclear power, and make a tidy profit of uncounted billions while doing it. The Cold Warriors turned to nuclear power wielding saviors of the modern world, would lead the way to a nuclear future with atomic energy coming out of every tap and socket in America (AND BEYOND!).

As Rachel Maddow sagely pointed out, nuclear power is the world's most expensive way to boil water.

[guntotinganglion]

Dr. Strangelove was downright sane in comparison to these whack jobs.

[Durango]

Anyone else read Bat Bomb,World War II's Other Secret Weapon.

A very amusing read.

[Fez]

My favorite Cold War boondoggle was "Project Gasbuggy." The government drilled several deep oil wells (or used existing wells) in Colorado and New Mexico, and then detonated small nuclear charges in the wells to fracture the strata and increase oil production in the wells. Worked like a charm, with one small problem... the oil produced was highly radioactive and the DOE ended the program quietly when it became clear that this was one of the stupidest ideas ever.

[Durango]

Like a third grader couldn't have predicted that the gas would be radioactive?

In the new Mexico test they lied to everyone and used a thermonuclear device, Because they couldn't get enough yield with a nuke.

No one knew until tritium started showing um in the ground water.

Don't forget, the genius behind this was the same behind Reagan's Star Wars. Which was even more cracked than Gasbuggy.

Edward Teller.

[guntotinganglion]

How about Project Pluto?

Ok, let's figure out a way to build and use a nuclear ramjet! Only problem, the exhaust is deadly. But hey, it can stay in the air indefinite­ly...sprea­ding it's radioactivity everywhere it flies! COOL. They spent seven and a half years and god only knows how many millions working on a concept that was pure insanity.

http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html

[chensamabindicka]

How would you confirm these wierd projects actually ended? Because somebody said so somewhere online? Naive punks. I got three dead goats in the driveway and a silent black helicopter hovering in the backyard right now. Oh. Wait. Ashton. Ashton is that you? Or is that just a holographic image of you DARPA tweeted into my brain

[darker]

hot or cold, ALL WAR = CORPORATE PROFITEERING from USTreasury and "patriotism" is defined as PROFITEERING.

[Chlowina]

I got a virus warning thru AVG and it turned off my scanner. Be careful.

[BannedInBoston]

Yeah. I got some weird behavior too. I think it was just IE's popup blocker in action but still....

[BannedInBoston]

Poor goats....

[Durango]

Considering this was on the same level of Ronald reagan's Star Wars, I wouldn't be too worried about the goats health.

[UnknownSolider]

Can anyone say Missile Defense Shield, or how about Bunker Busting Nukes

War what is it good for??

Ans: Defense Companies

[dresdengirl]

Perfect answer, Unknown Solider.

[AsISaid]

As a child, I remember public discussions about what country should "own" the moon and the fear that the USSR would get there first. Those were the days when we were taught in school to "tuck and cover" in case of an atomic attack, and also the advertisements and actual construction of bomb shelters in neighbor's yards. Those were sure different times.

[BannedInBoston]

This is a test, this is only a test....

[CaptainHowdy2]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-RraLw0MIeY

[Nelson Jacobsen]

I would thought war itself would have stood out as most insane.

[zizyphus]

I read "Men Who Stared at Goats" and it is a mind-blower. Although this article appears in "Cracked" magazine, it brings up some important topics.

Operation Northwoods, a false flag terrorism plot on American soil, was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff ! Consider that carefully. That is one of the main reasons people suspect the official story of 911. If the JCOS were gung-ho to bomb Americans then, why not now?

Operation Stargate is another interesting story. I have read everything I could find on it, and read all the books written by all the former Army psychics. The really interesting thing is, that the government was paying Scientologists to teach the remote viewing technology to the soldiers! That little detail has not been discussed much...

The fact that any remote viewers made any "hits" is remarkable, and shows the weakness in current scientific beliefs, which has no way to account to for this phenomena.

[countfloyd]

Operation Northwoods was a plan to blow up empty ships, ammuniition dumps and simulate attacks including fake dead. Of course had it been implemented and worked there would have been a war where thousands would have died and possibly a nuclear war if things got out of control.

A better example might be the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

[FarOutFish]

It's interesting the same time the Soviet Union had a much larger program of "Men Staring at Goats", a new movie about to come out.

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

It's called random chance. Here is the thing if the remote viewers were showed pictures of nothing that was a military facility they would actually say certain things were of a military facility when not a single thing shown was of a military facility. Tell me something if the military wants info on something odds are it is of a military facility so you say it is and gosh darnit if some of those locations shown happened to have military facilities you would pick them up by random chance.

The remote viewers were never told they were wrong which was 99% of the time and the 1% they were right they added in a whole lot of vague BS. Their BS caused more intelligence harm then not having any intel what so ever.

Once again people who were not psychics managed to do just as well as the people who claimed to be psychics. In fact certain tests where they had to identify things that were say hidden or obscured people who said they didn't have psychic powers and claimed they were hocus pocus did far better then the people who claimed they have psychic powers.

[FarOutFish]

This reminds me of the story of the Cowboy who ripped all his cloths off and jumped into a cactus patch. His friend asked "Why did you do that?" he replied "It seemed like a good idea at the time"

[Shirley Fisk]

10/24/09
2:54pm
Alexandria, VA

The cost of this nonsense?

[JBS]

Cover price is $3.00, but it's only $1.50 per issue if you get a subscription.

[Shirley Fisk]

10/24/09
5:05pm
Alexandria,VA

Yeah, but I meant the cost of these "projects."