Connections
I just noticed a weird, trainspotterish connection. In the 1974 series that was the major inspiration for the X-Files, Kolchak the Night Stalker, the episode “Mr RING” concerns a genetic-mechanical hybrid android that rebels against its programming and refuses to be deactivated. It escapes and tries to become more “human”, and of course a murderous rampage ensues. Anyway, the entity that created this bio-mechanical hybrid was the Tyrell Institute… virtually the same name as the corporation in the Bladerunner movie that creates the rogue replicants.
Pentagon reveals rejected chemical weapons
15 January 2005
From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
THE Pentagon considered developing a host of non-lethal chemical weapons that would disrupt discipline and morale among enemy troops, newly declassified documents reveal.
Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an “aphrodisiac” chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a “distasteful but completely non-lethal” blow to morale, the proposal says.
Other ideas included chemical weapons that attract swarms of enraged wasps or angry rats to troop positions, making them uninhabitable. Another was to develop a chemical that caused “severe and lasting halitosis”, making it easy to identify guerrillas trying to blend in with civilians. There was also the idea of making troops’ skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight.
The proposals, from the US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, date from 1994. The lab sought Pentagon funding for research into what it called “harassing, annoying and ‘bad guy’-identifying chemicals”. The plans have been posted online by the Sunshine Project, an organisation that exposes research into chemical and biological weapons.
Spokesman Edward Hammond says it was not known if the proposed $7.5 million, six-year research plan was ever pursued.