Project Pigeon: Difference between revisions

{{Infobox

| title = Project Pigeon

| active = 1940-1944; revived 1948-1953 as Project ORCON

| funding = US$25,000 (NDRC)

| guidance = 1 to 3 pigeons

| reason for cancellation = Nobody could keep a straight face

}}

'''Project Pigeon''' was a United States military programme during the [[Second World War]] to develop a pigeon-guided missile.

It worked. That was the problem.

== Concept ==

The psychologist [[B. F. Skinner]] proposed guiding a glide bomb with pigeons trained by [[operant conditioning]]. A bird in the nose of the weapon viewed the target through a lens projecting onto a screen, and pecked at the image; the screen was mounted so that pecks off-centre tilted it, and the tilt drove the control surfaces.<ref name="skinner">B. F. Skinner, "Pigeons in a pelican", ''American Psychologist'' 15:1 (1960), pp. 28-37.</ref>

Three pigeons were used in the later design, on a majority-vote principle, so that one distracted bird could be outvoted by its colleagues.<ref name="skinner" />

== Performance ==

The pigeons were accurate, fast to train, cheap, unbothered by G-forces, and continued pecking under conditions that included vibration, noise and sudden pressure changes.<ref name="skinner" /> The National Defense Research Committee provided $25,000 and, after a demonstration, cancelled the programme in October 1944 on the grounds that it would delay more promising work.

Skinner's own summary of the difficulty was not technical:

{{quote|text=Our problem was no one would take us seriously.|author=B. F. Skinner, "Pigeons in a pelican" (1960)}}

The Navy revived the idea from 1948 to 1953 as Project ORCON, short for "organic control", and shelved it again when electronic guidance became reliable enough.<ref name="skinner" />

== Context: other decorated birds ==

Pigeon military service was not unusual. Cher Ami, a homing pigeon of the US Army Signal Corps, delivered a message in October 1918 that helped locate the surrounded Lost Battalion, having been shot through the breast and losing a leg in the process, and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre.<ref>Frank Blazich, ''Bird of Passage: Cher Ami'' (Smithsonian, 2021).</ref>

Of the 75 Dickin Medals awarded for animal gallantry, 32 have gone to pigeons, against 38 to dogs, 4 to horses and 1 to a cat.<ref>PDSA, "The PDSA Dickin Medal: full list of recipients".</ref> Pigeons therefore hold more decorations for gallantry than every horse and cat in the history of the award, combined, several times over.

== See also ==

* [[Tardigrade]]

== References ==

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Military history]]

[[Category:True but improbable]]