Hello friends, in my last Ocean Talks episode, we left off with a look at a ludicrous military
project that seems to be, well, straight out of a James Bond villain plot, or maybe even
Dr. Evil. The project aimed to make sharks living torpedoes with the ability to sink
enemy ships. Did the largest series of shark attacks in history motivate the NAVY to weaponize
sharks? This week, we will take a dive into one of the most bizarre and unique military
projects to ever exist. As always, I hope you enjoy this segment, and please read the
citations listed in the video description to learn more!
For some people, sharks are terrifying creatures. They have long been associated with fear by
many. Although most of that fear may be misplaced, it was enough to create a recruiting problem
for the US Navy in the 1950s. During this time, the Cold War was in full swing, stories
of shark attacks on servicemen who crashed into the waters of the pacific spread through
the ranks creating a serious recruiting problem for the navy. The fear among servicemen was
high after World War 2. So it should be no surprise that military leaders wanted to weaponize
that fear.
But how? First, the NAVY felt it needed to develop
a shark repellent. Something reassuring to tuck into the lifejackets of men at sea after
ditching their plane. It was thought a repellent could help in recruiting. It was during this
time that the NAVY introduced a now-declassified program to weaponize sharks. And so Project
Headgear, was born.
Project Headgear began in 1958 and ran until 1971. It was among the most bizarre and ambitious
plans developed by the US Military during the Cold War. The more I researched Project
Headgear, the more I kept asking myself; how in the world did the military even come up
with this sort of lofty plan? They are sharks for crying out loud. How do you train a shark?
To get that answer we have to go all the way back to 1945 to understand where all this
fear among servicemen came from.
There's a tragedy that seems to be the seed of everything sharks in the military. It’s
notoriously known as the deadliest shark attack of all time. And it came at the mercy of the
US Navy. We are talking about the sinking of the USS
Indianapolis. It is a tragedy that to this day, is still talked about among Navy servicemen.
Not because of the Navy’s failure to protect the ship, but because of, you know. Those
pesky sharks.
So what happened?
The Indianapolis was a big ship with a secret payload of atomic bomb parts. It didn’t
have sonar, and in the Pacific Ocean, with Japanese submarines roaming at a chance to
sink an American ship, sonar, well you’d think is kind of a big deal. Typically, a
ship of its class required some destroyer escorts to be with them. But nope, not Indianapolis.
In fact, Commodore James Carter, commander of Pacific Fleet’s advance headquarters,
told the ship’s Captain, quote “The Japanese are on their last legs, and there’s nothing
to worry about.” unquote.
The ship was going from Guam to the Philippines without a destroyer escort. That was an area
known to have Japanese subs patrolling. It’s also an area with sharks. Lots of sharks.
You can probably guess what happened next. The Indianapolis was attacked by a Japanese
I-58 Submarine. About 10 minutes after midnight on July 30, 1945 the Indianapolis sank after
6 torpedoes were launched with two making direct hits. Captain Hashimoto, of the Japanese
sub, clearly didn’t get the memo and with his nation on the verge of defeat, he hoped
to take one more prize for his emperor. That prize was the unguarded Indianapolis.
It took just 12 minutes for the Indianapolis to sink some 280 miles from the nearest land.
Sadly, about 300 men went down with the ship. But for some of those that survived the initial
sinking, going down with the ship may have been the better option.
The nearly 900 men who made it into the water alive found themselves swimming in a vast
ocean. Many of them were covered in fuel and debris. All of which most likely thought the
US NAVY was on the way to rescue them. But in reality, that was not the case. The Sun
would rise four times before the Navy even realized the ship was missing.
The sailors had no food or freshwater as they drifted through the Pacific Ocean without
adequate lifeboats or life jackets. When the morning sun rose, the sailors were horrified
to see dorsal fins circling the survivors. Sharks, being the opportunistic predators
they are, were likely attracted to the floating servicemen, many of which had wounds. The
next four days became a living nightmare as sailors watched whitetips and possibly tiger
sharks pick off their crew-mates.
Only 316 men would survive. It is estimated that 150 sailors died due to shark bites.
For those that weren’t victims of shark bites, dehydration, and salt poisoning set
in as they awaited rescue. To give you an idea of just how bad it got, listen to excerpt
from Granville Crane, Machinist’s Mate Second Class:
Quote, “Men began drinking salt water so much that they were very delirious. In fact,
a lot of them had weapons like knives, and they’d be so crazy, that they’d be fighting
amongst themselves and killing one another. And then there’d be others that drank so
much [salt water] that they were seeing things. They’d say, “The Indy is down below, and
they’re giving out fresh water and food in the galley!” And they’d swim down,
and a shark would get them. And you could see the sharks eating your comrade. Unquote.
Yikes.
On land, the hysteria derived from the USS Indianapolis
sinking spread like wildfire as stories from the survivors spread through the military
and the public. The Navy needed a solution.
And so, the Shark Chaser jacket was invented. The Shark Chaser, shown here, was the first
serious effort by the NAVY to develop a chemical shark repellent. But it just didn’t work.
The top brass at the Office of Naval research determined more basic research was needed
in order to develop a more effective shark repellent. And so the NAVY tried other anti
shark efforts that included electrical repellent devices, visual devices, and even acoustic
playback devices. Still nothing seemed to really work.
By now, it was 1958, some 13 years after the sinking of the Indianapolis. The competitiveness
of the Cold War meant the military was pouring funding into scientific study for military
advantage like never before. From experimenting with psychedelics, to the development of lasers,
it was a time when the imagination was really the only limit to finding a possible cold
war advantage.
And animals were not left out of this scope of research. Russia had already sent a dog
to space, so the door was wide open to take it a step further. The US Navy started to
look seriously into researching methods to weaponize sharks. Yes, sharks. More specifically,
the plan was to use sharks as a bomb delivery system. The NAVY wanted a way to guide sharks
remotely to an enemy ship. Like a living torpedo in a sense.
But how do you train a shark to fight for your side and how exactly do these weaponized
sharks work? Enter Perry W. Gilbert, a shark biologist and former director of Mote Marine
Laboratory, and James Marion Snodgrass. Think of Snodgrass as an inventor, a gadget man.
Together with Gilbert, Snodgras s would design a box that would be strapped to a shark's
head which had a compass that had the ability to communicate with controllers.
The box was programmed to monitor the shark, and if it seemed to swim off course, it would
send out an electric shock of between 5-25 volts to one of the shark's sides to get it
to swim towards the desired target. Usually an enemy ship. That was the concept. Snodgrass
and Gilbert would spend the next decade working on this concept.
The research was carried out within three different marine labs in the US. And despite
searching everywhere for an image of what the prototype looked like, I came up empty.
I first came across this wild military plan through the book titled. Grunt: The Curious
Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach.
It’s a fabulous read that covers not just Project Headgear, but also other very weird
and unique government programs that were developed for military advantage. I’m linking to this
book in the description below. Seriously, if you like this kind of stuff, give it a
read.
Roach, the book's author, cites that shortly after the book came out she was successful
in obtaining a Navy declassification review from the Scripps Ocean Institute in San Diego
titled, “Project Headgear Final Report”. Scripps was one of the labs working on the
project itself. In it, was a full report on “Project Headgear” and it indeed proved
that the programs goals were an attempt to turn sharks into bomb-delivery systems.
When I first read this I thought it was too good a story to be true, but then I also recalled
that the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program has for many years trained dolphins to locate
sea mines. If they used mammals in warfare, it’s not too ambitious to think they’d
try other species. And that’s exactly what this program aimed to do. But why sharks and
not dolphins? The Final Report explains this pretty clearly. There’s two pages dedicated
to the shark’s unique qualifications for the job.
The report goes on to say that unlike the clicking, whistling, noisy dolphin, the shark
is silent. The shark has no organ for making sounds. And it stays out of sight. Sharks
don’t leap from the water as dolphins do, nor can you see a shark on sonar. So basically,
sharks are stealthy, quiet travelers that can’t be detected by enemy sonar. And because
sharks don’t have a swim bladder, when they die, they sink into the depths below thus
protecting military secrets.
And, if that wasn’t enough, the report goes on to say that Dolphins have a mind of their
own, and so you couldn’t trust one to follow orders. Sharks on the other hand, could be
intellectually dominated in ways a dolphin couldn’t. Sounds like a perfect weapon right?
Not exactly. Testing this weapon, well, that didn’t go well. How in the world was the
Navy going to test this? Remember, all those labs they set up across the country to research
shark deterrent systems? Well, it turns out these labs had all the tools and know how
you’d need to experiment with sharks.
So they volunteered a lemon shark as the test subject. It did not go well. Something about
the corrective “signal” seemed to be off. It didn’t seem to work on the shark. They
tried varying the placement of the electrodes, the frequency and amplitude of the electricity,
and the duration of the shock. But still, nothing worked. Maybe something was wrong
with the unit itself?
What the shark researcher Gilbert & the inventor Snodgrass did next really demonstrates just
how wild things were during the Cold War.
To be sure the equipment was doing what it was meant to do, “Snodgrass,” per the
official report, inserted electrodes into Gilbert’s shoulders and put him in the swimming
pool. Turns out the device was working after all. Snodgrass succeeded in steering Gilbert
around a swimming pool.
You have to wonder how that scene played out. I mean, as if inserting electrodes into your
colleagues shoulders isn’t weird enough, shocking him in a swimming pool? Seriously?
Well, after doing this test and going back to the drawing board, they finally figured
out the helmet was failing to take into account the natural side-to-side yawing of a shark’s
head as it swims. The shark was getting zapped while maintaining a steady course, thus defeating
the purpose.
So nine years after starting this project, Gilbert & Snodgrass had a helmet that was
finally working. Except it didn’t.
Turns out, the sharks, well, they are more independent than predicted. According to the
Final Report, the sharks could not maintain more than 30 minutes or ¾ of a nautical mile
of constant course. The data spoke for itself, so the project was ended in 1971.
As the Final Report put it, quote “We were repeatedly impressed… with the shark’s
inability to respond to prolonged electrical stimulation.” unquote.
One has to wonder just how much influence the sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the
stories that came back with the survivors had on the NAVY’s decision to pursue sharks
as weapons. Did potential servicemen really not join the Navy because of sharks?
From what I gather, the NAVY legitimately wanted to investigate shark deterrent technology.
How exactly that came to be an idea to weapon sharks is not exactly clear. There are a couple
things certain however. The sinking of the Indianapolis played a big role in the inception
of this bizarre program. I’m pretty sure you can guess the second.
All information used in this episode is cited in the video description.
But before we get started, I’d like to announce a few changes to the channel. Don't worry,
I’m still bringing you fresh shark footage like normal, however I’m happy to announce
the launch of my Patreon Page. For members, I’m going to bring you some exclusive content,
scientist interviews, and monthly Live Streams with Q and As. As well as behind the scenes
footage and extended shark footage.