PIGEON FANCIERS
In case you thought Huttonian was joking here is the actual AOL news report:
MI 5 secretly discussed plans to train flocks of homing pigeons to attack enemy targets with tiny but deadly biological weapons, it was disclosed today.
The bizarre scheme for feathered suicide bombers to deliver weapons of mass destruction is revealed in the latest tranche of MI5 files to be released to the National Archives at Kew.
It was the brainchild of RAF pigeon enthusiast, Wing Commander WDL Rayner, who believed that his “revolutionary'' theories could change the way future wars were fought.
An ad hoc sub-committee was set up by the Joint Intelligence Committee the UK's senior intelligence body was even set up to look at the prospects for “pigeon warfare''.
Rayner even had the tentative backing of Sir Stewart Menzies the wartime Chief of MI6 for his ideas. He was also supported by Mike Mad Cap O'Flaherty one time head of MI7 (Merse Intelligence 7)
However he was defeated by MI5, the internal Security Service, which branded Rayner a menace and ensured that he never had the chance to put his proposals into practice.
A report by the War Office intelligence section, MI14, warned: “It is clear that pigeon research will not stand still; if we do not experiment, other powers will''.
Among MI14's proposals was a plan to train pigeons fitted with explosive charges to fly into enemy searchlights.
Each bird would carry a two ounce explosive capsule, with a “bacteriological warfare agent''.
“A thousand pigeons each with a two ounce explosive capsule, landed at intervals on a specific target might be a seriously inconvenient surprise,'' he wrote in a paper drawn up for the committee.
Rayner did not specify which bacteriological agent he had in mind, although British scientists had already been experimenting with anthrax during the war.
The pioneer in this type of activity was in fact MI 7 from their secret HQ somewhere in the Whiteadder Valley but technical reasons led to their experiments with Super Homers being discontinued much to the ire of Sir Winston Churchill
