Air Force Abandons Plans to Drop the Literal 'Gay Bomb' . . . or Does It?

Berkeley's Sunshine Project and San Francisco's CBS affiliate have discovered a military report outlining mid-nineties plans to build an aphrodisiac-laden chemical bomb that, when dropped on the enemy, would cause them to get all queer and freaky:

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subs[e]quently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."

. . . .

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy [soldiers] to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresist[i]bly attractive to one another," [the Sunshine Project's Edward] Hammond said after revi[e]wing the documents.

Link (via MetaFilter). KPIX's story, though riddled with spelling errors, is verified by this military report (PDF, also curiously riddled with spelling errors; scroll to the top of page 2) on the Sunshine Project's site. Some top-notch reporting here at the Good Reverend has uncovered a lost George Bush–Tony Blair press conference detailing the political and tactical motivations behind the plan to develop the gay bomb: