Buckle up for one of the most absurd plots hatched in a respectable agency for espionage:
“The United States government knew it needed to step up its espionage game during World War II. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—the forerunner of the CIA—was created just six months after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, and it was tasked with putting a creative spin on the art of war.
“It was my policy to consider any method whatever that might aid the war, however unorthodox or untried,” wrote Stanley Lovell, the OSS’s head of Research and Development. This policy led to the testing of some rather unusual ideas, from small time-release bombs glued to bats to developing of a chemical that smelled like feces that would be sprayed on the enemy to embarrass them. Both plans were (unsurprisingly) nixed.
But perhaps strangest of all was Operation Fantasia, an absurd—and ultimately unsuccessful—plot that sought to use glow-in-the-dark foxes as a form of psychological warfare.
Enter Ed Salinger, a businessman who had previously worked in Japan, giving him some degree of insider knowledge that the OSS wanted to take advantage of. Salinger thought U.S. forces could break the enemy’s morale by tapping into fears about kitsune—supernatural fox creatures from Japanese folklore—that are sometimes seen as harbingers of doom.”
TDLR the explanation. Americans wanted to make foxes glow so they would think they would kitsune (magical foxes) and scare the Japanese
hplcr on
IIRC the OSS was the WW2 predecessor to the CIA, so the wackiness tracks.
Thewaltham on
Gravity cat is not amused
grumpykruppy on
Kitsune are dangerous trickster yōkai, so they’re not actually half-bad as a choice.
But they *can* also be helpful, so sightings may have just led people to go pray a bunch. I don’t think a similar trick with oni or yuki-onna would have been possible, unfortunately, but they could have maybe done bake-neko or kappa? I’d be curious to see the results of an attempt with kasa-obake, too (given that those are just umbrellas with an eyeball, I expect the results would be comedic shenanigans).
Kinda wish they’d actually tried this on a competent level, like when they tricked a bunch of Filipinos into thinking there were vampires around.
LadySportyMiss on
If only they had thrown in some anvils for good measuree
HOT-DAM-DOG on
Plus sending exploding cigars to Castro, pretty sure the CIA were the ones writing the cartoons.
7 Comments
Buckle up for one of the most absurd plots hatched in a respectable agency for espionage:
“The United States government knew it needed to step up its espionage game during World War II. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—the forerunner of the CIA—was created just six months after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, and it was tasked with putting a creative spin on the art of war.
“It was my policy to consider any method whatever that might aid the war, however unorthodox or untried,” wrote Stanley Lovell, the OSS’s head of Research and Development. This policy led to the testing of some rather unusual ideas, from small time-release bombs glued to bats to developing of a chemical that smelled like feces that would be sprayed on the enemy to embarrass them. Both plans were (unsurprisingly) nixed.
But perhaps strangest of all was Operation Fantasia, an absurd—and ultimately unsuccessful—plot that sought to use glow-in-the-dark foxes as a form of psychological warfare.
Enter Ed Salinger, a businessman who had previously worked in Japan, giving him some degree of insider knowledge that the OSS wanted to take advantage of. Salinger thought U.S. forces could break the enemy’s morale by tapping into fears about kitsune—supernatural fox creatures from Japanese folklore—that are sometimes seen as harbingers of doom.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/unsuccessful-wwii-plot-fight-japanese-radioactive-foxes-180975932/
TDLR the explanation. Americans wanted to make foxes glow so they would think they would kitsune (magical foxes) and scare the Japanese
IIRC the OSS was the WW2 predecessor to the CIA, so the wackiness tracks.
Gravity cat is not amused
Kitsune are dangerous trickster yōkai, so they’re not actually half-bad as a choice.
But they *can* also be helpful, so sightings may have just led people to go pray a bunch. I don’t think a similar trick with oni or yuki-onna would have been possible, unfortunately, but they could have maybe done bake-neko or kappa? I’d be curious to see the results of an attempt with kasa-obake, too (given that those are just umbrellas with an eyeball, I expect the results would be comedic shenanigans).
Kinda wish they’d actually tried this on a competent level, like when they tricked a bunch of Filipinos into thinking there were vampires around.
If only they had thrown in some anvils for good measuree
Plus sending exploding cigars to Castro, pretty sure the CIA were the ones writing the cartoons.