Ep. 06- Pigeon Bombs
- Alex Weston
- Dec 21, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 7
During WWII, one of the most daunting engineering challenges facing the military was how to design a bomb that could actually hit its intended target. University of Minnesota professor of psychology B. F. Skinner believed that he had the answer: the US could train pigeons to guide missiles. Aiding him in this Quixotic quest would be an unlikely partner: General Mills (yes, the cereal company).
Join us for the stranger-than-fiction story of "Project Pigeon," a top secret collaboration between General Mills, the US military, and one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. We'll explore how B. F. Skinner's quest to train pigeons to guide bombs led to everything from the development of one of the most important concepts in modern psychology, to the invention of the touch screen.
Images of Things We Talked About
Here's a typical Operant Conditioning Chamber ("Skinner Box") setup:
B.F. Skinner in 1943:
The labs that General Mills provided Skinner to work in were on the top floor of the Utility Building (the tallest building in the photo below, with the "Eventually" sign and water towers on top), attached to the Washburn "A" Mill complex (today, the Mill City Museum)
Here is Skinner on the roof just outside his lab in 1943 (note the "Eventually" letters behind him, visible in the previous photo). This rooftop was already a popular roost for pigeons, and most of the subjects of the experiments were sourced right here.
A page from Skinner's 1943 notebooks, held in the B. F. Skinner papers at Harvard:
One of Skinner's diagrams of an early pigeon apparatus:
The "Pelican" bomb, developed to be guided by a pigeon:
A Pigeon being loaded into in the nose cone of the Pelican bomb. Each of these three screens was to be manned by a different pigeon.
A 1986 painting by Anton van Dalen as a tribute to Skinner and Project Pigeon:
Skinner later in life, still playing with pigeons:
The infamous Air Crib photo of Skinner's daughter, published in an article titled, "Baby in a Box," which led to misunderstandings that Skinner was placing kids in Skinner Boxes:
And last but not least, here's a diagram of a proposed plan from the 1950s to use pigeons to guide nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). What could have possibly gone wrong?
Videos:
Here’s a couple films from the 1970s of B.F. Skinner using a pigeon to demonstrate “shaping,” the behaviorist technique that Skinner developed as a direct result of his Project Pigeon research:
More on the difference between classical and operant conditioning:
A classic scene from The Office in which Jim uses classical conditioning on Dwight:
Other Loose Ends:
Other weird legacies of Skinner’s work:
-The Bat. The “Pelican” plane developed for Project Pigeon was never used. However, the same basic design was converted into a radar-guided missile known as the ASM-N-2 Bat, which was actually used near the very end of the war starting in April of 1945.
The Bat (which, again, despite its name, was guided by radar, not bats) has the distinction of being the first guided missile ever used in combat.
-The Teaching Machine. In 1954, Skinner invented “The Teaching Machine,” a punch card operated machine that could allow kids to answer questions one at a time and correct wrong answers in real-time, which he believed was a better way to teach than waiting to have a whole test or worksheet graded. If you’ve ever used an app like Duolingo, it is based on this same learning principle. Here B. F. Skinner explains his Teaching Machine:
-IQ Zoo. Two of Skinner’s top research assistants on Project Pigeon were Marian and Keller Breland, a young newlywed couple of psychologists. After the war, they went on to use the knowledge of animal training that they gained to start a company called Animal Behavior Enterprises.
Their business used Skinner’s principles to train animals for film and television, theme park shows, circuses as well as still working on projects for the military. Clients included Sea World, Walt Disney, the Grand Old Opry, as well as the US Military. They also opened their own animal attraction, IQ Zoo, in Hot Springs Arkansas, where visitors could watch raccoons play basketball and other animal hijinks.
The Ig Nobel Prize. In 2024, Skinner’s work on Project Pigeon was posthumously awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize, which is given by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." Skinner’s daughter Julie Vargas received the award in his stead, saying: "I want to thank you for finally acknowledging his most important contribution. People know him only for discovering operant conditioning, schedules of reinforcement, and for books like Walden Two, Verbal Behavior, Beyond Freedom & Dignity, and more. Even the B. F. Skinner Foundation fails to put a missile on its hat, so thank you for finally putting the record straight.”
Sources Cited:
“1940 – Project Pigeon (1948 – Project Orcon) – B.F. Skinner (American)” Cyberntic Zoo.
Capshew, James H. "Engineering Behavior: Project Pigeon, World War II, and the Conditioning of B. F. Skinner." Technology and Culture 34, no. 4 (1993): 835-857.
Glines, C. V. (May 2005). "Top Secret World War II Bat and Bird Bomber Program". Aviation History. Vol. 15, no. 5. pp. 38–44
Koren, Marina. “B.F. Skinner: The Man Who Taught Pigeons to Play Ping-Pong and Rats to Pull Levers,” Smithsonian Magazine. (March, 2013)
Lawrence, L. George. “Animal Guidance Systems,” Electronics Today. (January, 1972)
Martin, Keith. “The Saga of the Bird-Brained Bombers.” Taking Measure Blog. National Institute of Science and Technology. (August 29th, 2017)
Naddaff-Hafrey, Ben. “Project Pigeon.” From the Archive. October 8, 2025. https://bennaddaffhafrey.substack.com/p/project-pigeon
Peterson, Gail. “A Day of Great Illumination: B.F. Skinner’s Discovery of Shaping,” Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2004. Vol. 82, No. 3 (November), pp. 317-328. doi:
Skinner, B.F. “Pigeons in a Pelican,” American Psychologist (January. 1960)
"Skinner's Utopia: Panacea, or Path to Hell?". TIME Magazine. September 20th, 1971.
Stromberg, Joseph. “B.F. Skinner’s Pigeon-Guided Rocket,” Smithsonian Magazine, 2011.
Wikipedia contributors, "Project Genetrix," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project_Genetrix&oldid=1295768664 (accessed September 21, 2025).
Podcast Credits:
Minnesota Unknown is produced, hosted, written, and researched by Alex Weston, Hannah Norton, and Josie Bergmann. This episode was edited by Alex Weston. Our theme song is by Union Shakedown. This episode is copyright 2025 by Minnesota Unknown, LLC. All rights reserved.
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