Dec 20, 2024 · A Pennsylvania dentist thought a “bat bomb," with 1,000 bats starting fires, would end the war faster than the atomic bomb. Bats use echolocation to find food and places to rest.

Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican free-tailed bat with a small, timed incendiary bomb attached.

Oct 1, 1990 · Couldn’t those millions of bats be fitted with incendiary bombs and dropped from planes? What could be more devastating than such a firebomb attack?” Dr. Adams went back to Carlsbad and captured some bats. At home, he read everything he could find about the tiny flyers.

Mar 13, 2025 · BOERNE, Texas – We’ve grown to love our local bats. The Mexican free-tailed bat, which roosts under our freeways and in caves, even shows up on radars during their evening mass exodus to find...

Aug 21, 2017 · The idea of Bat Bombs might draw up the mental image of Adam West dressed as Batman running through the streets with a huge bomb over his head. But as ridiculous as that sound, there actually was a project in WWII that used live bats for bombings.

Aug 30, 2022 · One of the strangest weapons the US was working on was the bat bombs. Dr. Adams was an eccentric dental surgeon who was also a part-time inventor. He created an airborne mechanism that could pick up and drop off bags of mail from planes without the need for a plane landing on a tarmac.

Dec 8, 2024 · Bat bombs involved attaching tiny incendiary devices to bats, which would then be released over enemy cities. The idea was that the bats would roost in buildings, and the timed explosives would ignite, causing widespread fires. While the concept seems bizarre, it was taken quite seriously at the time.

Jul 22, 2021 · The US Army Air Force gave Adams’ bat bomb the green light to “determine the feasibility of using bats to carry small incendiary bombs into enemy targets.” The endeavor would come to be known as Project X-Ray. Adams assembled an oddball team and began working to create the world’s first bat bomb–a technical challenge.

Jun 16, 2018 · While it might sound like a weapon utilized by Batman in the 1960s, the bat bomb’s purpose was to weaponize bats against the Japanese. The scheme was complicated, strange, and cooked up by a dentist by the name of Lytle Adams.

Did you know bat poop, or guano, can be explosive? Rich in nitrates, it was used to make gunpowder during wars. Watch to uncover the explosive power of bat p...