Other weapons that never saw the light of day include one to make soldiers obvious by their bad breath. US military pondered love not war
The US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government papers say.The US defence department considered various non-lethal chemicals meant to disrupt enemy discipline and morale.
The 1994 plans were for a six-year project costing $7.5m, but it was apparently never pursued.
The US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, sought Pentagon funding for research into what it called "harassing, annoying and 'bad guy'-identifying chemicals".
The plans were obtained under the US Freedom of Information by the Sunshine Project, a group which monitors research into chemical and biological weapons.
'Who? Me?'
The so-called "love bomb" was an "aphrodisiac" chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale.
Scientists also reportedly considered a "sting me/attack me" chemical weapon to attract swarms of enraged wasps or angry rats towards enemy troops.
A substance to make the skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight was also considered.
Another idea was to develop a chemical causing "severe and lasting halitosis", so that enemy forces would be obvious even when they tried to blend in with civilians.
In a variation on that idea, researchers pondered a "Who? Me?" bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks.
Indeed, a "Who? Me?" device had been under consideration since 1945, the government papers say.
However, researchers concluded that the premise for such a device was fatally flawed because "people in many areas of the world do not find faecal odour offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis".
Captain Dan McSweeney of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at the Pentagon said he had no knowledge of the proposals.
He said: "There's a wide variety of proposals, and they're treated appropriately. However we make sure that all non-lethal weapons abide by international treaties and are assessed for their health effects
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