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In this weekend’s History Page, we bring you the origins of pigeon-guided missiles. On the morning of May 3, 1940, the American psychologist B.F. Skinner peered out the window of his Chicago-bound train. His trip came many months after the eruption of World War II in Europe, but accounts of the 1939 German bombing of Warsaw were fresh in his mind as, outside, a flock of pigeons wheeled in formation. “I saw a flock of birds,” he later wrote, “as they flew alongside the train. Suddenly I saw them as ‘devices’ with excellent vision and extraordinary maneuverability. Could they not guide a missile?”

In this weekend’s History Page, we bring you the origins of pigeon-guided missiles.

On the morning of May 3, 1940, the American psychologist B.F. Skinner peered out the window of his Chicago-bound train. His trip came many months after the eruption of World War II in Europe, but accounts of the 1939 German bombing of Warsaw were fresh in his mind as, outside, a flock of pigeons wheeled in formation. “I saw a flock of birds,” he later wrote, “as they flew alongside the train. Suddenly I saw them as ‘devices’ with excellent vision and extraordinary maneuverability. Could they not guide a missile?”

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