All language subtitles for The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd S02E08 1080p WEB h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[rousing music]

- What if I told you
there was a missile

piloted by an army
of trained pigeons?

- It occurs to him,

I could use their
innate honing abilities

to direct the bomb.

- This will change the
balance of World War II.

- Or you could take out the
enemy with a real-life version

of Spider-Man's lasso.

- When the assailant
starts to move,

that's when the
hooks really dig in

and you really
can't get out of it.

- How about
capturing the bad guy

with the hottest
pepper on earth?

- Coughing uncontrollably,

eyes swollen shut with
irritation, begging for mercy.

- These are the weapons so
unconventional, so strange,

they can only be Unbelievable.

[rousing music]

In warfare, we often
employ a whole host

of unorthodox methods
to come out on top,

turning icebergs into
aircraft carriers,

hurling disease-ridden
dead bodies at the enemy,

or in this case,
putting something

that many see as a nuisance

in charge of destroying
the opposition.

[tank guns booming]

- We're in the midst
of World War II,

and all the missiles that
we use are not guided.

They can't be directed
to hit a specific target.

They can only be flown over
an area and then dropped.

If we had a way
to have that bomb

go precisely to that location,
it could be a game changer.

- Noted Harvard psychologist
and inventor, B.F. Skinner,

has an epiphany one day
while out for a walk.

[wings flapping]

He happens to see a flock of
pigeons and it occurs to him,

"I could use their natural

innate honing abilities

to direct the bomb."

- Skinner approaches the

National Research
Defense Committee

with this plan, and he code
names it Project Pigeon.

- [Dan] Using pigeons
to hone in on the enemy

sounds crazy, but is it
crazy enough to work?

The defense committee
certainly thinks so.

- Skinner receives 25 grand,

or roughly half a
million dollars today,

to figure out how to make
a pigeon-guided bomb work.

But Skinner has a plan,
and he thinks that

in order to create a
pigeon-guided missile,

you need a
pigeon-guiding cockpit.

So Skinner creates a little cone

that'll go on top
of a glide bomb,

and in the cone will
be a video screen.

- Skinner places a gold
electrode on the pigeon's beak.

He then shows the pigeon video

of targets like buildings and
battleships on the screen.

- Skinner's theory is this.

If you train a pigeon to peck
at an image of a battleship

or a building and you
reward them for it,

they'll continue pecking at it.

[light suspenseful music]

And after a while, they will
no longer require the reward,

they'll just keep pecking.

- The images on the touch panel

are linked to the guidance
mechanism of the missile,

so that when the pigeon
pecks at one of those images,

it's gonna shift the missile
one direction or another.

So the pigeon actually
is guiding the missile

towards its particular target.

- [Dan] The system
works almost perfectly,

except for a slight
issue with focus.

- It can get distracted,

it might get something wrong,

it might send the bomb
to the wrong target.

So Skinner comes up
with the great idea,

"Let's add democracy
to our pigeon bombs,"

and thus, Skinner uses three
pigeons, three separate screens,

three separate beaks with
three separate conduits on it.

If two out of three
pigeons pick the ship,

the bomb's gonna steer
in that direction.

Turns out that pigeon democracy
works every single time.

- [Dan] All they have to do now

is stick a camera on the missile

and let those pigeon
pilots fly, right?

Not so fast.

- The system Skinner
creates works very well,

but the army thinks it would
be a little bit embarrassing

to have pigeons
guiding their missiles,

so they choose not to
go with the pigeons.

But it's not a total loss.

The screens that the
pigeons were pecking on

are the precursors
to the screens

we use every day
in our cell phones.

Interestingly enough, the
pigeons are ahead of their time.

- When recruiting birds to
win the war doesn't fly,

it's time for a new and
just as outlandish plan,

one that is designed
to flush out the enemy.

[suspenseful music]

- In World War II, Britain
comes up with this idea

to attack Germany within.

We're gonna destroy
their infrastructure.

So the idea that they come
up with is destroying dams.

They will terrorize
the population,

but they'll also take
out hydroelectric power,

and it should have
a negative impact

on their manufacturing capacity.

- An easy way to
take out the dam

would be to shoot
a torpedo at it,

but the Germans actually
have torpedo nets,

so that's off the table.

- Dr. Barnes Wallace
is an engineer

and he's got a plan to get
something past the torpedo net

and below, which would
ultimately cause them to fail.

- [Dan] To Dr. Wallace,

the answer is as easy
as skipping stones.

- You bounce the bomb across
the surface of the water,

it hits the dam, then
drops down and explodes,

in just the right point
to create maximum damage.

- But a key element is that
the bombs must have backspin.

So backspin helps
in several ways.

One, it helps with the
skipping off of the water,

but also, when it finally
hits the wall of the dam,

the backspin has
the English effect

and it brings it down
to the base of the dam,

so it settles there.

[water roaring]

- [Dan] With no idea on
how to create the backspin,

Barnes Wallace does what many
of us do when stumped at work,

he hits the golf course.

[club swatting ball]

- He realizes something
about the golf ball

that may actually help
with the bouncing bomb,

and that is, is that the
golf ball has these dimples.

- Because a golf ball, the
way the dimples work on it,

it actually helps
create the backspin,

Barnes Wallace and his designers

actually incorporate this
into their bouncing bomb,

even to the point where they're
calling them the golf mines.

- [Dan] By July of
1942, it's test time.

Will Dr. Barnes
Wallace's dimpled bomb

have what it takes
to take out a dam?

- They find a place in
Wales called Nant-y-Gro Dam,

and that's where they first
test the bouncing bomb.

The RAF bomber takes off

with the bouncing
bomb slung underneath,

but as part of the
sling, there are belts

which are already spinning
the bomb backwards.

- You have to spin it at exactly
the right speed, 500 RPM,

you have to be exactly the
right height over the water,

60 feet, and you
have to be traveling

at exactly the right
speed, 232 miles per hour.

This is a very narrow window
that these teams have to hit.

- It skips across the
river, hits the dam, sinks.

90 seconds later,
the bomb works.

- [Dan] The confident
Royal Air Force

readies a fleet of bombers,

eager to bounce
havoc on the Germans.

Enter the Dambusters.

- Just after midnight
on May 17th, 1943,

the Dambusters go into action,

and the raid is led by a
24-year-old wing commander

by the name of Guy Gibson.

133 men from Britain and her
allies, flying in 19 bombers.

The plan calls for
them to hit three dams

in Germany's Ruhr Valley,
their industrial heartland.

[dark dramatic music]
[bombs exploding]

- Gibson is the first
to release his bomb.

It bounces three times on
the surface of the water,

but then falls short.

One plane's bouncing bomb even
bounces clean over the dam.

The first four planes miss.

The fifth plane coming in is
Flight Lieutenant David Maltby.

He's approaching the reservoir.

Gibson circles back around

so that he takes the
fire on his plane

so that Maltby can
make it through,

and Maltby releases
his bouncing bomb.

[water crashing]

[bomb exploding]

- And then suddenly,
the bomb explodes,

concrete is crumbling,

a huge column of water
goes into the sky.

Complete success.

- [Dan] By the
end of their mission,

the Dambusters take out
two of the three targets,

but they pay a high price.

- Out of 133 men, 53
are killed on this raid.

Three of them end up in
the hands of the Germans.

But from a propaganda
perspective,

this was a huge shot in the
arm for the Allied cause,

and as a result, the
Dambusters go down in history

as one of the most
legendary squadrons

ever to take to the skies.

- I think we should
all be grateful

that they never
combined bouncing bombs

with pigeon-guided missiles.

That could have gotten ugly.

- Since the first
recorded use of a firearm

in the year 1364, most
guns work the same way,

point and shoot.

But in the early 1900s,

one man comes up with
an unbelievable idea

on how to flip this
notion on its head.

- Prior to World War I, an
inventor, Albert Bacon Pratt,

decides that guns
have a major problem.

[pistol firing]

You actually have to
hold them in your hand,

point them, and
pull the trigger.

[pistol firing]

- He thinks that he can take
the firearm to the next level

by making it a
hands-free device.

- So Pratt goes into
his Vermont workshop

and tinkers away
with what he thinks

will be the solution
to modern warfare.

It's called the gun helmet.

- The design is a steel shell,

and integrated into the
steel shell is the weapon,

and from the barrel, there's
also a site that falls down,

so all the marksman has to do

is look at his enemy and
boom, hands-free shooting.

- [Dan] This, of course,

begs the million
dollar question,

how does one fire a handgun
without their hands?

- The marksman has a
rubber hose in his mouth,

and he blows into that hose

which is routed up above
his face, into the helmet,

which ignites the bolt,
depresses the trigger,

and now you have
hands-free firing.

[gun helmet firing]

- His patent illustrates

that the helmet has
another function.

On the top there was a spike,

and it's actually
a cooking utensil.

The wearer can tenderize
meat, stir stew,

maybe even butcher a bear.

- [Dan] Cooking
stew notwithstanding,

there is one glaring
flaw in Pratt's design

that is a real
headache to move past.

- At this time in history,
guns have serious recoil.

When they fire that gun,

that sucker's gonna
kick his head back.

[gun firing]

The neck can snap,
the skull can crack,

and even teeth can be broken.

- And thus, the gun helmet
is a recipe for disaster.

- Shooting a gun from your head

might have you reaching
for the aspirin,

but in the heat of World War I,

there's an even stranger
way to fire a round.

[soldiers yelling]

- It's 1915 and Great
Britain is in the middle

of a fierce battle
with the Ottomans

on the peninsula of Gallipoli.

The Australian Armed Forces

have joined the
Gallipoli campaign

to overtake the Ottoman Straits,

and eventually take the

capital city of Constantinople,

now Istanbul.

- But things are not going well.

As this fight continues,

the Ottomans have
shored up their numbers.

They eventually have
315,000 boots on the ground,

whereas the British
and their allies

have dropped down to 80,000.

They've lost more
than 200,000 men

- [Dan] Heavily outgunned
and severely outmanned,

one thing is for certain,

it's time for the Brits and
their allies to retreat.

- There's one problem.

If you're gonna retreat,

you have to leave some
soldiers on the front line

to mark your retreat and lay
suppressive fire on the enemy.

The Brits estimate
around 30,000 casualties.

- [Dan] Unwilling
to take the risk,

they'll need a plan B, and fast.

- A lance corporal in the
Australian Imperial Force

by the name of William Scurry
actually has a brilliant idea,

a rifle that can fire without
anybody pulling the trigger.

He calls it the
self-firing drip rifle.

- By rigging a ration
tin full of water,

and a small hole
poked in the bottom,

and a ration tin
empty with water,

the empty tin is attached
to a trigger with a string.

As it fills with the
drip from the full tin,

it increases pressure,

until finally, it
discharges the firearm.

[water dripping]

[gun firing]

- To sell the deception
and the illusion even more,

fake soldiers, a.k.a scarecrows,

are placed in firing positions
around the drip rifles

to give the illusion of
actual human soldiers

firing these weapons.

- [Dan] British commanders

like Scurry's drip rifle idea,

and agree to put it into action.

There's just one slight problem.

- Trenches in the
First World War

are not a place where
water is exactly plentiful.

- For this plan to work,
they're gonna need water,

and the water they get

is generated by the
soldiers themselves.

They use urine.

- [Dan] But will
this strange ammunition

fend off the enemy?

- It's January 9th, 1916

and the evacuation
orders have been issued.

Every soldier there now
sets up their dummy,

pokes holes in their tins,

and quietly makes their way
to the evacuation beach below.

Meanwhile, the drip
rifles take effect

and fire, fire, fire, fire.

The Ottomans are none the wiser.

- 80,000 men are
successfully evacuated

with zero casualties.

They anticipated
30,000 men would die.

This is a huge win, even
if they are retreating.

- It is without a
doubt the best-executed

part of the entire campaign,

and considered by many to
be one of the most brilliant

large scale evacuations ever.

- Getting out of harm's
way using a water gun

is pretty impressive, but
it's not the only element

ever harnessed
during a world war.

- [Announcer] These
Allied bombers

have been pouring destruction

upon the vital centers
of the Nazi war machine.

- So it's 1945, we're
nearing the end of the war,

and Germany is on the ropes.

They're trying anything they can

to take out these planes
that continuously bomb them.

- But Germany has
very little left

in terms of ground air defense,

and therefore has very little
cover from low-flying attacks.

- They're out of ideas,

so they start scrounging
up anything they can,

and they decide they're gonna
try to make a gigantic cannon

that sends a burst
of air into the air

to then take out planes.

- [Dan] And so
begins construction

of a strange weapon,
called the wind cannon.

- It's a 35-foot
long cast iron barrel

that's turned up on one end.

- The idea is
they're gonna ignite

hydrogen and ammonia
in this barrel

to essentially
create a shell of air

and, they hope, poke
a hole in an airplane.

- [Dan] That's right.

The plan is to huff and puff
fighter planes out of the sky.

So, does this giant air
blaster actually work?

[airplane buzzing]

- The Nazis decide they're
gonna use this in battle.

So what do they do?

Take it right over to
the railroad tracks

where they know all the
planes are gonna fly over,

and they're flying over it
as this cannon's going off,

but they're kind of just
saying to themselves,

did you feel anything?
I didn't feel anything?

Do you feel that? I
don't know what that is.

What? You guys think
we should bomb it?

Yeah, let's bomb it.

[plane buzzing]

- After realizing
what little threat

this cannon of air poses,

Allied bombers destroy it
in a matter of seconds,

and just like that,
it's gone with the wind.

- With the end of
World War II in sight,

things are beginning
to get ugly.

All bets are off.

For the Japanese, this
means trying to stay afloat

by any method necessary.

- After Pearl Harbor,

the Japanese essentially are
ruling the entire Pacific,

but by 1944, the tide has turned

and the Allies are
getting closer to Japan,

and as a result,

desperate times call
for desperate measures.

Enter the kamikaze.

[anti-aircraft guns firing]

[airplane exploding]

- These planes have a pilot,

they're loaded with
bombs and extra fuel,

and they're designed to slam
right into American ships.

[explosion booming]

- So the Japanese
navy is looking around

and they see these kamikaze
planes and they think,

well, that's a good idea.

What if we had
something like that?

- [Dan] Japanese
navy lieutenants

Hiroshi Kuroki
and Sekio Nishina

come up with a daring
design, the Kaiten torpedo,

which roughly translates
to the Heaven Shaker.

- The Japanese have
long relied on torpedoes

as one of their main weapons
for naval engagements,

but it's very difficult
to get a torpedo

on time and on target.

What they develop is
essentially a suicide submarine.

- They take their
standard Type 93 torpedo,

and in the center, right
behind the payload,

they add a cockpit for a pilot.

- It's got rudimentary controls,
it's got a steering column.

It also has a button to
detonate the warhead.

- The torpedo is 30 feet long,

but the real importance
comes with its speed.

It can reach 60 miles an hour,

which is almost twice as fast

as any ship afloat at the time.

- [Dan] While it seems
like a pretty straightforward

single-use vessel, it
still needs to be tested.

- The first tests that are done
are done without a payload,

but it's still dangerous to
ram a target under the water.

[dramatic music]

During these trials, 15 men die,

[man screaming]

including one of the
inventors, Hiroshi Kuroki,

who is killed in
one of the tests.

[man yelling]

- So now with testing complete,

there's only one
thing left to do,

and that's to put
it into battle.

And who's gonna run
that first mission?

None other than
the other inventor,

Lieutenant Sekio Nishina.

- He wants to pay tribute
to his best friend

who died during training,

and as such, he brings
a box of his ashes

that are going to ride like a
copilot with him into action.

- [Dan] On the morning
of November 20th, 1944,

the Kaiten sets out
on its first mission,

to ram the USS Mississinewa.

- Nishina drives it
across the harbor

and slams into the side
of the US oil ship.

[Nishina screaming]

[torpedo exploding]

The explosion blows
a massive hole

into the starboard side
of the Mississinewa.

It rolls over, and 63
sailors on board are killed.

- Although it appears
that the Kaiten

is going to be a
revolutionary weapon,

as a matter of fact, when
they put them into operation,

there's very little success.

At the end of the day,
179 American sailors

lose their lives
in Kaiten attacks,

but nearly 1,000
Japanese are lost

either on the
Kaitens themselves,

or in the mother
submarines that are sunk

on the way to
deliver their cargo.

- If you think a human
torpedo is strange,

you won't believe what
other creative ideas

the Japanese had
up their sleeve.

- A US Navy patrol boat
spots something bizarre

floating in the water
off of California.

It appears to be
a type of balloon,

but they can't make heads
or tails of it immediately.

Very soon, in the
next few weeks,

more balloons start showing up

along the western coast of
the United States and Canada.

- [Dan] While the
source remains a mystery,

one thing links them,

Japanese writing and
a rising sun symbol.

But what are they doing here?

- It's World War II.

[bomb exploding]

The United States and the
Empire of Japan are at war,

and the Japanese military
discover a weather phenomenon

that is not really well
known in the United States.

There is a fast moving,
high altitude jet stream

that sweeps across
the Pacific Ocean,

from approximately Japan,

straight over the
continental United States.

- The idea is to harness
the power of these winds

by launching balloons
carrying bombs.

- [Dan] They call it
the Fu-Go balloon bomb,

[bomb exploding]

and its main objective
is to scare the heck

out of US citizens.

- The Fu-Go balloon is a
paper hydrogen-filled balloon

33 feet in diameter,

and from the bottom are
barometric instruments,

sandbags to have it
adjust its altitude,

and incendiary devices and
anti-personnel weapons.

- By sending these Fu-Go
balloons across the Pacific,

they're hoping that
they're going to drop down

on very dry areas,

because they're going
to create forest fires.

The idea being of course, that
it would sow chaos and panic,

and divert resources
needed for the war effort.

- [Dan] The first launch
of a Fu-Go balloon

takes place in November of 1944.

Over the next few months,
multiple sightings occur

from California to
Washington state.

- Across the entire western
seaboard of the United States,

the Fu-Go bombs

either discharge their
payload over the water

or they blow up
in remote places.

[bomb exploding]

So all we're finding
is remnants of 'em

and sightings of 'em.

So the American government

is not really sure
what's happening,

- [Dan] But that all
changes one ill-fated day.

- Just two days before the
Germans surrender in Europe,

a family of picnickers are in a
place called Gearhart Mountain

near Bly, Oregon.

- One of the picnickers
sees something curious.

Unfortunately for them
it's a Fu-Go balloon bomb.

- The balloon bomb ignites.

All six are killed,

and now the authorities realize

they have a massive
problem on their hands.

- [Dan] A domestic
attack with casualties?

This will surely
cause public panic.

That is, if it gets out.

- So the US government
even goes further

and they issue a
demand not to report

on any incidents of these
weaponized balloons.

The government should
have covered this up.

Any information that
gets out in the press

that we are being
targeted by balloon bombs

will tell the
Japanese government,

your plan is working perfectly.

- [Dan] In total, it
is estimated that 1,000

of the 9,000 Fu-Go balloons
launched complete the journey,

including one not
discovered until recently.

- In 2014, some forestry workers

stumble across a
cylindrical object

that they find in the
mud, and sure enough,

it is discovered that it
is one of the balloons

- And there is no
way to deal with them

except bring in C4 and
blow it all up right there.

That weapon was still
dangerous, even in 2014.

- Next time you're
out in the woods

and you come across a strange
metal object, be careful,

it could be an 80-year-old
Fu-Go balloon bomb.

- Have you ever heard
of the Great Panjandrum?

While it might sound like the
name of a vaudeville magician,

it's actually one
of the craziest

and most explosively
ambitious weapons

in modern military history,

oh, and it almost killed a dog.

[tank gun firing]

[artillery fire]

- It's 1943 and World
War II is at a stalemate.

The Germans have built
a massive fortification

along the entire French coast,
called the Atlantic Wall.

It's nigh un-impenetrable.

- So is a big conundrum
for the Allies.

How do you get
troops on the beach

and circumvent the

obstacle of the Atlantic Wall?

- [Dan] What they come up with

is something straight out
of a Road Runner cartoon.

- The weapon is the brainchild

of British Wing Commander
C.R. Finch-Noyes,

and he comes up
with what he thinks

will be a war-winning weapon.

- Picture, if you will,

two 10-foot-tall steel wheels,

upon which are 70 slow
burning cordite rockets.

In the middle, a canister

stuffed with 4,000
pounds of high explosive.

- [Dan] The idea,

get up close to the beach
with the panjandrum,

spark up the rockets
and let her rip.

- They wanted to
send 12 panjandrums

up to the beach at Normandy
to blow channels in the wall

so that the troops could
just walk on through.

[explosion]

That's an insane idea

for this rocket-
powered wheel of death.

- [Dan] In late 1943,
Finch-Noyes decides it's time

to take the panjandrum out
for a little test spin.

- Finch-Noyes invites
the military's top brass

to witness this war
machine in action.

- This being a
test, they decide,

we're not gonna actually
blow something up.

So it's payload,

rather than being 4,000
pounds of explosive,

is 4,000 pounds of inert sand.

This turns out to be
a very wise decision.

- When the test begins,
they light the rockets

and the panjandrum comes
off the landing craft.

Everything looks good for
the first 20 or 30 feet.

Then, it starts losing rockets
and all hell breaks loose.

- An officer's dog starts
chasing the panjandrum

down the beach like
it's a chew toy,

then the panjandrum turns and
starts going after the dog.

Rockets are firing irregularly,

the thing's flipping from side
to side like a wagon wheel,

it's an unmitigated disaster,

and for that reason
alone, the panjandrum

is not included in the plans
for the D-Day invasion.

- We are happy to report

that no dogs were harmed in
the making of the panjandrum.

While this rolling bomb
quickly spins out of control,

the Allies have no choice
but to dust themselves off,

get back out onto the
field, and toss a Hail Mary.

[bat cracking ball]
[crowd cheering]

- In the early 1940s,
without question,

the most popular game in America

is our national
pastime. baseball.

- Because baseball
is such a big deal,

most draft-eligible men know
how to pitch a fastball,

or at the very least, throw
a pitch with some accuracy.

- [Dan] This gives
top military brass an idea.

How do you weaponize a baseball?

- The Office of Strategic
Service theorizes

that if an American
can throw a baseball,

well then he should
be able to throw

a grenade shaped
like a baseball.

- The US military
creates the BEANO T-13,

or the baseball grenade.

- The BEANO T-13 baseball
grenade is five ounces

and nine and a half
inches in circumference,

which is the exact
size of a baseball.

It's even thrown with the
same motion, with two fingers.

- [Dan] In March
of 1944, testing begins

at the Aberdeen Proving
Ground in Maryland,

but the baseball grenade

doesn't exactly have the
best batting average.

- The BEANO has a nasty habit
of prematurely detonating.

[grenade exploding]

And because of this, two
soldiers are mortally wounded

and 44 injured in

the testing process.

- They improve the
fuse and the US military

sends 10,000 baseball
grenades to Europe.

- Unfortunately,
despite the fuse change,

the BEANO still has
a 10% failure rate,

and so, it's not a
very effective weapon.

[grenade exploding]

By war's end, production
of the grenade is ended,

and the remainder of
the stock is destroyed.

[grenade exploding]

- [Dan] 20 years later,
another American sport

gets a chance at
changing the game of war.

- In the 1960s, baseball
slides in popularity,

and by the 1970s,
football by and far

becomes America's
favorite spectator sport.

Because of this, the
US Army decides to meld

the love of this cold weather
game with the Cold War.

- [Dan] It's time
to hit the gridiron

with the anti-tank
Nerf football grenade.

- US Army weapons designers
take a Nerf football

and hollow out the insides,

replacing the insides
with anti-tank TNT

known as a Monroe charge.

- They make it 14 ounces,

the regulation weight
of an NFL football.

So to any soldier,
it's gonna feel

just like tossing
the old pigskin around.

- [Dan] But it turns out

throwing a perfect
spiral with a bomb

[explosion]

is near impossible.

- Footballs fly through the air

because there's an even
distribution of weight

surrounding the hollow, or
the foam inside the ball.

But in testing, the 14
ounces of explosives

makes the trajectory of the
Nerf grenade unpredictable.

- [Dan] In the
end, it's figured out

that the Nerf football grenade

is not going to
score any touchdowns,

but it reinforces something
special about Uncle Sam.

- Other countries will
make a deadly weapon

and teach their
soldiers how to use it,

but what makes
America different is,

they look at our boys and say,

let's design something
that they're good at doing.

[explosion]

- Who knows? Maybe someday
there'll be a basketball bomb

to dunk on the bad guy,

or a golf ball you can
putt into a bunker.

I'm just spitballing here.

- There are weapons
that can take out tanks,

some that can wipe out
entire civilizations.

Yet there are others so powerful

they'll leave your enemy
begging for a glass of milk.

[propulsive electronic music]

- The ghost pepper
is one of the most

potent peppers in existence.

On the Scoville meter of heat,
it goes up to over a million.

The average jalapeno is
just 10,000 heat units.

- [Dan] Despite its
high heat rating,

the ghost pepper is
often used to cook.

But what do you do when you
run out of food recipes?

- 2010, an engineer
named R.B. Srivastava

from the Indian Defense
Research Organization

comes up with an idea of
weaponizing the ghost pepper.

- It's known as
the chili grenade.

It's a combination of the
ground up ghost pepper seeds

and phosphorus.

When it ignites, the
phosphorus will help create

a ghost pepper fog.

- When utilized, the
ghost pepper grenade

chokes the enemies'
respiratory system,

making them feel like
they can't breathe.

This is a non-chemical
chemical weapon.

- [Dan] One that has been
deployed by the Indian Army

with great success.

- In July 2016, when a series
of riots break out in India,

the army comes in.

It doesn't wanna
use rubber bullets.

- So, the Indian government

deploys the ghost
pepper grenade.

It incapacitates people,

and they're able to
be taken into custody

with no casualties.

- [Dan] It's also come in handy

to turn up the heat on a
group of hiding fugitives.

- In 2015, the grenade
is also employed

to hunt down a terrorist by
the name of Sajjad Ahmed.

The Indian authorities
find out that Ahmed

and the rest of his team
are holed up in a cave

just near the town of Rafiabad,

so they descend upon it and
employ the chili grenade.

- When troops enter
the cave in gas masks,

they find the terrorists
coughing uncontrollably,

eyes swollen shut with
irritation, begging for mercy.

The ghost pepper grenade
has worked perfectly.

[rousing classical music]

- Not sold on
catching the bad guy

with a million
Scoville heat units,

try stopping them
cold in their tracks

with Spider-Man's web.

- In 2017, the City of
Birmingham Police Department

in Alabama is testing a
new less-than-lethal means

of incapacitating someone.

[tense music]

- This strange little device
inflicts little to no pain.

So no shock like you
have with a taser,

no burning like you would
have with pepper spray,

no blunt force like you
would have with a baton.

[weapon bursting]

- [Dan] It's called
the BolaWrap 100,

but it's also known colloquially
as the Spider-Man lasso.

[pulsating electronic music]

- The Spider-Man
lasso is essentially

an eight-foot-long Kevlar tether
that has hooks on the ends,

that is fired from a device

that shoots it at
660 feet per second.

- The concept is based
on a very old weapon

that's been used in the
Americas for hundreds of years.

It was called a bola,
and gauchos would use it

to snare an animal that
they were pursuing,

with weighted lugs on
either end of this rope,

they can bring it into a spin

and project it toward an animal.

It'll wrap around the animal,
cause the animal to collapse,

and then they can
capture the animal.

- [Dan] But this lasso takes
its 1800s-era predecessor

to the extreme.

- So you cock this
thing like a gun,

it's got a laser sight on it.

If you're running after
somebody, you fire this at 'em,

catch their feet, catch
their arms, whatever,

and then they
essentially can't move.

When the assailant
starts to move,

that's when the
hooks really dig in

and you really
can't get out of it.

- [Dan] As cool as it may look,

the most important
thing to law enforcement

is how safe it is.

- Between 2010 and 2021
as many as 500 people

are killed by tasers
used by law enforcement.

The Spider-Man lasso
seems to provide

the perfect alternative.

You have a way of
making somebody stop

if they're trying to run away.

- [Officer] Stop walking!

- You don't have
to roll the dice

with their physical wellbeing.

You simply hit them with
the Spider-Man lasso,

they drop to the ground,
you take 'em into custody.

- No! No!

[Spider-Man lasso firing]

- Turns out you
don't have to get bit

by a radioactive spider to
catch a thief with your web.

- It's an idea that many believe

should never have taken off,

and fair warning, don't let
your cat chase after it.

[suspenseful music]

- Outside of Tucson, Arizona,
there's a 3,300-acre site

where there's over
4,000 aircraft

that all have a different story.

- [Dan] The strangest
story of them all,

one about the most expensive
aircraft ever built.

- During the 1980s, laser
technology takes off.

- But no one's ever
really figured out

how to capitalize on it.

But in 2007, the government
decides it is time to go big

and figure out how to
make a laser take flight.

- [Dan] And so
begins what will become

a $5 billion weapon system,

the Boeing YAL-1 airborne laser.

- They take a standard
Boeing 747 aircraft,

and in the nose cone,
they mount a megawatt

chemical oxygen iodine laser.

- Simply put, it is a
passenger-size airplane

that shoots a giant freaking
laser out of the nose cone.

- [Dan] After years of
ground testing the laser,

it's time to go airborne

and see if this bad boy
can take out a missile.

- The YAL-1 laser targets
the missiles, fires on them,

and actually destroys
one of the two missiles.

But unfortunately, it's
still not good enough

to be deployed in actual
combat situations.

- [Dan] The Department
of Defense weighs out

the pros and cons

of keeping the flying
laser in the air.

Pros, shooting down
missiles with lasers

is pretty darn cool.

Cons, well, there's just
one, but it's a big one.

- Their big concern is, what's
the effect on other aircraft?

Imagine you and your family

are on your flight to Disney
World going across the country,

and then a laser beam
cuts the plane in half.

That can't happen.

So that's why
you'll see that 747

right there in the boneyard.

- While the YAL-1 airborne laser

was officially retired
on February 12th, 2012,

it's not the last attempt at
nailing precision in warfare.

[tense music]

- So you're a sniper,
say in Afghanistan,

and you've got a
target two miles away

that's moving quickly.

You have to calculate
everything in your mind,

the wind velocity,
the trajectory,

your altitude, their altitude.

There are so many different
variables that come into play.

You have one shot
and one shot only.

You take it and you miss.

Now what?

- [Dan] For years,

modifications have been
made to sniper rifles

to make them more accurate,

but could there be a way
to make them flawless?

[rifle firing]

- In the 2000s, DARPA,

which is the research
and development arm

of the Department of Defense
in the United States,

has created a new bullet,

a bullet that actually will
guide itself to a target

and make adjustments
along the way.

- [Dan] In 2014, after
years of development,

DARPA's new EXACTO smart
sniper bullet is born.

- EXACTO stands for Extreme
Accuracy Tasked Ordinance,

and it's amazing.

It's a 50-caliber bullet
that can self steer, correct,

and literally change
directions in midair.

- [Dan] And just how do you get

a bullet traveling at
2,000 miles per hour

to go exactly where you
want it to go without fail?

- The sniper paints
a target with a laser

or some other means that
the EXACTO round can see

with a photo diode
or sensor at its tip

that acts as an electronic eye.

So as the round is
flying down range,

it's looking at the target
and adjusting its trajectory

to make sure, ultimately,
it hits the target.

- DARPA runs some experiments
on the EXACTO bullets.

So they place an
experienced sniper

with a complete novice shooter,

and after multiple tests,

they both hit the
targets the same.

- [Dan] Now even the
worst snipers can succeed,

which kind of sounds
like cheating.

But it hasn't made its way
onto the battlefield just yet.

- Once the EXACTO bullet

is successfully utilized
on the battlefield,

it's gonna be an
absolute game changer.

You can take a relatively
inexperienced shooter

and make them instantly
lethal with this technology.

[upbeat suspenseful music]

- We've seen missiles
controlled by pigeons,

bouncing bombs, and
a human torpedo.

But while technology
is constantly evolving,

it will be truly hard
to match those weapons

that we already know
to be Unbelievable.