World War II
Penguin Four, the ping-pong-playing, rope-jumping pigeon at the Academy of Reality, has a long-forgotten legacy in scientific circles. According to the Academy’s narrator, Sid Sidney, the pigeon named Penguin Four was most likely descended from a pigeon that was an involuntary subject in a World War II experiment, conducted by, the famous behaviorist B.F. Skinner, inventor of the so-called Skinner box.
1940s Bomb Delivery Methods
The pigeon’s great-great- grandfather, who knows the number of generations ago, served in the United States Army Air Force during the war. It was a time when inventing better ways to deliver bombs was a higher priority than building better mousetraps. Japanese, one-man suicide subs were supposed to blow up enemy ships. German Shepherds, man’s best friends, were trained to deliver backpack bombs to kill the enemy, supposedly man’s worst friends.
Guided Missile Pigeon Training
Not to be outdone, Americans designed a guided missile to be driven by three pigeons. Talk about teamwork. The pigeons were supposed to peck the target as seen through a lens, unwittingly guiding the missile toward its mark. Unlike the bomber dog or suicide sub’s navigator, each pigeon took a break now and then. The remaining two continued driving. No one called the pigeons heroic. In on the deal for a consistent payment of formulated food pellets, they did what they had to do, unaware that reaching the target would bring about their own demise.
Thankfully for the pigeons, after the successful, intensive pigeon training, the Armed Forces director concluded that the guided-missile inventor was a crackpot and decided not to use the pigeons. Electronic missile guidance became workable in the early 1950s
Gene Pool’s Friendly Skies
Most likely, Penguin Four’s alleged ancestral grandfather received an honorable discharge and survived the war stateside. A proven product of good breeding, he served lots of female pigeons, increasing the odds that Penguin Four is a descendant from the gene pool’s friendly skies.
