Editing B. F. Skinner (section)

=== Pigeon-guided missile ===
{{Main|Project Pigeon}}
During World War II, the [[US Navy]] required a weapon effective against surface ships, such as the German [[Bismarck-class battleship|''Bismarck'' class]] battleships. Although [[missile]] and [[Television guidance|TV]] technology existed, the size of the primitive guidance systems available rendered automatic guidance impractical. To solve this problem, Skinner initiated [[Project Pigeon]], which was intended to provide a simple and effective guidance system. Skinner trained pigeons through operant conditioning to peck a camera obscura screen showing incoming targets on individual screens (Schultz-Figueroa, 2019).<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Schultz-Figueroa |title=Project Pigeon: Rendering the War Animal through Optical Technology |journal=JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies}}</ref> This system divided the nose cone of a missile into three compartments, with a pigeon placed in each. Within the ship, the three lenses projected an image of distant objects onto a screen in front of each bird. Thus, when the missile was launched from an aircraft within sight of an enemy ship, an image of the ship would appear on the screen. The screen was hinged, which connected the screens to the bomb's guidance system. This was done through four small rubber pneumatic tubes that were attached to each side of the frame, which directed a constant airflow to a pneumatic pickup system that controlled the thrusters of the bomb. Resulting in the missile being guided towards the targeted ship, through just the peck coming from the pigeon (Schultz-Figueroa, 2019).<ref name=":0" />

Despite an effective demonstration, the project was abandoned, and eventually more conventional solutions, such as those based on radar, became available. Skinner complained that "our problem was no one would take us seriously." Before the project was completely abandoned it was tested extensively in the laboratory. After the United States Army ultimately denied it the United States Naval Research Laboratory picked up Skinner's Research and renamed it Project ORCON, which was a contraction of "organic" and "control". Skinner worked closely with the US Naval Research Laboratory continuously testing the pigeon's tracking capacity for guiding missiles to their intended targets. In the end, the pigeons' performance and accuracy relied on so many uncontrollable factors that Project ORCON, like Project Pigeon before it, was again discontinued. It was never used in the field.<ref name=":0" />