This is the Best Reason to Scrap a Plan

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03The military and police force have like, so many ways to incapacitate a person in a non-lethal way, unless that is, you happen to be underwater in which case they can’t really do anything other than hope you saw Jaws and get scared. In 2002, the US government commissioned a study to find the best way of dealing with such threats and boy were the results hilarious.

The study in question was conducted by the Applied Research Division of the University of Texas on behalf of the government who asked for the eggheads there to discern the best way to neutralize a possible underwater threat, be it a spy or just some dipshit who swam into a restricted area, in a non-lethal way.

One of the problems the researchers tasked with finding a solution to this problem faced was discovering a way of safely apprehending a subject without it resulting in injury or embarrassment for either party involved. For example, one of the more prominent ideas put forward was that of somehow attaching a floatation device to a threat, which would then activate and force them to the surface. Hilariously.

However, this idea was scrapped almost as soon as it was put forward because it would almost certainly result in “underwater hand-to-hand combat” and while that sounds like the basis for a pretty kick-ass album cover, it was deemed to be too dangerous because of the high probability both divers would be carrying a knife. Yes, the US Government once seriously considered and then dismissed a plan to attach giant balloons to underwater threats because of the high risk of it devolving into two guys trying to stab each other, underwater.

Another plan that was seriously considered was the use of tazers, underwater. You know, those things that incapacitate people with fucking electricity! Like the idea of attaching balloons to people this idea was dismissed, not because it was stupid or because it would result in the person being tazed frantically flailing about and possibly drowning, but because it was “only a reasonable solution in a very special combination of circumstances.” In other words, you could only taze people on the surface of the water and even then you had to be prepared to dive into the water immediately afterwards to drag their twitching body out of the water and slap them a few times for good measure.

In the end, the researchers concluded that the best way to deter and face underwater threats was to use very high or very low pitched sounds to annoy people into leaving a given area. But just for a second can we all appreciate that for the briefest of moments, people being paid by the Government were seriously considering whether underwater knife fights were necessary, probable risk of apprehending someone underwater.