Decades after World War II erupted, historians still puzzle over the hidden “what‑ifs” that could have reshaped the conflict. The 10 little known alternative plans from World War II reveal the secret blueprints and daring schemes that never saw the light of day.

10 Little Known Plans Unveiled

10 The Mechelen Incident

German military planners were convinced that attacking France and Britain head‑on was near suicidal. Franz Halder, the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH), concocted an unimaginative advance eerily similar to the Schlieffen Plan of 1914 which ground to a halt. Halder’s intention was to make Hitler see the futility and senselessness of such an attack, which would commit half a million German troops to attacking in January 1940, gaining a static frontline, and waiting two years until another offensive could take place.

General Erich von Manstein, however, had a different idea in mind. He wanted to use elite panzer units to strike from the south, breaking through the Sedan and cutting off the Allies in the north. Manstein drew up multiple variations of his plan, all of which were rejected. Rivals even gave him a hollow posting just so they could be rid of him.

On January 10, 1940, two German officers carrying copies of Halder’s plans got lost while flying over Mechelen, Belgium. They were forced to land and unable to burn the documents before they were captured. Upon learning of the “Mechelen Incident,” Hitler was livid, though no immediate changes were made to the invasion plans. Fear and worry began to creep into the minds of Hitler and his generals, at which point the Fuhrer himself suggested an attack through the Sedan. When he learned that one of his generals had already made a detailed stratagem, he was ecstatic.

Recovering the abandoned German military plans doomed the Allies. They began massing even more troops on the Belgian frontier, oblivious to Germany’s intentions. The Fall Gelb (“Case Yellow”) which led to the Fall of France and The Low Countries owes its success to a crafty general and two Germans lost in Belgium.

9 British Union

With French morale crumbling and Britain in danger of facing the German onslaught alone, politicians needed to come up with a plan to keep the alliance intact. Arthur Salter and Jean Monnet , members of the Anglo‑French Coordination Committee, proposed the Franco‑British Union. French citizens would be granted British citizenship and vice versa, and the parliaments of both nations would be united. Every man, machine, and resource in their domain would be used to pursue a single directive.

The plan was audacious, but General Charles de Gaulle loved it, while Winston Churchill considered it a necessary gamble. French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud became convinced after events took an unexpected turn, but several French politicians scoffed at the idea. Marshal Philippe Pétain himself considered the union a “marriage to a corpse.”

The proposal was put to a vote and defeated 14 to 10. Churchill responded, “Rarely has so generous a proposal encountered so hostile a reception.” Indeed, the Franco‑British Union enamored the populace so much that stamps were designed in anticipation of such a momentous event.

Pétain replaced Reynaud and immediately called for an armistice. Germany would occupy northern and western France, and Pétain would head the administration from Vichy. De Gaulle would lead the men of Free France against brother and kin. Had Pétain and the defeatists not stepped in, France might have continued the fight. It would have been a huge step toward today’s European Union, though it would also have untold consequences for the colonial empires of both nations. Perhaps the most immediate change in history was that France would have avoided being the butt of surrender jokes for decades to come.

8 Battleground: Ireland

Representatives of the British and Irish governments held a secret meeting to discuss potential cooperation against Germany on May 23, 1940. A month later, a British minister offered post‑war unity in exchange for the use of Ireland’s military facilities and its active participation in the war. These were the beginning stages of “Plan W,” a series of proposed joint military operations between Ireland and the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland preferred a more brusque approach—a British invasion. Lord Craigavon requested that Churchill send Highland troops to overthrow the Irish government in Dublin, which would have given Britain the bases it needed. Even Field Marshal Montgomery was told to “prepare plans for the seizure of Cork and Queenstown.”

Trouble brewed on the horizon as well, as Nazi spies and their IRA contacts devised “Plan Kathleen.” It called for 50,000 German soldiers to invade Northern Ireland with the assistance of 5,000 members of the IRA and relied on sabotage, propaganda, and inciting rebellious and dissident elements. The plan never materialized, as German agents and their IRA contacts were soon captured. The Army High Command had a plan that relied less on covert actions—the outright takeover of Eire called “Operation Green”—but mounting losses in aerial battles rendered it unfeasible.

Nazi enthusiasm for such plans was revived once more in 1941 by General Kurt Student, an expert on commando and paratrooper tactics. Student proposed an airborne assault requiring over 30,000 troops that Hitler seriously considered before the idea was aborted.

7 The US Invasion Of Brazil

After the stunning German victory over France, concern grew that Brazil might side with the Axis. Its leader, Getúlio Vargas, had attained power through nefarious means. The region’s population was also fiercely nationalistic, and there were pro‑Fascist elements in the military as well. Since Brazil’s northeastern “hump” was the shortest route to West Africa, military planners pointed out that Germany would be closer to the Americas than ever before. The Abwehr’s vast network of spies within the continent also became a problem. Fear in Washington intensified when Brazil initially refused access to its bases.

The operation, known as “Plan Rubber,” called for 64,000 US troops to invade Brazil, primarily targeting Natal, Recife, and Belém. It was believed so strongly that the invasion was inevitable that rigorous preparations were made, including naval and amphibious exercises, but ultimately, cooler heads prevailed. On January 29, 1942, during the Pan‑American Conference held in Rio de Janeiro, virtually every country in the Americas severed ties with the Axis powers. In August, Germany retaliated. The U‑507, a German submarine, sank five ships off the coast of Brazil, convincing the country to enter the conflict on the side of the Allies. One rash move like “Plan Rubber” could have jeopardized everything.

6 Beating Germany To Ploesti’s Oil Fields

In 1940, Romanian lands were given to Hungary and Bulgaria. Similarly, the Soviets demanded Bessarabia and Bukovina, and the Romanians acceded. Red Army forces quickly fortified the new borders from June 28 to July 4, 1940. This move put the Red Army within 160 kilometers (100 mi) of Ploesti’s oil fields.

With Germany distracted at the Western front, the Soviets seemed poised to launch a strike at any time before Romania formally joined the Axis in November. Some claim that even if Stalin had designs on Romania, he wasn’t ready to face Germany. British ambassadors urged Stalin to meet the German threat to no avail.

Had Stalin acted, it would have spelled the end for the Nazis. During Hitler’s meeting with Finland’s Marshal Mannerheim, he confided the truth to him about the Reich’s situation. He told Mannerheim that if the Soviets attacked the oil fields immediately, Germany would have been lost—60 Russian divisions would have been enough to do the job. By 1941, Germany would have been a mere sitting duck. While that would have meant no Barbarossa, some military historians claim it could have also meant a terrible Soviet onslaught directed toward the rest of Europe.

5 Poland And Turkey In The Axis

To avert war, Danzig was to be reunited with the Reich. An autobahn was to be built connecting greater Germany and East Prussia, while goodwill and cooperation would link Poland with the Nazis for at least a quarter of a century. The Western powers gravely feared that Poland would side with the Axis.

In 1938, after Czechoslovakia was dismantled, the Poles also reaped the benefits by demanding territory from the Czechs. German ministers promised aid against the Soviet Union and reminded the Poles of their aspirations to control the Ukraine. Ultimately, the question is whether Poland, which suffered a lot throughout the conflict, would have been left in a worse state if it had sided with Germany.

In Turkey, similar plans were made to convince the Turkish government to side with the Axis. There were talks of forming a Pan‑Turanian Republic from the hinterlands of the Soviet Union as well as inciting Muslim POWs to mutiny and rebel against their Russian superiors. Pro‑Axis sentiments actually spiked following Operation Barbarossa in 1941, but Turkey was never to be fully committed to the war effort unless the defeat of the Soviet Union was imminent.

4 The Axis Invasion Of America

Had everything gone as planned for the Germans, we would have seen the true capabilities of the Messerschmitt‑264, which was designed to have a range of 15,000 kilometers (9,320 mi). Dubbed the “Amerika Bomber,” it would have been able to deliver its payload on the eastern United States. During a broadcast following an assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, the Me‑264 was reportedly made ready to fly the Fuhrer to Japan in the event that his generals succeeded in overthrowing him.

German scientists also espoused the use of chemical weapons on the US. One had advised Hitler to “attack America simultaneously with various human and animal pathogens, as well as plant pests.” The Japanese were also keen on such an undertaking, devising a grandiose operation to attack the Panama Canal using a submarine that was also an underwater aircraft carrier. The hulking I‑400 class was the largest designed at the time and would remain so for several years. It was scheduled to attack the canal on August 25, 1945, but the plan was obviously canceled due to Japan’s surrender.

Ultimately, like most “wonder weapons,” the Axis’s efforts were too little, too late to change the war. The I‑400 that was to carry out the attack sunk off the coast of Hawaii. Its wreck wasn’t found until August 1, 2013.

3 The Ricin Bomb

Ricin is a poisonous agent found in castor beans. Once it gets in the bloodstream, it infects the body’s cells, preventing them from making protein. Ricin can cause severe vomiting, respiratory ailments, seizures, and organ failure leading to death. It’s odorless, tasteless, and nearly invisible.

During the war, various nations studied the possible use of the agent. The most significant experiment was conducted by Allied scientists at Edgewood Arsenal. Around 1,700 kilograms (3,700 lb) of the poison known as “Agent W” were produced, and cluster bombs dubbed “W‑bombs” were field‑tested.

One W‑bomb would be enough to kill half the population of an area measuring 90 square meters (300 ft²), and there is evidence that the Allies considered the use of ricin bombs against Japan. Had ricin been deployed as a weapon during the war, how would it have affected Japanese determination to defend their homeland? Similarly, how would the world fare years later, when the threat of a fiery mushroom cloud was replaced by the threat of an invisible one?

2 War Plan Orange And A Preemptive Strike

“War Plan Orange,” the United States doctrine in the event of war with Japan, called for key areas in the Philippines to be well stocked and defended to the last man. It had been in place for years and rigorously studied, and preparations had been made for all contingencies.

According to military experts and historians, there were at least eight hours of delay between the moment Pearl Harbor was attacked to the time when Japanese planes swooped down on American bases in the Philippines. During that time, General Douglas MacArthur had fallen into a state of shock, unable to make a sound decision. The commander of his air forces, General Lewis Brereton, proposed a daring plan: preemptively striking Taiwan, where Japanese planes were based. MacArthur waited several hours to give the order, however, giving the same Japanese aircraft from Taiwan plenty of time to catch the American planes like sitting ducks. The Japanese later bombed the dockyards, and air and naval power were instantly lost due to indecision.

MacArthur would follow up with more mistakes. Some areas of the Philippines were not fully stocked with medical supplies, food rations, or water, nor were defenses completely prepared. MacArthur disregarded this important facet of War Plan Orange, erroneously believing that Japan would attack in mid‑1942. Thwarting the Japanese landings to the north was an impossible task, as MacArthur sent ill‑trained troops to meet them. Meanwhile, his best troops were sent south on guard duty instead. Many brave Americans and Filipinos were subjected to cruelty at the hands of the Japanese in the years to come due to the incapability of one man to carry out a definitive plan that had been in place for years and his rejection of another brought up by a daring soldier in the heat of battle.

1 The Morgenthau Plan

A plan drafted by US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau in 1944 called for the complete and total disarmament and dismantling of Germany, not just by carving it up into smaller zones of occupation and autonomous areas but reducing it to a “primarily agricultural and pastoral state.” This outlandish and extremist view was wholly supported by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who abhorred the idea of a “lenient punishment” for the defeated nation. FDR believed that while Germans should not starve to death, it was enough that they be fed nothing but soup three times a day.

Everyone else in the Allied camp was completely opposed to the plan, including France and Britain. Winston Churchill berated Morgenthau in person and could only be swayed to change his mind after a promise of $6.5 billion in aid for Britain. Secretary of War Harry Stimson and Secretary of State Cordell Hull remained outraged, though, and once the American media found out about it, all hell broke loose. It was used to full effect by Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels to rally the populace to fight in utter desperation. Roosevelt had to deny his involvement as election day loomed closer, but he still privately encouraged the Treasury Secretary’s schemes.

As the war drew to a close, parts of the Morgenthau Plan were implemented, though somewhat watered down. Aside from the public outcry, historians pointed out that one of the main reasons why the proposal never materialized to its fullest extent was because its greatest supporter, FDR, tragically died in 1945.

+ Operation Goldeneye

The Jamaican residence of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels, was known perhaps unsurprisingly as “Goldeneye.” The origin of the name is disputed, but some cite an obscure plan concocted by the man himself during World War II as an inspiration.

“Operation Goldeneye” was devised by Fleming as part of the Naval Intelligence Department. In the event that Spain aligned with the Axis powers, Britain was to send spies and saboteurs to the Iberian Peninsula. The operation was eventually scrapped as the war dragged on and Spain remained neutral, much to the chagrin of Germany and Italy.

What might have happened in these hypothetical scenarios had everything gone according to plan? What do you think? Talk to Jo via email.

The notion of packing up and calling a planet home used to belong squarely in the realm of sci‑fi, but the last few years have turned that fantasy into a tangible research agenda. With SpaceX’s Mars transports, ESA’s lunar ambitions, and China’s own outer‑space mining roadmaps, the scientific community is actually drafting blueprints for living beyond Earth.

As outlandish as some of these schemes sound, the list below shows ten concrete proposals that scientists have already put on the table, ranging from cloud‑borne habitats to helium‑harvesting balloons.

10 Plans Scientist Vision for Space Colonies

10 Cloud Cities On Venus

Imagine trying to set up a backyard on a planet where the surface feels like a furnace and the air is a crushing, acidic soup. That’s the reality of Venus’s ground level—temperatures that could melt metal and a pressure that would crush a submarine in seconds.

Paradoxically, a sweet spot exists high above that hellish surface. About 50 kilometers (30 miles) up, the pressure drops to roughly Earth‑like levels and the temperature settles into a surprisingly mild range, making the upper atmosphere one of the most hospitable places in the solar system.

Enter the idea of floating habitats: massive, helium‑filled balloons that would keep self‑contained domes aloft in Venus’s dense clouds. Inside those enclosures, breathable air would be maintained, gravity would be almost identical to Earth’s, and the thick cloud cover would act as a natural shield against harmful solar radiation.

Thermal conditions at that altitude are also tolerable. Nighttime can dip to around 0 °C (32 °F), while daytime peaks near 50 °C (122 °F). It would be a sweaty but survivable environment—nothing like boiling alive, but certainly a reason to keep the AC on.

9 Mining Colonies Inside Asteroids

Why limit humanity to planetary surfaces when there are countless rocky bodies drifting through space, each packed with precious metals and volatiles? Some researchers argue that asteroids could become the ultimate off‑world mining hubs.

These space rocks are rich in elements like platinum, nickel, and even water ice. By establishing a rotating space station around an asteroid, crews could deploy drills and excavators to gradually hollow out the interior, turning the once‑solid mass into a cavernous habitat.

Once the asteroid’s core has been excavated, the hollowed space could be sealed and pressurized, creating a self‑contained colony. The same rock that yielded metals would also supply water and oxygen, making the settlement largely independent of Earth supplies.

Living beneath the surface of an asteroid also offers natural protection from solar radiation, micrometeorites, and the vacuum of space, turning a barren rock into a surprisingly cozy underground city.

8 Underwater Cities On Europa

Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon, hides a global ocean beneath a thick shell of frozen water. While the surface is bombarded by intense radiation, the subsurface sea could be a sanctuary for life—and for humans.

The harsh radiation environment at the surface makes it inhospitable, but a few kilometers down, the ice acts as a natural shield. If a drill‑tipped submarine could pierce the icy crust, it would open a gateway to a liquid world potentially teeming with chemistry.

Scientists propose deploying a heated, ice‑penetrating drill attached to a submersible. Once the drill reaches the ocean, the sub would release floating platforms into pockets of trapped air, creating buoyant habitats where crews could live, work, and explore the alien seas.

7 Mobile Bases On The Moon

The obvious place to colonize is the Moon. NASA has been talking about setting up Moon bases for years. Originally, they wanted to build their bases in the underground caves that fill our Moon, but today, NASA’s considering a new idea. They want to put their colonies on wheels.

Moon colonies need to be mobile because nighttime usually lasts about 14 days on the Moon. Such a long night can get cold, and it makes it impossible to use solar power to keep things running. At the poles of the Moon, though, it’s almost always day. That means that NASA would be able to cover a Moon base with solar panels and get a nearly constant source of power.

If the Moon base could rove around, it’d be able to change its location with the Sun and always keep out of the cold. That would also let the colonists go on exploration missions or set up mines on different parts of the Moon.

6 The Bernal Sphere

The Bernal sphere is a visionary design for a self‑sustaining orbital settlement, complete with farms, livestock pens, and even entertainment venues—all nestled inside a massive rotating sphere.

Surrounding the central living area are a series of concentric rings that spin at high speed. Some rings would host hydroponic gardens, others would house animal pens, and the centrifugal force generated by the rotation would simulate Earth‑like gravity for inhabitants.

Because the habitat is a hollow sphere, the interior landscape curves upward, giving an otherworldly view of people walking on the “inner” surface. Gravity would be strongest at the outer rim and weakest near the center, where a zero‑gravity honeymoon suite could be tucked for a romantic getaway.

5 Domed Habitats On Mercury

Mercury, the Sun’s closest planet, seems like a terrible place to live: daytime temperatures can soar to a scorching 427 °C (800 °F) and its slow rotation creates days that last 176 Earth days.

Those extreme day‑night cycles, however, could be turned to an advantage. A mobile, wheeled city could constantly trek along the planet’s surface, staying perpetually on the twilight edge where temperatures are far more temperate.

Such a roving settlement would be sealed and pressurized, with its own life‑support systems. By positioning the city on the planet’s sunlit rim, engineers could tap frozen water deposits in polar craters, use photolysis to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, and generate a breathable atmosphere for the inhabitants.

4 Colonies By The Methane Lakes Of Titan

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is a world of exotic weather: methane rains from the sky, filling vast lakes of liquid hydrocarbons, while the moon’s weak gravity would let humans glide with a simple wing‑like apparatus.

Beyond the novelty of low‑gravity flight, Titan offers a natural shield against cosmic radiation. Its thick nitrogen‑rich atmosphere blocks much of the dangerous galactic rays, and Saturn’s magnetosphere adds an extra layer of protection.

The methane and ethane lakes are not just scenic; they are a massive energy reservoir. Colonists could harvest these hydrocarbons to power habitats, while inflatable plastic domes—kept warm by a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen—would provide a safe, pressurized environment for life.

3 Space Mirrors Around Ceres

Ceres, a dwarf planet nestled in the asteroid belt, is cloaked in a thick icy shell that hides a massive water reservoir beneath. The surface temperature hovers around a frigid –73 °C (–99 °F).

Scientists have floated the idea of installing gigantic orbital mirrors that would concentrate sunlight onto Ceres’s polar regions. The extra heat could melt the icy mantle, raising surface temperatures enough to create liquid water pools.

If successful, the sublimated water vapor would rise, encounter solar UV radiation, and split into oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen could then be harvested to fill pressurized habitats, while the remaining water would support agriculture and drinking supplies.

In theory, this process would allow floating, domed cities to be erected on what was once an icy desert, turning Ceres into a thriving outpost.

2 Helium Mines On Uranus

Uranus may sit far from Earth, but it holds a treasure that could power the next generation of nuclear reactors: helium‑3, a rare isotope almost exhausted on our home planet.

While Jupiter and Saturn also contain helium‑3, their crushing gravity and hazardous ring systems make them far less attractive for settlement. Uranus, with its comparatively gentle gravity and lack of rings, becomes a more feasible target.

The proposal envisions a fleet of high‑altitude, hot‑air balloons drifting within Uranus’s methane‑rich atmosphere. These balloons would scoop up helium‑3 and other gases, funneling them to a processing station orbiting the planet.

Storms on Uranus are fierce and could pose a lethal threat to any floating colony, but the payoff—a virtually limitless supply of helium‑3 for clean fusion energy—might be worth the risk.

1 The Redwood Forests Of Mars

Humanity’s push toward Mars is gathering steam, with private companies and space agencies outlining transport pipelines that could shuttle crews every 26 months. While the exact architecture of Martian cities remains under debate, one ambitious concept from MIT researchers paints a picture of a planetary “Redwood Forest.”

The vision calls for a constellation of transparent domes scattered across the Martian surface, linked together by a sprawling network of underground tunnels that function like tree roots, channeling water and nutrients to each habitat.

These tunnels would tap into subsurface ice deposits, delivering water upward where it could be vaporized to generate breathable oxygen and feed hydroponic farms. The outer shell of each dome would act as a shield against harsh solar radiation, creating a self‑sustaining micro‑ecosystem.

SpaceX predicts that, within the next 50‑100 years, up to a million people could call Mars home. If those projections hold true, retirees may soon find themselves strolling beneath the glass canopy of a Martian Redwood Forest.

When you wonder about the twisted imagination behind the war, the question that keeps historians awake is: what exact plans Hitler would have rolled out if the Nazis had actually won? Below we break down ten of the most bizarre, horrifying, and oddly specific schemes that were drafted, ready to reshape the world in a fascist image.

How These Plans Hitler Would Have Implemented

10. Returning American Land To The Natives

Although the Nazis were ruthless white supremacists, they oddly showed a degree of acceptance toward Native Americans.

They forged ties with the American Indian Federation, turning the group into fervent Nazi sympathizers. Some members, like the self‑styled “Chief Red Cloud,” even plastered swastikas on their clothing and denounced Jews as “children of Satan,” claiming they controlled the Indian service.

“Chief Red Cloud” was, in fact, a fabricated identity adopted by Portland attorney Elwood A. Towner, a Native American; the genuine Chief Red Cloud died in 1909 and had no connection to Hitler.

The Nazis proclaimed that Native Americans were Aryans, dispatching undercover propaganda agents to the United States to incite a revolt against the government. In exchange, they vowed to return the ancestral lands to the Indigenous peoples.

Whether the promises were genuine or not, many listeners took them seriously. “Chief Red Cloud” (Towner) claimed he could mobilize an army of 750,000 Native Americans ready to fight for Hitler, promising that as soon as a Nazi force set foot on American soil, they would help tear the United States apart.

9. A Giant Space Mirror

One of the strangest Nazi schemes involved a colossal mirror placed in orbit, spanning about 1.6 kilometers (roughly one mile) in diameter and hovering 35,900 kilometers (22,300 miles) above Earth.

The concept resembled a malicious child using a magnifying glass to scorch ants: whenever the Nazis felt offended, they would tilt the mirror to reflect the Sun’s rays onto an adversary’s city, turning the beam into a searing weapon capable of igniting anything it struck.

The design even called for a full‑scale space station within the mirror, housing a crew that would survive on food and oxygen harvested from a cultivated pumpkin crop.

Modern scholars doubt the feasibility of such a weapon, yet the mastermind Hermann Oberth was so confident that after the war he attempted to persuade the Americans to construct it. Had he secured more time, the Nazis might have completed the mirror, casting a terrifying glare over the planet.

8. The Greater East Asia Co‑Prosperity Sphere

Japan, as Germany’s Axis partner, drafted its own sweeping blueprint: the Greater East Asia Co‑Prosperity Sphere. Under this plan, Japan would dominate every region east of the 70th meridian, encompassing most of India and everything beyond.

The sphere’s name sounded benevolent, yet it concealed a brutal agenda. Conquered peoples would be molded into “leaders of their people,” essentially serving as puppets for Japanese rule.

Japan already began rolling out the scheme, presenting it as liberation from Western imperialism under the slogan “Asia for Asiatics.” In reality, the peoples of Asia would be forced to accept Japanese authority.

Japanese would become the official language throughout the Eastern Hemisphere, with teachers dispatched to every school to provide “the guidance of Japanese culture” to young minds. Even Australia and New Zealand would fall under Japanese control, and Hitler believed this would mean the end of every white person living there.

7. A Great Wall Of Baby‑Makers

To counter the looming Japanese bloc, the Nazis envisioned a “living wall” of German colonists stationed along the eastern border, tasked with reproducing at a feverish rate.

Any veteran who had served twelve years in the Nazi army would be dispatched to this frontier, given a farm and a rifle, and ordered to produce as many children as possible.

These soldiers were required to marry local women—German spouses were forbidden—so that the offspring would blend German and local bloodlines, creating a new generation of half‑German children. Hitler demanded each frontline veteran father at least seven children to bolster the population.

6. Pitting America And England Against Each Other

Publicly, Hitler insisted he had no intention of invading the United States, calling the notion “as fantastic as the invasion of the Moon.” He blamed “warmongers” for inflating fear for profit.

Privately, however, he expressed a deep‑seated hatred for Americanism, describing it as “half Judaized, half Negrified.” He believed the United States would eventually turn against Great Britain.

Hitler imagined that once America entered the war, it would seize the chance to assault Britain. He claimed that England and America would eventually go to war with each other, each harboring the greatest possible hatred, and that one of the two nations would have to disappear.

If Britain fell first, Hitler said the United States would face the full might of the Third Reich. Conversely, if America remained standing after Europe’s defeat, the Nazis would force a direct confrontation.

5. Enslaving Eastern Europe

Beyond the Holocaust, the Nazis had a monstrous blueprint for the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe, known as Generalplan Ost, aimed at eradicating their culture and populations.

The first wave targeted leaders: Soviet elites and cultural figures were systematically liquidated to prevent any sense of national pride from surviving.

Had the Nazis conquered Russia, they planned to deport 31 million Slavs to Siberia for forced labor, while a slave‑trade system modeled after American slavery would dispatch many more. To replace them, ten million ethnic Germans would be settled to create racially pure families.

Overall, within thirty years, the regime intended to deport or murder about 50 million people, effectively wiping out nearly every Eastern European.

4. Shooting Gandhi

In 1938, Hitler advised the British foreign minister to “shoot Gandhi,” and if that proved insufficient, to eliminate a dozen leading members of the Indian Congress.

Hitler regarded Indians as a “lower race” destined for Aryan domination, and he believed that, should the Nazis seize world power, Gandhi’s non‑violent resistance would be crushed.

During the war, Subhas Chandra Bose sought Hitler’s support for an Indian revolt against the British, rallying thousands. However, Hitler’s deep‑seated prejudices meant he never deployed Bose’s forces.

Instead, Bose allied with Japan, and India was slated to become part of the Greater East Asia Co‑Prosperity Sphere. If the Nazis later overran Japan, Hitler’s earlier declaration indicated that India would face harsh Aryan rule.

3. Enslaving All British Men

As Britain resisted, Hitler’s admiration for the English spirit waned, giving way to a desire to devastate their lives.

Under Nazi rule, every able‑bodied male aged 17‑45 would be transferred to continental Europe for forced labor, while women and children would remain at home until the boys turned seventeen.

All personal property would be confiscated, and any resistance would be met with immediate execution.

Heinrich Himmler even contemplated a more extreme measure: exterminating 80 percent of the British population as soon as the nation fell.

2. Letting Muslims Rule The Middle East

Surprisingly, Hitler expressed a preference for Islam over Christianity, declaring that the Mohammedan faith would have been more compatible with Nazi Germany.

Initially, he promised the Middle East to Italy, but later aligned with Haj Amin al‑Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who shared enemies: the British, Jews, and Communists.

Al‑Husseini sought to lead a fascist uprising against the British, but Hitler instructed him to wait until the war with the USSR concluded. Nonetheless, they collaborated on a death squad targeting Jews in Palestine.

When the Nazis faced defeat, Hitler blamed the loss on insufficient cooperation with Muslim allies, lamenting that he could have “emancipated the Moslem countries.” Had the Nazis triumphed, the Middle East would have become a region where fascism and Islam co‑ruled.

1. Converting Eastern Europe Into Jehovah’s Witnesses

While the Nazis were not planning to make the entire empire Muslim, Heinrich Himmler envisioned converting Eastern Europe to Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Although the regime murdered tens of thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses in concentration camps, Himmler admired the group’s fanatic work ethic combined with pacifism, believing it could be harnessed for Germany’s benefit.

He ordered Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner to promote the religion throughout Eastern Europe, hoping the Witnesses’ dedication would strengthen the Nazi state while their pacifist stance would curb violent resistance.

Thus, under a victorious Nazi world order, the continent would have endured slavery, genocide, and advanced weapons, alongside a surprising prevalence of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Throughout the relatively short history of the United States, a series of bold, ambitious plans have given rise to utopian communities that range from visionary to downright bizarre. These 10 ambitious plans showcase the dreamers who tried to build a better world on American soil, often with spectacular success, sometimes spectacular failure.

10. Coltsville, Connecticut

Samuel Colt is credited with changing gun manufacturing forever. He created the Colt pistol, the “gun that won the West,” and he did a lot of it at Colt’s Patent Fire‑Arms Manufacturing Company just outside of Hartford, Connecticut. It was there that he not only revolutionized manufacturing processes, built a new branch of the railway, and built a dyke to protect what had previously been an all‑but‑unusable floodplain, but he also tried to create a utopian village for all of his workers.

The village only exists in pieces today, including about 10 of the original 50 brick buildings that Colt built as six‑family homes. Those are now low‑income housing buildings, but Colt went even farther than that. He wanted to encourage immigrants to come to the US specifically to work in his factory, so he constructed the weird blue dome inspired by Russian architecture that still stands today. And it still looks as out of place as it ever did. There’s also a row of Swiss‑inspired chalets, and at one time, the entire area had been built up into an entire utopian community for his workers, all with the goal of making them feel at home in their new country. There were parks and botanical gardens, greenhouses, and even a German beer hall.

Colt built dance halls and social clubs, and he especially encouraged the development of a new craze that the kids seemed to like: the bicycle. He built churches and a concert hall, and he established the community’s own brass band. Even the look of the factory was designed to harken back to European architecture, and even though he made it perfectly clear that he expected his employees to work hard while they were on the clock, he also made a one‑hour lunch break mandatory.

Colt ultimately died of gout at the age of only 47, but the community that he had created for his workers continued to thrive under the guidance of his wife. Tragedy continued to cloud her life, though, and with three children dying young and their fourth dying in a boating accident, there was no one left to continue the community. Many of the buildings still stand, with the Colts’ home, Armsmear, willed away to become a retirement home for widows.

Now, there are plans to further preserve the community and Colt factory with the establishment of the Coltsville National Park.

9. Fruitlands Commune, Massachusetts

The Fruitlands Commune was established in June 1843, and by the new year, utopia was closed. Over the course of a handful of months, there were only truly about 14 people involved, and the man at the head of it all was Bronson Alcott. With him was his 10‑year‑old daughter: future writer Louisa May Alcott.

The goal was a straightforward one that ended up being not at all as simple as it sounded. Alcott wanted to return life to what it was like in the Garden of Eden, and that meant some pretty strict rules. The only food allowed was what they could grow on trees or vines because Alcott said that he didn’t want to consume anything animal‑based or anything that would mean a sacrifice of “life force.”

This whole thing was made even more complicated by the fact that none of the members of the commune actually had any farming experience, and they didn’t have any actual fruit trees on their property. And, because they couldn’t use anything that was taken from an animal, that also put a limit on the use of oil lamps, which in turn impacted heating and lighting. Alcott even went as far as to forbid the growing of root vegetables because he said the worms would be disturbed. Wool and wax were also forbidden, along with any kind of fertilizer. Given the climate of Massachusetts, it resulted not only in long periods of extreme discomfort, but chronic illness and, in turn, constant fighting.

Alcott’s attempts at luring new people to his community were an absolute failure, and his daughter’s diary is a pretty heartbreaking account of the fighting that went on between Alcott, his wife, and their other leaders.

The effort even got the attention of some of the country’s literary greats. Emerson and Thoreau both wrote about the endeavor. Specifically, though, they wrote about how it was going to fail. It wasn’t helped along by the fact that those who did try the experimental commune were a little bit more extreme than just eccentric. Their residents included a nudist who believed that clothes were a hindrance to the soul and a man who was so dedicated to his beard that “Persecuted for Wearing The Beard” was engraved on his tombstone.

8. Harmony and Economy, Pennsylvania & New Harmony, Indiana

The Harmony Society had its roots in Germany in the 1780s, but founder Johann George Rapp wanted more freedom for their Anabaptist sect. At the time, Germany was strictly Lutheran, so he and his adopted son picked up and moved to the United States.

The Rapps moved to Pennsylvania in 1803, and by 1805, The Harmony Society was official. And they thrived. By 1814, they had grown to 7,000 acres of farmland and Harmony was a blossoming town with 130 homes. Selling this property, they moved on to establish New Harmony, Indiana. Their new home was on 25,000 acres, and when they outgrew that, they headed back to Pennsylvania and founded Economy.

Not only were their settlements home to massive agricultural complexes, factories, and manufacturing industries, but by the middle of the 1800s, their per‑capita income averaged about 10 times the American average. They even built the largest communal hall in the US: the Feast‑Hall. So what happened? The world didn’t end.

Rapp was preparing his community for the end of the world and the return of Christ, which he believed was going to happen any day now. All of their wealth was being amassed in preparation for the end times, and at one point, Rapp had more than half a million dollars worth of gold stored in his home. They saw America as being the place where they could not only practice religious freedom, but where they would find true happiness. They were also free to practice alchemy, and Rapp, who was 70 at the time, was free to take on a young woman as his assistant. The gossip that was spread because of their relationship, and of her subsequent marriage to someone else, started a fracturing within the belief system of the society.

In 1829, the Harmonists received a letter that supposedly heralded the arrival of the “Lion of Judah.” Supposedly seeing the city as a safe haven against the evil that was going to be ending the world any time now, Dr. Johann Georg Goentgen arrived with his “Lion,” who also happened to claim that he was the Messiah. The Rapps, who were rightfully suspicious that the man was not, in fact, the Messiah, tried billing him for his stay in the community. The Harmonists were split over whether or not the man was the Messiah. (He not only wasn’t, but he had tried his schtick before, in Europe, with no success in getting anyone to abdicate any throne to him.) They eventually ran the pretend Messiah out of town, but it was the next big personality, a man named John Duss, who ultimately ran the community into the ground.

7. The Oneida Colony And The Bible Communists, New York

You can still visit the Oneida Community Mansion House today, located in upstate New York. The 8,600‑square‑meter (93,000 ft²) home was the home of a group of about 250 members all living together in what they called Biblical Communism.

The whole thing was the idea of John Humphrey Noyes. Born in 1811, he spent some time in the seminary before realizing that the church had it all kinds of backward. He believed that we weren’t supposed to be repenting and concentrating on not sinning, but instead, we were supposed to be searching for our own bit of personal perfection. It gave rise to his doctrine of Perfectionism, and he also believed that the Second Coming had already happened back when Christ’s immediate disciples were still around. What was left was for mankind to achieve a harmonious sort of perfect life on Earth.

Part of their belief system was to reject the conventional ideas of marriage as selfish. Instead, they focused on what they called Complex Marriage, where bonds of love and sex should be free to exist and develop between any and all couples and people. Exclusiveness was selfish.

All material property was shared by the community, and children were raised communally after their first year as well. In order to grow their order, they wanted to breed new generations rather than recruit new members, and with a practice called “Stirpiculture,” men and women deemed to be most appropriate to bear children together were requested to do so. Between 1869 and 1878, 58 children were born into the program.

After some trial and error, the community settled on the most profitable methods to sustain themselves: making fruit preserves, silk thread, and steel traps. Over the next decades, though, the organization had one of the strangest fates of all utopian societies: They reorganized into a company which still exists today.

6. George Pullman’s Capitalist Utopia, Illinois

Railroad tycoon and industrialist George Pullman meant well, sort of. The idea was that the town that he would give his name to would be a capitalist utopia, where his workers would live and be happy. And, in turn, they would be more productive and produce a better product. Pullman wasn’t just going to be the name of the town. He was going to own absolutely everything, and it was going to be built in the 1880s just outside of Chicago.

He planned for the town to house 12,000 people, and in three years, he spent about $6 million building his dream town. (That’s about $156 million today.) Everything was state of the art, from the infrastructure to the design of parks and trees. It had to be the best for his idea to work, after all, and it wasn’t the selfless attempt at making the world a better, more comfortable place that Samuel Colt had (perhaps ironically) tried to create.

Pullman believed that the working class masses were little more than cavemen who had learned how to control their thumbs. He believed that if he created a town that was beautiful enough and filled with enough fine things and culture, that he could elevate the working class into something better than what they were. If it sounds like the stuff of a dictatorship, it absolutely was. Pullman’s plan for his workforce also meant that no one was allowed to deviate from his grand vision right down to the assignment of certain types of people to certain homes within the community. Managers had the best homes, for example, and workers couldn’t actually own their homes. They had to pay rent. That was, of course, only if you were white. Otherwise, you weren’t even allowed to live in town.

And, if you didn’t live in town, Pullman took it personally. Sure, you could get a job with him, but he knew you weren’t a member of his community, and he made it clear that your job wasn’t all that safe.

Pullman also forbade his workers from drinking alcohol, but he did build a hotel in town to serve it to guests. He owned the one shopping center in town where everything was sold at incredibly high prices, and public gatherings were also forbidden. And there were also spies in town, there only to keep an eye on everyone and make sure Pullman’s laws were obeyed.

The whole thing came to a crashing halt with an economical downturn in 1893. People tolerated it because they had little choice, but when Pullman started cutting wages and kept the rents and pricing the same, the Pullman employees revolted.

Those that didn’t live in Pullman joined a labor union, which was also against the law in Pullman. Eventually, the US president called in the military to put down the action, which was more of a riot than a strike. Clearly, Pullman was only a utopia for the man who named it.

5. New Llano, Louisiana

Socialism wasn’t always a bad word in the US, and well into the 20th century, there were attempts at creating a socialist utopia within the confines of the nation. In 1917, one such community, called Llano del Rio, had already been successfully established in California. The problem was one of a water shortage, though, and forced to relocate, the colonists packed up and moved to Louisiana.

The colonists weren’t just a community; they were a corporation. They bought the Gulf Land & Lumber Company and, even though some of the neighboring communities weren’t too sure about these socialists, the idea of a communal lifestyle and sharing of resources became a popular one in the difficult environment. New Llano started advertising for new members, but internal problems led to internal fighting, and it wasn’t long before the Great Depression hit.

Suddenly, socialism didn’t seem so bad. New Llano was flooded with people wanting in, but many of the new members weren’t capable of pulling their own weight. The strain of the depression, coupled with the desperation of the flood of new members, meant that the colony needed to keep looking for new ways to support itself.

Ultimately, it couldn’t. At the time their corporate community folded in 1939, their businesses, homes, factories, and their 20,000 acres would be sold for a pittance.

4. Nashoba, Tennessee

Nashoba was a strange experiment in an anti‑slavery utopia that wasn’t just a community, but a chance for freedom. Established in the 1820s by Frances Wright, Nashoba was meant to be a community where slaves and former slaves would live, work, and be educated with the ultimate goal of not only freedom and self‑sufficiency, but of ultimately leaving the US.

Wright, born in Scotland, educated in London, and well‑traveled, was good friends with the Marquis de Lafayette. Their friendship afforded her the opportunity to travel in circles that included men like Thomas Jefferson, but when she saw the consequences of slavery, she wanted to do something to help free those that were born into bondage. With help from Lafayette and Andrew Jackson, she purchased 2,000 acres and set up Nashoba.

Wright also purchased the freedom of 15 slaves and settled them on her new property. The goal was to form a community in which they would not only work, but also learn. The community, she thought, was destined to be a multiracial one that would prepare former slaves for their independence.

It absolutely didn’t work, though. Conditions were incredibly harsh, and Wright was ill‑prepared for her role as overseer and teacher. By 1827, she had gone back to Europe to try to raise more money to support the community, and by the time she made it back to Nashoba, there were only a handful of people left. Discouraged, she headed up to spend some time in New Harmony, Indiana. By 1829, she went back to Nashoba to find 39 people struggling to make ends meet.

Faced with the failure of her social experiment but unwilling to abandon the people who were living there, she made arrangements for everyone to move to Haiti. They did, and they were welcomed by the country’s president.

3. Home Of Truth, Utah

In 1933, Marie Ogden settled her fledgling community in Dry Valley, Utah. A long‑time devotee of the spiritual and the occult, Ogden was at the head of the School of Truth and a utopian community that she claimed was going to be nothing less than God’s Kingdom on Earth.

She required that her followers do some of the pretty usual stuff, like giving up their earthly possessions and becoming at least mostly vegetarian.

They also had to believe in her magic typewriter which Ogden claimed would come to life and type out messages from God. It was her typewriter that told her Dry Valley was the center of everything, and that it was there that she would find the Home of Truth.

They settled not far from the Mormons, who originally paid them little attention. But Ogden was also determined to grow her community, and when she purchased the local newspaper, the San Juan Record, she also started publishing articles on their beliefs and the messages she was receiving. In 1935, they published an article called “Rebirth of a Soul,” in which they talked about the death of one of their members, Edith Peshak.

She wasn’t really, truly dead, though, she was just resting. Ogden was insistent that she was in a state of purification, and when local authorities investigated, they found that the commune was in possession of Peshak’s body. However, it was preserved in a way similar to mummification and, since it presented no health risks, they couldn’t do much about it.

Two years passed, and gradually, when Peshak didn’t return to life, Ogden’s followers began to trickle away. Eventually, one of her former members confessed that he had been a part of the group that had constructed a funeral pyre for the dead woman, and after that, the commune fell apart.

2. Octagon City, Kansas

Octagon City was supposed to be a utopian community based around exactly that: the octagon. Started in 1856 by Henry Clubb, the idea was originally going to encompass a handful of views that he had very strong feelings on. It was going to be a vegetarian society, and with the help of the octagon buildings, it was going to be super‑healthy.

The ideas about the octagons weren’t his. In 1848, noted phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler published a book called The Octagon House: A Home For All, or A New, Cheap, Convenient, and Superior Mode of Building. A house shaped like an octagon wasn’t just a house that optimized space, but it was also a house that meant more natural sunlight and better air circulation. Hence, better health.

When Henry Clubb decided to use the idea as the basis of his new, healthy‑living city, it was a dismal failure. Most of the people who were willing to give it a chance left only after a few months, mostly because they had been promised that they were moving into a busy, blossoming city. In reality, it was tents and a log cabin. Even though the most basic and important part of his community was that it was going to be vegetarian, he failed so completely at recruiting vegetarians that he eventually opened it up to everyone in an attempt to save the idea.

He was convinced, though, that the combination of the octagons and being vegetarian was the thing. Not eating meat, he said, would be likely to make you immune to disease, it would allow you to live longer, and it would allow you to live better. He attempted to appeal to the more intelligent people, who wanted to reap the benefits of a vegetarian diet, to come and join his commune.

As impressive as his sales pitch might have been, when New Yorker Miriam Colt wrote about her experience there, it involved words more along the lines of “dreary” and “sinister” instead of “utopia.” Needless to say, those people that he did succeed in recruiting mostly kept on moving.

There’s nothing left of the settlement today. Until 2007, a historian had attempted to keep up a small memorial to the failed commune, but finally gave up when vandals showed no signs of giving in.

1. The Society Of The Woman In The Wilderness, Pennsylvania

Many people who left Europe for the US did so because they were searching for religious freedom. In the 1690s, Johann Zimmerman, a one‑time Lutheran minister and Heidelberg University professor, gathered a group of people who had the same desire he did: They wanted to make their religious choices for themselves. As that absolutely wasn’t going to happen in Germany, they decided to head to Pennsylvania, where William Penn had begun his “Holy Experiment,” to create a community of religious tolerance and freedom.

Zimmerman and his followers believed that religious freedom wasn’t just important, but it was important right then. He’d read the signs, and he believed that the Second Coming was going to be in 1694. Not only that, but Pennsylvania was right in line with all the signs, too. He believed 40 was an important number, and Philadelphia was on the 40th parallel.

He died before the group could leave on their trip, but Johannes Kelpius quickly took the reins. The group made it to America and founded their society in the Pennsylvania wilderness. They devoted themselves not only to religion, but to celibacy, alchemy, astrology, and prayer. Calling themselves the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness, the goal was to create a perfect community where they were free to practice their numerology and their alchemy. They also wanted a place to set up their telescope and watch for Christ to return. Needless to say, he never did.

The original group began to fracture, with members and monks wandering off when the Second Coming didn’t, well, come. Kelpius died in 1708, succumbing to tuberculosis, and the order continued on for another 40 years. Even though they kept their isolated ways, they made it a point to help anyone who sought them out, offering everything from medical knowledge to carpentry skills. Far from forgotten, in 1961, the Rosicrucians claimed their society as the first in the New World, naming Kelpius as America’s first Rosicrucian Master.

The world’s powers have to be ready for anything. After all, war could erupt at any moment, and they must stay prepared to fight. That’s why it’s highly probable every nation on the planet has a contingency plan to seize each of its neighbours, just in case.

10 War Plan Red: The American Plan To Invade Canada

There was a period when the United States wasn’t entirely sure which side it would pick in World War II. Officials even mulled the idea of striking at Britain first, and that opening move would have involved an invasion of Canada.

If Britain decided to attack the U.S., the Americans feared the British would set up forces in Canada. To pre‑empt that, they drafted a plan to strike Canada before the British could use it.

The objective was to seize Halifax, denying the British a vital port. To accelerate the takeover, they contemplated bombarding the city with poisonous gas, then pushing on to Niagara Falls to capture its power stations.

From there, the operation would turn into a full‑scale invasion, with troops marching through Quebec, Winnipeg and the nickel mines of western Ontario. Simultaneously, the Navy would swing south to occupy Jamaica, the Bahamas and Bermuda. With British America in their hands, they expected Britain to plead for peace.

The only snag was the possibility of Canada declaring neutrality. If Canadians tried to stay pacifist, the plan called for forceful seizure of ports and territory, ensuring the U.S. would not leave them untouched.

9 Defense Scheme Number One: The Canadian Plan To Invade the US

It sounds wild that the United States drafted a plan to invade Canada, but the reverse is even stranger: Canada had its own secret scheme, and they actually conceived it first.

By 1921, Canadian strategists were already fretting that the Americans might launch an attack. They prepared a pre‑emptive counter‑strike, even sending an officer across the border to scout vulnerable points.

Canada never intended to permanently conquer the United States. Their goal was simply to tie down American forces long enough for Britain to intervene. The plan called for troops to move down the West Coast, while a Quebec contingent would seize Albany and a Maritime force would take Maine.

After catching the U.S. off‑guard, they would retreat across the border, leaving a scorched‑earth trail—bridges, railways, factories, farms—all reduced to ashes, crippling the American war machine and buying time for allies.

If the scheme ever unfolded, the Canadians believed they could count on Japan, France and Mexico to join the effort, each eager to see the “modern Yank” humbled.

8 Operation Dropshot: The American Plan To Nuke The Soviet Union

If history had taken a different turn, the Cold War might never have been “cold.” Instead, it could have ignited into a full‑blown nuclear apocalypse that would have erased Russia from the map.

In the early days, the United States was the sole holder of atomic weapons and drafted multiple plans to unleash them on the USSR. One of the most aggressive proposals called for a sudden strike of 300 nuclear bombs on 200 Soviet targets, followed by a swift land invasion that planners assumed would be short‑lived.

The U.S. even penciled in a specific date—January 1, 1957—to unleash this nuclear barrage. The plan was shelved only after the Soviets successfully tested their own atomic bomb, which made the American leadership rethink a direct nuclear assault.

7 Seven Days To The River Rhine: The Soviet Plan To Nuke Half Of Europe

The Soviets, of course, had their own terrifying blueprints. One document from 1979, now public, outlined a scenario that would have ignited World War III.

The premise assumed NATO would launch a nuclear first strike against Poland, a premise so outlandish that many suspect it was merely a pretext to justify a massive Soviet response. Regardless, the USSR prepared to hit NATO hard.

Under the plan, Soviet forces would unleash 7.5 megaton‑worth of atomic weapons on targets across West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark, then push troops forward to seize everything up to the Rhine River.

The Soviets anticipated massive casualties. They expected cities like Prague and Warsaw to be obliterated by the nuclear blasts, and even plotted a suicidal mission for the Polish army. Within a week, they projected over two million Polish deaths, sparking a new global conflict.

6 The Nazi Plan To Invade Japan

The Nazis never trusted that their alliance with Japan would endure forever. Their partnership was a marriage of convenience, and once the war ended, they expected a showdown between the “white” and “yellow” races.

Hitler told his staff that this clash wouldn’t happen for a century, but he still ordered preparations. Heinrich Himmler was tasked with readying the SS for a future war against Japan, fearing that peace would make German troops soft.

To keep the SS battle‑ready, Himmler ordered relentless racial campaigns and even contemplated posting troops to the icy reaches of Siberia as a form of hardening. He also envisioned a massive population‑building program, urging Germans to breed like a “botanical garden” to match the projected billions of Japanese soldiers.

5 National Redoubt: The Swiss Plan To Stop Being Neutral

Switzerland wasn’t wholly committed to perpetual neutrality. In 1940, surrounded by Axis forces, they seriously contemplated abandoning their peaceful stance.

Realizing the Axis could turn on them at any moment, the Swiss began pulling troops away from the borders and relocating them deep into the Alpine mountains, constructing a chain of fortified bunkers and strongholds.

The Swiss also staged war‑games, reenacting battles happening in neighboring nations, and deliberately displayed these preparations to the Axis powers, hoping to send a clear warning that any invasion would be costly.

This wasn’t mere paranoia. Nazi Germany had its own secret operation—Operation Tannenbaum—aimed at conquering Switzerland. Hitler famously described the neutral country as “a pimple on the face of Europe.” The Swiss Alpine defenses were precisely the deterrent they hoped would halt a German onslaught.

4 The Turkish Plan To Invade Syria

Most of the plans listed above are decades old, but that doesn’t mean modern states have stopped crafting invasion blueprints. They simply keep newer schemes under wraps, and occasionally, leaks happen—as they did in 2014 when Turkey’s plot to invade Syria surfaced on YouTube.

In the leaked recording, Turkish ministers discuss a potential terrorist attack on the tomb of Suleyman Shah, the father of the Ottoman Empire’s founder. Rather than fearing the attack, one minister argued it could serve as a perfect pretext for a larger military incursion.

Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan even suggested staging a fake attack if none occurred, saying, “I’ll send four men from Syria, if that’s what it takes.” He insisted legitimacy could be manufactured, giving Turkey a convenient excuse to send troops into Syria.

3 The Israeli Plan To Invade Iran

Between 2010 and 2012, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak convened at least three times to plot a full‑scale invasion of Iran. Their plans nearly came to fruition, but IDF Chief Gabi Ashkenazi stepped in and halted the operation.

Three leaked recordings reveal Netanyahu and Barak hashing out the details. In 2010, they were close to securing ministerial backing, but Ashkenazi delivered a passionate speech about the human cost, persuading them to pause.

Undeterred, the duo revived the scheme in 2012, this time with the United States reportedly ready to back the assault. They even conducted joint drills to prepare for a coordinated strike, but for reasons still unclear, the invasion was ultimately called off.

2 Project A119: The American Plan To Nuke The Moon

In 1959, the U.S. Army decided that conquering Earth wasn’t ambitious enough; they drafted a plan to detonate a nuclear device on the Moon.

The operation served a dual purpose: a scientific experiment (though many suspect it was more about showcasing American might) and a psychological weapon aimed at terrifying the Soviet Union. Scientists calculated the blast size needed to make the explosion visible from the ground, hoping the sight would cripple Soviet morale.

The mission was ultimately abandoned after advisors warned that nuking the Moon would be a public relations disaster. Nevertheless, the project got as far as hiring astrophysicist Carl Sagan to crunch the numbers. Had it proceeded, the Moon would have been blasted before any Apollo landing.

1 War Plan White: The American Plan To Fight Its Own People

During the first half of the twentieth century, the United States drafted plans to invade virtually every nation on the planet—including itself. This internal contingency was known as War Plan White, a strategy to suppress what officials termed a “left‑wing radical insurrection.”

At the time, labor unions were pushing for greater rights, and the government feared these movements might spiral into a communist uprising. War Plan White outlined how the Corps of Engineers would seize control of public utilities, the Navy would protect military assets, and the Army would march through civilian populations to restore order.

A secret police force was slated to be established in Pennsylvania, tasked with monitoring troublemakers and determining when lethal force could be justified. The plan even delved into the legalities of shooting American civilians under specific circumstances.

As decades passed, the strategy was revised for new threats. The most recent leaked version addressed a potential uprising by Black citizens demanding civil rights, showing how the United States continued to contemplate using military force against its own populace.

When you hear the phrase 10 ridiculous plans, you might picture sci‑fi fantasies, but the ultra‑wealthy are actually cashing in on some truly outlandish schemes. From window‑less mega‑dormitories to attempts at resurrecting the Titanic, these ten projects reveal how far the richest can stretch imagination – and money – into the absurd.

10 Ridiculous Plans Unveiled

10 Munger Hall

Back in 2016, the ever‑controversial Charles Munger announced a student housing concept that many architects immediately dubbed a “human torture experiment” and a “jail masquerading as a dormitory”. The 11‑story edifice, nicknamed “Dormzilla”, was slated for UC Santa Barbara and promised space for a staggering 4,500 undergraduates. Yet Munger, who proudly admits never having opened a book on architecture, designed the building with almost no windows – bedrooms resemble underground bunkers illuminated only by artificial sunlight projected from screens.

When pressed, Munger claimed his vision was cutting‑edge, but a dissenting architect who resigned from the campus design committee called the plan “unsupportable” from the perspective of a parent or any human being. The architect described it as a “social and psychological experiment”. Munger openly admits the sleeping quarters are meant to be uncomfortable, steering students toward communal spaces – a design that is anything but pandemic‑friendly. If you imagined the hall as a city, it would rank just behind Dhaka in population density, packing roughly 221,000 residents per square mile.

The final kicker? Munger allegedly bribed the university with a $200 million endowment on the condition that the hall be built. The school, in a statement that sounded more like a hostage negotiation, said it was “delighted” to receive the project, ignoring reports from a similar dorm at the University of Michigan where residents complained of windowlessness, perpetual darkness, damp, moldy bathrooms, and a total loss of any sense of time.

9 Seasteading

Before his well‑known backing of Donald Trump’s presidential bid, Peter Thiel poured $1.7 million into a concept called seasteading – essentially a plan to build tax‑free floating cities. In 2008 he seeded the Seasteading Institute, a collective of billionaire dreamers frustrated by government levies. By 2017, Thiel admitted to the New York Times that the technology needed to construct self‑sustaining oceanic habitats simply didn’t exist, especially given the massive expense required to create islands miles away from any shore.

The institute pressed on without its original benefactor, aiming to erect massive platform‑based “Waterworld” settlements in French Polynesia. This meant the venture would have to obey local laws, even as it tried to carve out tax‑exempt zones. The dream remains distant; the billionaires are still land‑locked while they grapple with the reality that seawater itself is a formidable engineering obstacle.

In short, the notion of living on a floating tax haven remains a pipe‑dream, with technical challenges and jurisdictional headaches keeping the project anchored firmly in the realm of fantasy.

8 XAI

In July 2023, Elon Musk announced a brand‑new AI venture called xAI, proclaiming its mission to “understand reality”. Recruiting talent from the likes of DeepMind, Google, and OpenAI, the startup aims to push artificial intelligence to unprecedented heights. Co‑founder Greg Yang, a veteran of Apple, Google, and Microsoft, says xAI will develop a “theory of everything” for large neural networks, though concrete details remain scarce.

The company’s website boldly claims its goal is to decipher the true nature of the universe – a lofty ambition Musk later summed up as “what the hell is really going on”. Critics, however, point out that trying to extract cosmic truths from silicon chips is as whimsical as hoping a calculator will answer the meaning of life. As Douglas Adams famously suggested, the answer might just be 42.

Even Tesla investors appear wary. Musk clarified that any collaboration between xAI and Tesla would be strictly “arms‑length” to keep the two companies’ investor bases separate – a corporate euphemism that essentially admits even his own backers think the project borders on the absurd.

7 Stealing Patagonia

British magnate Joe Lewis, who amassed his fortune by speculating against the British pound and Mexican peso, turned his attention to Patagonia in the 1990s. He purchased over 10,000 hectares, including the pristine Lake Escondido, and then exploited a legal loophole that declares all bodies of water public property in Argentina. By funneling the acquisition through a shell corporation, Hidden Lake SA, Lewis effectively locked the lake away from locals.

Authorities have struggled to dissolve the shell, which exists solely to sidestep Argentine law prohibiting foreigners from owning certain lands. Meanwhile, Lewis’s hired enforcers have barred Argentine citizens from accessing the lake, essentially enforcing a private border around his “parallel state”. Bribes to officials and the press have kept the area off‑limits, reinforcing his control.

The situation illustrates a classic billionaire mindset: relying on legal loopholes and paid‑for politicians to shield personal assets. Local protests and violent confrontations have erupted as Argentines attempt to reclaim access, and Lewis now faces a looming jail sentence in New York for insider trading, restricting his ability to travel abroad.

6 Titanic II

Australian mining tycoon Clive Palmer, often likened to a real‑life Donald Trump, has a penchant for resurrecting the past. After a failed attempt at a dinosaur‑themed safari park, Palmer set his sights on recreating the RMS Titanic. His company, Blue Star Line, proposes a near‑identical replica, christened Titanic II, with only a few meters added for extra stability. The ship would mirror the original’s three passenger classes, dining rooms, décor, and itinerary – even risking a collision with an iceberg.

While the idea has surfaced repeatedly over the years, modern maritime regulations would prevent an exact copy. Safety requirements demand redesigns of stairways, doors, and cabin layouts, and using coal power would be untenable. Consequently, the replica would fall short of the original’s grandeur and relevance, especially in an era where air travel has eclipsed oceanic voyages.

Critics argue that even a faithful recreation would be a nostalgic curiosity at best, dwarfed by contemporary super‑liners and lacking any genuine purpose beyond spectacle.

5 The Line

Saudi Arabia’s NEOM project, unveiled in 2021, includes a centerpiece known simply as “The Line” – a proposed 200‑meter‑wide, 170‑kilometer‑long urban strip. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, notorious for his ego‑driven ventures, slashed the original 2,000‑meter width down to a narrow corridor, insisting residents would “feel” the city’s pulse. Experts quickly labeled the concept impractical, citing concerns over livability, infrastructure, and environmental impact.

Despite the backlash, construction has proceeded. A massive trench now cuts through the country’s untouched northwest, and reports indicate that local communities were forcibly displaced – some even sentenced to death – to clear the way for the megastructure. The line’s viability remains highly questionable.

In essence, The Line stands as a stark example of billionaire ambition overriding realistic urban planning, with human costs largely ignored.

4 Asgardia

In 2022, Azerbaijani billionaire Igor Ashurbeyli was re‑elected as head of Asgardia, billed as the world’s first “space nation”. While the venture boasts a virtual National Ark and a handful of high‑profile advisors – including a Hong Kong space‑law professor and a former European Space Agency official – its tangible presence is limited to a Rubik’s‑cube‑sized satellite orbiting Earth.

The lofty goal is to launch an Ark into orbit and eventually host the first human birth in space, granting citizenship and residency to 2 % of the global population. However, Asgardia’s constitution reads more like a dystopian charter, restricting free speech to align with “Supreme Values” and granting sweeping powers to Ashurbeyli. The organization’s secretive parliamentary sessions and heavy‑handed control raise questions about its true nature.

Despite the grand vision, the space nation remains largely symbolic, with real‑world governance and legal frameworks still firmly grounded on Earth.

3 The Metaverse

Mark Zuckerberg’s obsession with the Metaverse persists, even after Meta publicly declared a shift away from the concept. Employees describe his approach as whimsically vague, swapping the term “metaverse” for “cyberspace” without delivering concrete meaning. In practice, the Metaverse resembles a virtual‑reality playground designed to harvest more user data and monetize every interaction.

The platform would be accessed via a suite of devices, mirroring the internet’s pervasive reach but with intensified tracking across all hardware. Critics argue that the experience offers little beyond existing virtual worlds like Second Life, merely repackaged under a corporate banner and riddled with aggressive data‑collection practices.

Ultimately, Meta’s Metaverse functions as a placeholder for an undefined vision, lacking substantive innovation while promising an all‑encompassing digital realm that may never materialize.

2 Calico Labs

Google co‑founder Larry Page launched Calico Labs in 2013 with a bold promise to “make the world a lot better” by tackling the ultimate problem: death. Backed by deep pockets, the venture seeks to extend human lifespan dramatically, positioning its founders as modern‑day pharaohs intent on reshaping biology.

However, extending the lives of the world’s wealthiest raises ethical, ecological, and societal concerns. Issues range from unequal access to potential over‑population, and the paradox of immortal elites becoming ever more detached from ordinary humanity. Even if the technology succeeded, the resulting power dynamics could lead to unprecedented surveillance and control over reproductive rights and thought.

Critics warn that a world where a select few achieve immortality could devolve into a dystopia, with the state imposing draconian measures to protect the longevity of its elite.

1 The 2045 Initiative

The 2045 Initiative, conceived by Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov, aims to transfer human consciousness into artificial bodies – a Plan B for longevity. Though first announced five years ago, progress has stalled, with the most ambitious milestone – a brain‑computer interface controlling a robotic replica by 2025 – still unmet.

Its roadmap outlines four stages: first, achieving full BCI control of a robotic shell (missed deadline 2020); second, transplanting an actual human brain into a synthetic body by 2025; third, uploading consciousness into non‑biological platforms within the next decade; and finally, creating holographic avatars – “bodies of light” – by 2045. The timeline relies heavily on exponential tech growth, citing Moore’s Law, yet many argue the premise rests on a flawed view that consciousness is merely a product of neural activity.

While the ultimate goal may be out of reach, the initiative is already spurring a surge in elective cybernetic enhancements – from prosthetic limbs to retinal implants – as companies chase lucrative markets for body augmentation.

In short, the 2045 Initiative exemplifies how a generation of billionaire‑driven transhumanists can turn speculative science fiction into a multi‑billion‑dollar industry, even if the lofty vision of immortal digital avatars remains a distant dream.

Movie villains enshrine themselves forever in our imaginations with their larger-than-life personas, their zany outfits, and of course, their grand and diabolical designs on life as we know it. While some villains’ plans are actually quite ingenious and would have been very hard to undo if not for the last-minute intervention of our intrepid heroes, these are not the type of plans we are here to discuss.

In this list, we will go over villains whose plans seem okay on the surface but are almost laughably bad once you stop to think about them for a minute. Spoilers ahead—you’ve been warned.

10 Emperor’s Plan at End of Rise of Skywalker Is Actually Completely Hilarious

At the end of Rise of Skywalker, we find out the Emperor is alive (with no explanation) and that he has made a thousand Star Destroyers that have planet-destroying super-lasers similar to the one on the Death Stars. However, there are some serious problems with Palpatine’s plan, not even getting into the fact that the element of surprise is useful, and he announces himself before his ships have left dry-dock. Worse yet, though, is that the plan, in general, has more holes than swiss cheese. The thing about the Death Stars is that they were extremely hard to destroy, the first one had a single weak point, and the second one would have been nigh impossible to destroy with a fleet from outside if they had managed to finish building it.

However, star destroyers are quite destructible, and rogue fleets of smaller ships, as we see at the end of the movie, would easily swarm and destroy them before they could get within planet-destroying range. Considering how large the Star Wars galaxy is presumed to be, the random people fighting the empire are just a motley group that Lando threw together in a day; it’s hardly close to the strength of all galactic privateers. Even if they got free, the Emperor’s group of Star Destroyers would have quickly become too spread out and been annihilated by tiny fleets of freighters and suicidal fighter pilots.^[1]

9 Once Scar Tricked Mufasa to His Death, All He Needed Was to Eat Simba

We all know the story of The Lion King, how Scar tricked Mufasa to his death while also making Simba self-exile from guilt, thinking it was his fault. And the truth is, Scar made an absolutely stupendous error. Once Mufasa was gone, all Scar had to do was eat Simba—the little lion cub would have posed no real threat at that size—and then kill and eat any other remaining lion cubs that were not his own offspring. After that, he could simply move in as the leader, and no one would question him.

In the lion kingdom, this is normal behavior. Whenever a new male lion or lions take control of the pride, they simply kill and eat any lion cubs that are not their own offspring and then replenish the pack with their own DNA. While it is a nice Disney movie, they wouldn’t go with such a dark plot. In real life, the story would have been a lot shorter, and Simba would have been in Scar’s belly. For those wondering, only about 20% of lion cubs ever make it to adulthood. ^[2]

8 The Machines in The Matrix Waste Power to Keep Humans Alive

In the first movie, we are told by Morpheus that the robots are keeping us alive in order to use us as giant batteries to keep them powered. However, this is one of the biggest plot holes in movie history because it really doesn’t make any sense. As far as the laws of thermodynamics and science in general go, this is a really dumb idea. Even if you could theoretically make it work, you could generate more power by just burning the resources you are using to keep the humans alive.

The only explanation—apart from it being a plot hole and the writers not understanding science—is that the machines, being partly sentient, are amused by us. Or they have some kind of affection toward us and actually don’t want us entirely destroyed. The battery idea is something they could want us to think, so we don’t realize we are basically a reality show for their amusement.^[3]

7 The Villains in Jurassic World Are So Dumb, Cartoonish Doesn’t Begin to Describe It

Jurassic World is a movie full of stupid choices. From leaving the door open while checking the pen of a supposedly escaped dinosaur (that we know can camouflage) to attacking said dinosaur with a bunch of guys on foot with tranquilizer guns and all the way up to the CEO of the park, who is a novice helicopter pilot, trying to destroy the escapee with a machine gun attachment and ending up crashing into a giant glass enclosure of pterodactyls.

What we are saying is that the decisions in this movie are already some of the dumbest imaginable, and the people in it are all already cartoonishly stupid, but the villains are beyond even that. InGen is up to its old tricks, and they want to train raptors to fight in battle for them, like trained dogs or something. And they somehow believe it will revolutionize warfare.

In order to test this theory, they do a live-fire exercise where they free a bunch of raptors and try to fight alongside them to kill another dinosaur. In order to punish them for their own hubris, the raptors decide to team up with the dinosaur they are meant to catch, and helpfully murder the rest of the park mercenaries they are supposed to be helping.^[4]

6 Erik Killmonger’s Plan Would Work if Wakanda Didn’t Exist in the Marvel Universe

In Black Panther, we learn the “poor” nation of Wakanda is actually a secret paradise of riches and technology, boosted by a rare metal called vibranium native to the region. This technology has allowed them to hide from colonialism, but some felt they should have fought back against it. This included the uncle of the current Black Panther, who was destroyed for his betrayal of his country, leaving behind a son in America.

That son, who goes by the moniker Killmonger, devises a plan to rejoin Wakanda, challenge T’Challa for the throne, and take control of the country. Then he plans to give out vibranium weapons to all the various rebel groups he has throughout the world and start a revolution where they take over and rule from Wakanda as lords of the entire world, finally righting all the wrongs of slavery and colonialism and making sure everyone lives in proper peace and harmony. The problem with this plan is that the Avengers exist, as do all the other superpowered heroes in this universe, one of whom already makes use of vibranium technology.^[5]

5 Professor Moriarty Isn’t Much of a Genius, Just a Jerk With a Lot of Shell Companies

At the beginning of Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows, we learn the world is lurching towards war, and Holmes suspects Moriarty is behind it all. After some very dangerous investigations that almost cost himself, John Watson, and John’s new wife their lives, he discovers that his arch-nemesis Moriarty has been secretly pulling strings to make things worse while being a good friend of the prime minister and a supposed man of peace on the outside. We learn that the real reason Moriarty went to incredibly absurd lengths to start an entire world war is so that he can “own the bullets and the bandages” while people fight. Things he owns by investing in hundreds of shell companies—something Holmes destroys by stealing and decoding his secret notebook.

The silly thing about all this is that there is no need to go to all this trouble and potentially end up getting caught—like he did—and being pulled over a waterfall. You don’t need to start a war to get governments to buy bullets and bandages. They buy them in peacetime anyway and stock up anytime you make things sound slightly worse. Moriarty would probably make more money over time by keeping tensions high but not starting a war, so countries still had strong economies to buy but felt the need to stockpile.^[6]

4 Ozymandias Plan in Watchmen Would Just Start a World War, Not Unite People

In the movie Watchmen, Nixon is in a third term after winning the Vietnam War with the help of superheroes and has now outlawed them further. One anti-hero named Rorschach believes former heroes are being targeted, but it soon becomes clear something more is going on. As the story progresses, the blue, radioactive, god-like superhero Doctor Manhattan is accused of giving people cancer and leaves the Earth in disgrace and sadness.

Not long after this, we reach the lair of another hero named Ozymandias, known to be the smartest and fastest man in the world. After a convoluted final battle, he activates several superweapons that destroy major cities in every major country on Earth, especially the nuclear ones. And he makes it look like it was Doctor Manhattan. The entire world somehow unites behind Doctor Manhattan as a common enemy, who believes it’s best to make them think he did it, so there will be peace and a permanent end to the cold war. He then leaves the planet willingly so the charade will continue.

None of this, of course, makes any sense at all. The fact is that Doctor Manhattan is still seen as an American hero, and even if he did destroy U.S. cities as well, this would almost certainly unite the countries against each other, not just make them angry at Doctor Manhattan. And nations would be especially angry at the USA for unleashing him.^[7]

3 Despite J.K. Rowling’s Justifications, Voldemort’s Plan for His Horcruxes Is Very Stupid

In book six of Harry Potter, we learn Voldemort has been splitting his soul when he kills people and hiding the pieces in objects to anchor himself to the mortal world. Harry, at first, is despairing, wondering at the enormity of the task ahead of them, as Dumbledore explains that all these magic vessels must be destroyed so the dark wizard will no longer be anchored to the Earth. Dumbledore reassures him, though, explaining that Voldemort would have been sentimental and wanted to put them in objects that had value. And also ones he would be able to get back to if he needed to. However, apart from vanity, there is really no reason to put them in anything special; it just makes it easier for your enemies to identify. And to make matters worse, putting them somewhere you can get to them gives your enemies a way to get to them and is basically pointless.

Even if he could put his soul back together, there is no indication he even wanted to, as he thought having it in seven pieces—”the most powerfully magical number”—would be a big deal. And finally, if he had put them in random objects and then magicked them so someone couldn’t get back to them, people would have to keep destroying his body, and he would keep coming back like Ganondorf again and again.^[8]

2 The Aliens in Signs Are So Incompetent It’s Like a Child’s Fevered Dream

In the movie Signs, our heroes start to notice strange crop circles, then weird noises on the radio. Before long, things have escalated to the point that they see a bizarre video on television where what looks like a gray alien is seen walking through the frame. Not long after that, they are huddled in their basement, expecting an impending alien invasion. As the movie progresses, we find that aliens who managed to spend unknown light years traversing the galaxy and have humanlike appendages somehow have more trouble opening doors than a common housecat and cannot break through wood. Also, by the way, they are incredibly weak to water.

When the movie ends, it is accepted that “they came for us, to harvest us,” which leaves us with some of the dumbest aliens imaginable. They are smart enough to have technology that can invade Earth but don’t have bio suits to protect them from water, the most prevalent thing on the planet—something they are deathly allergic to. And they are somehow trying to harvest us, despite us being mostly bags of squishy water with some crunchy bones within. Even after scouting first and setting up landing pads in our fields, they couldn’t even figure out how to protect themselves from water or a baseball bat… and couldn’t open a simple wooden door.^[9]

1 Thanos’s Entire Plan Is Absurd on Its Face

We all know of Thanos’s plan to snap half of all life out of existence using the Infinity Stones in order to solve what he believes is a serious resource problem throughout the galaxy. However, there are a few giant holes in his plan. For one, his plan also has him destroying half of plant and animal life, which doesn’t really fix the resource problem. Suddenly eliminating half of the people does free up some current resources, but it also culls a lot of people who may have been in important positions or doing important things. Now, for argument’s sake, say Thanos thinks of all this and makes sure the snap doesn’t affect people driving a car or flying a plane, so we don’t have extra casualties, leaves a fair distribution of people with the right expertise per region, doesn’t touch plant or animal life, and leaves almost nothing to chance.

Major problems still remain, though, because most resource issues are actually infrastructure related, and for argument’s sake, even if they weren’t, killing a bunch of people doesn’t change the fact people will just breed again. Thanos destroys the stones so no one can undo what he did, but that means he cannot do it again once populations inevitably boom again, especially with all the abundant resources they now have. In the end, Thanos just wants to commit genocide, and no positives would be gained. At least in the comics, they were more honest about it, and he just wanted to do it to be a big shot and impress the female deity that personified death.^[10]

The first genetically engineered organism was created in 1973. That was just bacteria and not something that most everyday people would be excited about, but it set a precedent. Genetic engineering has grown in leaps and bounds since then, usually for the benefit of mankind. Scientific illiteracy and propaganda have made people suspicious of GMOs and now companies proudly proclaim their products aren’t GMO even when a third of all Nobel science laureates have pleaded with governments to make use of them because GMO crops could save literally millions of lives every year. 

So what’s holding us back? It could be these somewhat more bizarre uses of genetic engineering technology. 

10. Bitcoin Mice

When we say plans for genetic engineering, keep in mind that doesn’t necessarily mean execution. No one has done what we’re about to describe yet. They just had the idea. And what idea is that? To encode Bitcoin into the DNA of a mouse. 

The group behind the plan is actually just two guys and they don’t have funding, so don’t expect to see any high value crypto mice on the market anytime soon. The plan, however, is interesting, if nothing else.

The idea here is to store Bitcoin in a cold wallet like anyone might with their cryptocurrency. Then a digital key can be generated, which is also standard. However, things take a left turn at this point. The group’s plan would be to enlist the aid of a genetics firm to translate that key into a genetic ATGC sequence that can be written on DNA. That can then be inserted into a mouse so that a baby mouse can be born with the key encoded in its DNA. The genetics of the mouse will open the wallet and give access to the cryptocurrency therein. 

According to BitMouseDAO, the group that conjured up the idea, the mouse wouldn’t be harmed. And the whole idea is more of an art project than a way to manipulate currency or how it’s used. But for added value, an image of the mouse as an NFT could also be included. 

9. Muscle Dogs

Most genetic engineering is done in a fairly subdued way. One of the most famous cases involved making a strain of rice that was golden yellow and packed with vitamin A that could have saved millions of lives. By and large, yellow rice doesn’t look all that crazy though, and so the rice isn’t particularly shocking in terms of appearances. For that kind of genetic engineering, you need to look at Chinese muscle dogs. 

Researchers edited out a certain gene in the dogs so that they’d develop to be more muscular. In fact, they have twice the muscle mass of normal dogs. And while that sounds like some real mad scientist stuff, it’s arguably for a beneficial purpose.

Dog anatomy and human anatomy are not all that dissimilar in some regards. Researchers were looking into how to prevent human diseases like muscular dystrophy or Parkinson’s, the kinds of conditions that lead to the wasting away of muscle. That said, the possibility of breeding dogs specifically with this mutation also exists which could make them more powerful hunters or runners. And because the mutation works the same in humans, the specific creation of more powerful human athletes could potentially also be a result. 

8. Radiation Cats

The world at large is against genetically modifying things as simple as fruits and vegetables, so you can imagine the uproar if someone started genetically modifying cars, the beloved spokes animals of the internet itself. The idea has been proposed, however, and in the most sci-fi way imaginable.

One of the biggest drawbacks to our current use of nuclear power is the waste it produces. Nuclear waste is very radioactive and dangerous and is going to remain that way for generations. The people who have to deal with these problems have pondered what we can do to save not just people today from radiation, but future people.

The possibility exists that in 10,000 years or so, any language spoken today will be lost. Any knowledge of our nuclear waste storage facilities could be equally lost. How do you warn the people of tomorrow? Radiation cats.

The idea was proposed to create genetically modified cats that would change color when exposed to radiation. That way, in the future, our ancestors will be able to see a visual sign of danger. Presumably the story of what a radiation cat was would somehow be passed down generationally to make the phenomenon something more than a cool trick. 

7. Anti-Cancer Beer

Have you ever heard that drinking red wine can be good for you? This benefit was attributed to a compound found in red grape skins called resveratrol. Resveratrol was shown to be an antioxidant in lab conditions. However, its link to cancer prevention in humans was never really established. That didn’t stop a lot of media stories about the potential after the lab link was established. Enough that some people wanted to look into genetically engineering beer to also have resveratrol in it. 

A team from Rice University was cooking up a plan to use resveratrol enriched yeast to brew beer back in 2008. They even entered the beer in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition that year and won the gold medal. Most of the students involved in the project weren’t even old enough to legally drink the beer that they were creating. 

6. Dinosaur Snout Chickens

When was the first time you heard that chickens are actually dinosaurs? This was a popular headline back in 2015. But the real link started making the media rounds back in 2007. So we’ve all had a good bit of time to adjust to the idea that chickens and dinosaurs are pretty closely related. 

Science took things one step further in 2017 when they decided to see if they could turn a chicken back into a dinosaur. A little genetic engineering was needed to determine how a dinosaur face evolved into a beak, and then efforts were put into switching those genes off again so that a beak could turn back into a dinosaur snout. Research had been going for some years towards this goal, and a team at Yale had altered chicken embryos to basically reverse engineer a dinosaur face. The chickens were never taken beyond the embryonic state, so no dino-chickens were actually running around. 

The researchers have gained insight into the evolutionary process, as was the goal. Conceivably, however, this research could also be used towards the goal of engineering future dinosaur-like animals, although such research would widely be considered unethical. 

5. Daddy Short Legs

There are over 45,000 species of spiders in the world and most of us can only recognize a few by name. Of those, the Daddy Long Legs has to be one of the most famous. But odds are no one would recognize the genetically altered version made at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This new version was missing the hallmark of the species and instead had little stub legs, so they called it a Daddy Short Legs. The team were able to identify and switch off a pair of genes related to leg development in the spiders. This helped gain insight into the evolutionary process that gave the spiders long legs in the first place. Now if you want to know why that’s important, well, that’s just a science thing. Scientists like to know why things happen the way they do. 

4. Vaccine Bananas 

These last few years have really brought vaccines to the forefront of people’s mind around the world. But have you ever wondered why vaccines are almost always distributed the same way? Sure, going to a pharmacy or hospital and getting an injection makes sense, but what if there was another way? For instance, what if we could eat a vaccine? What if we could genetically modify a banana to provide vaccination against a disease?

Anti-vaxxers would no doubt flip their lids at the concept, but vaccine bananas were actively pursued for a time. The idea stumbled, however, and maybe for reasons that aren’t readily apparent. 

One of the big drawbacks was unreliability. Delivering specific doses and the stability of the antigens in a food suffered too many variables. Just look at the bananas in the store next time you go. Some are giant and some are small. Is the dose the same if they’re delivering vaccines? What if you eat a whole bunch, is it safe?

Other issues included immune tolerance, government regulations and good ol’ social resistance since people are already predisposed to mistrust GMOs.Still, the idea of using things like tomatoes to vaccinate against hepatitis B is still floated from time to time. 

3. Safer Pig Poop 

How worried are you about the chemical composition of pig poop? Canada struggled with this very issue, and in 2010, scientists there did something about it. The Enviropig was introduced to be a more environmentally friendly porker.

The genetically modified pigs were designed to produce less phosphorus when they pooped. The problem here is one most of us would never realize. All animals need phosphorus. It helps build cells and many other functions of life. Pigs get their phosphorus in feed but cannot digest phytate, a molecule made up chiefly of phosphorus. Farmers supplement an enzyme called phytase in their diets, which helps them digest it. But it’s inefficient and a lot of phosphorus gets excreted by pigs. 

Phosphorus from pig feces builds up in the water supply, feeding algae and creating biological dead zones with no oxygen. So the Enviropig was modified to not need phytase and excrete 40% less phosphorus as a result. The end result is a pig that helps the environmentally friendly and saves money on feed supplements. 

2. Spider Silk Goats 

Spider silk is stronger than steel, though in practical terms there are a lot of limitations to what that statement means. Still, being able to manufacture spider silk would surely have practical uses, right? That’s what researchers thought when they genetically engineered goats to produce it. The silk was produced by incorporating silk-spinning genes into the goats so that silk could be harvested along with the goat’s milk.

There are potentially dozens of applications for large-scale production from medical to textile and military. But spiders are very hard to farm and they tend to kill each other. Goats are much easier.  Nine years after Canadian scientists made the first two spider goats, and another facility was overseeing 20 of them. It’s still small scale, but it hasn’t gone away. 

1. Cyborg Dragonfly

If you want to go all out with genetic engineering, why not throw cybernetics into the mix as well? That’s how you end up with a cyborg dragonfly drone that mixes a genetically engineered insect with machinery all in one place. 

Real life drones are bulky, relatively speaking, when compared to insects. Scientists have tried to understand how something as small as an insect can have the energy to zip around at high speeds in such a small package when we can’t do the same with robotics. Tiny batteries are terribly inefficient. 

The solution seems to be making an insect a robot. A dragonfly was modified with neurons in its spine to make it steerable. With a tiny computer backpack to gather data and also charge the tech with a solar panel, the dragonfly can be piloted by remote control as light sensors are used to send signals to its brain. The result is a tiny, living spy that could get into places few humans or drones could. Does it open the possibility of up-scaling the tech and controlling more complex animals? Maybe so.

Silicon Valley centillionaires and billionaires, the new feudal lords, are apparently big time preppers. It’s understandable. They enjoy the spoils of their deal with the work machine and want to save what they can of the high life. Of course, with all that clout they could save the whole world.

But no, here’s how they plan to leave us, and their dignity, to perish. 

10. Larry Page’s desert island hideout

One of many tech titans frightened of dying is Google co-founder Larry Page. His Calico Labs is hard at work on a quixotic fight against death. In the meantime, though, he still has to weather the storm. 

His survival plan, at least in the case of a pandemic, is to hide on his island in Fiji. That’s what he did during COVID-19. Under the pretext of delivering medical supplies – and by virtue of being a billionaire – he was allowed to enter the isolated (and therefore otherwise safe) country when it was closed to everyone else, flying in on his jet from Hawaii. 

Understandably, he tried to keep it a secret by getting the state-owned media to pull their story on the visit, as well as hiding all traces on Google. But no amount of influence could silence a disgruntled sailor, who spilled the beans to the rest of the world.

9. Marvin Liao’s medieval armory

Citing the example of Ukraine, tech investor Marvin Liao says there’s always a conqueror at the gate. He also worries about a pandemic and the impending financial collapse. But he’s prepared. Apparently, he’s “amassed an arsenal of non-firearm weapons and taken archery classes” so he won’t have to rely on ammunition. 

He also insists on martial arts, knife fighting, and fitness in general. Being able to run without getting winded is vital, he says. But so is financial freedom. Like Jesse Eisenberg in Zombieland, Liao has a number of slogans that he hopes will keep him alive. “Physically Fit & Financially Lit” is one. There’s also “Don’t Be Sorry, Be Better” and, encouragingly for a centillionaire survivalist, “No (wo)Man is an Island,” 

Liao is, unlike many on this list, a believer in banding together – at least in a fight post-apocalypse. “There is power in the collective,” he notes, “and three people will almost always take out one … no matter how well trained they are.”

8. Sam Altman’s “manifest destiny”

Sam Altman, the centillionaire head of OpenAI (the company responsible for the monstrous GPT-3 chatbot), has been a proud prepper for a years. He told The New York Times back in 2016 that he was stockpiling “guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur.” 

Another article – entitled “Sam Altman’s manifest destiny” – describes “his utter lack of interest in ineffective people, which unfortunately includes most of us.” It also lists some of the scenarios he’s prepared for: homicidal AI; nuclear war over resources; and the release of a synthetic virus.

Societal collapse is another one. When that happens he’ll flee to New Zealand with his friend Peter Thiel.

7. Peter Thiel’s New Zealand eyesore

“Yanks, get this in your heads. Aotearoa NZ is not your little last resort safe haven,” said a post on the prepper website the Modern Survivalist. It’s a growing sentiment in New Zealand. The island nation’s self-sufficiency, temperate climate, lack of enemies, and arable terrain endear it to anxious Americans. That it’s also where The Lord of the Rings was shot is a bonus for Peter Thiel, who named his companies after the trilogy. 

An investor in anti-ageing and cryogenics research, Thiel is afraid of dying – which is pretty understandable given his belief in Hell. Not only does he want to vampirize children, he supports authoritarianism and hoped Trump would become a dictator. He also bankrupted Gawker for outing him. He is, as the Guardian put it, the “human emblem of the moral vortex at the centre of the market.”

Naturally, he wants to keep going. So he lied and bribed his way into New Zealand and bought a city-sized chunk of the South Island. When the story broke in the press, locals were scandalized. Despite Thiel’s promises to invest in the country, they all knew what he was there for: to survive the collapse of Western civilization. Fortunately, his plans for a fortress – which included a spa and theater – were deemed an “eyesore” by Kiwis and rejected.

6. Bill Gates’s crawlspace hideyholes

Bill Gates is, as Ice Cube said, a “bunker bitch.” He’s among the many panicked rich Americans flocking to companies like Vivos – specialists in taking money from billionaires in exchange for apocalypse bunkers. According to Vivos founder Robert Vicino, “Gates has huge shelters under every one of his homes, in Rancho Santa Fe and Washington.”

He joins the ranks of other many narcissists – bankers, movie stars, athletes – who, according to The Hollywood Reporter, are shelling out millions for protection. They’re not just worried about World War III, though; what they really want to hide from is us. Among their chief concerns are the riots arising from economic collapse. This tells us all we need to know about their sense of civic duty – as well as their outlook for the future. The CFO of Ultimate Bunker, another elite survival firm, said “everyone [in these circles] thinks we are doomed, no matter who is elected.”

But really they’re doomed no matter how much they spend. Bunkers aren’t magic. All it would take is a hungry mob of veteran marines with high-level bunker-busting skills.

5. Mark Zuckerberg’s re-colonization of Kauai

Mark Zuckerberg’s proud of his Kauai estate but he doesn’t want you knowing how he got it. It wasn’t always 750 acres. The original lot was apparently too small for his ironic obsession with privacy, so he forced his neighbors to sell – just as he had before in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Lake Tahoe. Except this time his “neighbors” were native Hawaiians and their lots were kuleana land promised by colonists in the past. Those who resisted Zuckerberg’s land grab were sued. And, adding insult to injury, his land encompassed burial sites – forcing locals to ask permission to visit.

He said he wants to “plant roots” here, but some think that just means building a bolthole “in case society collapses.” He clearly doesn’t care about friending the locals; he’s built walls around his land and surrounds himself with henchmen.

He’s also done significantly less than nothing for the island’s many unsheltered people.

4. Larry Ellison’s super secret master plan

Larry Ellison is – according to Bob Sutton, author of The No A**hole Rule – “25 to 30 times more a**holy” than Steve Jobs. Not only has the aging software billionaire been a political megadonor, he’s also conquered an entire Hawaiian island for himself. His personal mantra, which he stole from Genghis Khan, is: “It is not sufficient that I succeed—all others must fail.”

For just $300 million of his hundred-plus billions, he bought 98% of the 90,000-acre Lanai. As for the people who lived there, in true colonial fashion he pretty much enslaved them overnight – becoming everyone’s boss, landlord (on strictly 30-day leases), or both. But that isn’t the point. Since the start of COVID-19, when he moved to the island himself, changes have been gathering pace. These include Lanai’s first “longevity spa”. 

Ellison claims to be working toward sustainability, but the locals call waha (“bullsh**”) on that. So far, he’s done nothing for the wildlife and ecology. There is, however, some indication that he wants to make the island self-sufficient. He’s got scientists tracking rainfall and plans for a desalination plant and hydroponic farm. They won’t be for the island’s rightful owners, though. Secret visits from the likes of Tom Cruise and Benjamin Netanyahu suggest Ellison’s building a refuge for the rich. We may never know. As Bloomberg notes, Ellison “hasn’t offered the public many details of his master plan.” 

3. Elon Musk’s mad dash for Mars

Elon Musk is worried about everything: climate change, artificial intelligence, population collapse, WWIII… So it should come as no surprise that, of all the (rational) doomsday contingency plans on this list, his is the most ambitious: Migrating into space via Mars.

To be fair to the billionaire, he’s not just trying to save himself – he’s trying to save the species. In fact, he plans to land one million humans on the Red Planet, 100 per ship, within decades. He even plans to bring the cost down, from $10 billion to $200,000 a ticket. And while this is still too much for most to afford, he denies it’s an “escape hatch for rich people.” There’s a “good chance you’ll die” on a mission to Mars, he says, but “excitement for those who … survive.”

Among other things, he envisions “pizza joints,” “great bars,” and, with 38% the gravity of Earth, the illusion of super strength. “Mars is gonna be a great place to go,” he says, “the planet of opportunity.” Veteran astronauts disagree. Stanley Love, who’s spent over 300 hours in space and lived on a base in Antarctica, insists that life on Mars would be “horrible.” Everything would have to be rationed. People would get claustrophobic. And the low Martian gravity would also decrease their muscle mass and bone density, making colonists weaker and more prone to fractures. Even if they did find their way back to Earth, they wouldn’t return to their lives.

2. Jeff Bezos’s outer space pipe dream

Like many billionaires, especially in tech, Jeff Bezos is big into life extension. One of his major investments since stepping down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 was Altos Labs – a(nother) longevity research lab. He seems to be obsessed with time running out, having also dumped millions on a “10,000-year clock” inside a mountain (which some suspect is a doomsday clock).

But, like Elon Musk, he hopes to save the planet – not just himself. Expecting humans to drain every last viable energy source on Earth within the next couple of centuries, Bezos intends to shoot us into space. In a mad speech based on the ideas of physicist Gerard K. O’Neill, he envisioned settlements aboard cylinders spinning through the solar system. Each colony (of the millions he dreams of) would be built by robots with materials from the Moon and shot into space by a catapult. They’d be miles on end to house a million people each and have alternating stripes of land and window – as well as mirrors and solar panels for energy. Different colonies could have their own themes and functions, he said, such as replicas of ancient cities, wilderness areas, zero G recreational colonies, and so on.

Fortunately, the obstacles are many (technology, cost, social organization, etc.); because the ultimate problem is Bezos himself. His own contributions to climate change and individualist consumerism aside, his treatment of workers as Amazon’s CEO suggests he doesn’t really care about people. In fact, there’s good reason to think his “colonies” will be no more than glorified prisons – or “captive labor towns in space” as NBC put it. 

1. Dmitry Itskov’s escape into the Matrix

Dmitry Itskov, “the “godfather” of the Russian Internet,” wants to celebrate his 10,000th birthday. Needless to say, the odds are stacked against him. As his manifesto says, “civilization stands on the threshold of a series of global crises … threatening the environment where human beings live, and their existence as a species.” His solution, however, is not as you might expect to follow Musk and Bezos into space; it’s to jettison his body instead.

By 2045, he hopes to transition to a holographic nanobot avatar – or at least to a life in the metaverse. This will of course be a gradual process. For example, he thinks we’ll see the first generation of basic robot avatars deployed in dangerous environments (for example by the emergency services, miners, etc.). Then they’ll be used as replacement bodies for the physically disabled (paraplegics, the terminally ill, etc.). According to Itskov’s schedule, we should be at this stage by 2025. Next would be the transfer of individual consciousness to these bodies. In other words, by 2035 if we get back on schedule, everyone would have “the possibility of cybernetic immortality.” In the decade after that we’ll effectively become a new species, with “bodies consisting of nanorobots … and capable of taking any form.”

Clearly Itskov’s a bit behind schedule, so the emphasis now is on the metaverse – or eternal life in the Matrix.