Operation Igloo White
16,572The Vietnam War was a testing ground for American military technology. But one particular operation received significant funds... and was kept a very big secret. From 1968 to 1973, the military spent nearly $1 billion a year on a modern, computer-powered initiative to win the war.
As most secret operations do, the plan went by many names, including Practice Nine, Muscle Shoals, Illinois City and Dye Marker. Today it's known as Operation Igloo White.
For almost five years, camouflaged electronic sensors, which were supposed to look like artificial vegetation, were dropped along the nearly 10,000 miles that comprised the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
These secret electronic monitors detected and transmitted enemy movements along the Trail to aircraft that patrolled the area. The pilots would then relay the data to air bases in Thailand.
Targeted strikes, however, wouldn't occur then and there. Instead, the data was fed into two supercomputers in a 200,000-square-foot facility to generate predictions about where along the Ho Chi Minh Trail the Viet Cong would appear next. It was the first real-time, computer-driven surveillance operation program set up for combat. And it was hoped that it would be the U.S. military's own version of "The Minority Report"...
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