John Lisle

None of those ever materialized.

But then he thought, what if we actually do it?

What if we capture foxes from China and Australia, we paint them with glowing radioactive paint, and then we drop them in Japan?

Surely that's going to scare the Japanese.

So there are actually several experiments that they did this.

So they captured foxes.

The United States Radium Corporation produced a paint with radium, radioactive.

So loom from like dials of watches.

Exactly.

It's the same kind of thing.

They decided we're going to paint foxes with this, but they first needed to test whether it's possible to paint fur with this and it stay on.

So they went to the Central Park Zoo and they got a raccoon and they painted it and kept it under lock and key.

And it turns out after a few days of ordinary raccoon shenanigans, the paint stayed on.

So they thought, OK, this might have something going for it.

So then Salinger decided, we're going to paint these foxes, row them out into the middle of the Chesapeake Bay and throw them overboard to see if they can actually swim to shore.

Because if we're going to get these foxes to Japan, we're going to have to throw them off the coast and they're going to have to swim and then scare people.

But can foxes even swim?

He didn't know.

So he gets these foxes.

He paints them with this paint.