Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin allegedly ordered a rogue scientist named Ilya Ivanov to create an invincible army of half-human, half-ape super-soldiers in the 1920s.

A closer look

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin allegedly ordered a rogue scientist named Ilya Ivanov to create an invincible army of half-human, half-ape super-soldiers in the 1920s. Ivanov was sent to West Africa with a massive budget and a completely insane mandate to crossbreed humans with chimpanzees, hoping to produce a hybrid worker who was immensely strong, mentally underdeveloped, and highly resistant to pain. He genuinely attempted to artificially inseminate female chimpanzees with human DNA, and when that horrifying experiment failed, he tried to recruit human female volunteers for the reverse procedure. Thankfully, the scientist was eventually exiled to Kazakhstan before he could fully realize his dystopian sci-fi fan fiction. It remains a stark reminder that totalitarian regimes will eagerly throw unlimited resources at the most unhinged mad science imaginable if they think it will save them a few bucks on military pensions