Pentagon ‘zombie apocalypse’ plan gets media roars, Report

The Pentagon has a plan to deal with a zombie apocalypse. Yes, it really does. The document, called CONOP 8888, outlines how the U.S. military and the American people would respond in the event that zombies rise up, according to Foreign Policy magazine.

The 2011 U.S. Strategic Command document even reads: “this plan was not actually designed as a joke,” according to FP.

A Pentagon spokesperson indeed confirmed the existence of the non-classified document.

According to NBC News, the Department of Defense calls the zombie apocalypse plan “fictional contingency planning guidance” and came up with the title of “Counter Zombie Dominance.” The worst case scenario is high “transmissibility,” or in non-DoD speak, hordes of walking dead infecting the population, with little ability of the non-infected to combat the illness, NBC News reported.

The Daily Mail said that the plan has a disclaimer that it isn’t a joke, but was developed after military planners wanted a scenario for dealing with a national emergency that was so widespread. Zombies were the stand-in for real threats.

Foreign Policy magazine reported that the plan isn’t a true U.S. Strategic Command plan, only a training tool that was developed during 2009 and 2010. Zombies are just the bad guys in the plan that could be adapted to a real threat.

The magazine quoted Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for for Strategic Command, admitting the plan exists, but that it is used as training for students to learn basically military planning through a fictional scenario.

Zombies have been used in other government situations. The Centers for Disease Control had a public awareness campaign to highlight the importance of emergency preparedness that centered on zombies.

Agencies/Canadajournal