Paul Begley/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET





In my darker hours, which tend to come after the sun has long gone, I fear that the ground is about to shake and very scary people, some of whom I recognize, will emerge from below.

That does come from living on a hill in the Bay Area, true.

However, we all know that no one has disproved the existence of zombies and they don't just make movies out of fantasies, do they?

You, too, might share my trepidation. You, though, might also scream: "WHAT IS OUR GOVERNMENT DOING ABOUT IT?!!!"

I will offer you an inkling. Foreign Policy magazine has unearthed government papers that shed more than just a dim flashlight on our protectors' aforethought. The magazine says it found them "buried on the military's secret computer network."

CONOP 8888 is, however, an unclassified government document. And it is our nation's plan to survive anything (hopefully) the zombies can throw at us.

Should your pooh-poohing already be forming, may I tell you the first words of this document: "This plan was not actually designed as a joke."

If you're in the Pentagon, you have to take everything seriously, until you can be sure that it really is humorous. The Pentagoners are still probably on the fence about David Letterman.

Indeed, further on in the papers, the Pentagon makes clear: "This document is unclassified in order to ensure maximum utility in times of crisis."

CONOP 8888 was, though, written with training purposes in mind.

"The document is identified as a training tool used in an in-house training exercise where students learn about the basic concepts of military plans and order development through a fictional training scenario," a spokeswoman for Strategic Command told Foreign Policy.

Now that our faces are straight, we should define what sort of zombies we're talking about here.

The document addresses Pathogenic Zombies, the infected kind. It also names Radiation Zombies, Evil Magic Zombies, Space Zombies, Weaponized Zombies, Symbiant-Induced Zombies, Chicken Zombies and the most common form seen in California, Vegetarian Zombies.

We need to spend a moment on Chicken Zombies. CONOP 8888 explains that "this is actually the only proven class of zombie that actually exists." You didn't know? These are old hens who can no longer produce eggs. Farmers poison them with carbon monoxide, but they sometimes stagger up to Earth one more time.

The plan reveals: "CZs are simply terrifying to behold and are likely only to make people become vegetarians in protest to animal cruelty."

The Pentagon is treating the prospect of zombie invasion just like any other alien threat. The plan follows the phases of defensive resistance to restoring order.

There is, though, a worst case envisioned. That is when zombies start eating humans and infecting them. A zombie heaven, but an earthly hell.

But being responsible for defense isn't easy. What if some types of zombie really did emerge out of the woodwork or the ground and began to terrorize us mercilessly?

That's the moment we'll all be howling: "Why didn't anyone think of this?" Just before some bloodied teeth turn our lives around.

CONPLAN 8888