In the late 1930s, then-Commander Delmer S. Fahrney proposed that an "aerial torpedo" be developed for the purpose of intercepting bomber aircraft; while in 1940 the U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics investigated the concept, it was only in May 1943, with the advent of practical jet and rocket engines, that the United States Navy initiated the Gorgon missile program, headquartered at the Naval Aircraft Modification Unit (later Naval Air Development Station) in Pennsylvania.

[1] The original design for Gorgon called for a turbojet-powered missile of approximately 660 pounds (300 kg), capable of reaching 510 mph (820 km/h) and intended for use in destroying bombers or transport aircraft.

[1] In May 1945, the Gorgon IV, an air-to-surface missile powered by a ramjet engine, was added to the program.

[3] However limitations of the guidance system – project officer Molt Taylor expressed concerns about the capability of the human mind to process information quickly enough, given the speed at which the missiles flew, to react correctly to situations[4] – and other technological issues meant that by late 1945, with the end of World War II, the production contracts for the air-launched Gorgon variants were changed to a pure technology-demonstration-and-development program;[1] this was generally considered successful.

[5] The surface-launched Gorgon IIC had been planned for extensive use in Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan; orders for a hundred missiles were placed with the Singer Manufacturing Company,[6] however the end of the war following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in the cancellation of the production contracts and Gorgon IIC also becoming a research-only project.