Good luck not panicking over a mosquito bite after reading this True Conspiracy
Good luck not panicking over a mosquito bite after reading this True Conspiracy
The US government had a quest to figure out biological warfare, and they wouldn't stop at anything. Including testing on its own citizens.
If you’re squeamish, you might want to skip this one…
Ever wonder how the CDC and other institutions know so much about the existence and spread of diseases via insects through the human population? Well, we might have a clue with this group of conspiracies.
The US military conducted extensive tests in the 1940s and 1950s of insects, their carrying of diseases, and how they spread through the human population. The issue was… people didn’t know they were being tested on.
Official Name
Operation Big Buzz, Operation Big Itch, Operation Drop Kick, and Operation May Day - US military tests on unknowing urban and suburban areas in the 1950s
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Conspiracy Description
Entomological warfare, which is a big fancy phrase for biological warfare using insects, has been around forever. But the US government has had a hot streak of testing out insect warfare on the US public since the 1950s. MULTIPLE TIMES.
As the eloquent George W. Bush says:
Well America, you got fooled several times by the US government.
Here’s a list of tests done on US urban and suburban areas:
Operation Big Itch - Dugway Proving Ground, Utah test using uninfected fleas to determine their vector capabilities for biological agents.
Operation Big Buzz - Later used in Operation Drop Kick, this was a series of tests figuring out whether mosquitos are able to be deployed using munitions. It concluded that they were, and were able to successfully reproduce after.
Operation Drop Kick - Savannah, Georgia and Avon Park, Florida mosquito bombing experiments. They used uninfected mosquitos and sent munitions that deployed mosquitos, then asked residents about the number of mosquitos in their houses.
Operation May Day - Similar to the other mosquito tests, this was a dispersal of mosquitos using ground based methods in Savannah, Georgia.
Several of these operations and other insect weapon experiments are higlighted in Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War. A great detailed account if you want to dive in further than this newsletter.
The Details
The US was conducting anti-animal research on Fort Terry on Plum Island, New York in the late 1940s and early 1950s. While the Henry Ferguson Museum claims that Fort Terry was just for fortifications to guard the eastern entrance of Long Island Sound, three professors and researchers claim otherwise. In the book Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons since 1945, chapter 11 specifically talks about Fort Terry being under the custody of the First Army, right before being transferred over to the USDA for an “animal disease research facility” in 1954.
After this transfer, materials were moved to Fort Detrick for further research and the fun continued. Out of the studies conducted at these forts, a couple things were developed that lead to our group of conspiracies covered in this newsletter.
Four weapon systems were developed to deploy biological agents
Prior biological tests were conducted in San Francisco, Minneapolis, and St. Louis
The potential for economically sound attacks on foreign adversaries was just too juicy. The US Army decided to advance their research and do some live field testing, which led to the Operations mentioned. After all was said and done, it could possibly just cost $0.29 per death to attack a city in this manner. Good luck finding a deal like that on the dark web!
What This Means
If we were able to determine that biological warfare can be conducted by bombing infected mosquitos in 1955, imagine where we’re at now. Plum Island (Fort Terry) is still being used for research today. And there are countless other facilities conducting similar research throughout the US.
While this source should be taken with a grain of salt, there are a lot of biological efforts by the Pentagon highlighted here: https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/07/15/the-pentagon-bio-weapons/.
With supply chains slowly growing less resilient, what types of risks are there for insect-based biological attacks? Both livestock and personnel that we depend on for food and critical infrastructure could be taken out to trigger massive societal issues. Don’t worry though, this is definitely a doomer take on things.
Clearly, the US government has been well aware of both the need to understand biological weapons, develop them, and develop protections against them. While testing on unknowing subjects is certainly morally bankrupt, at least it’s for the greater good… right?
Other Crazy Stuff
Links below to some wild stuff we came across while writing this article.
Some people are trying to make a Smart Trap for Autonomous Monitoring of Mosquito-Borne Viruses (that’s a mouthful)
Pakistani researchers are well aware of various insect attacks as biological weapons
Entomological warfare goes wayyyyy back - here’s a brief history
Project 1001 is mentioned on page 226 of Deadly Cultures, but the only mention of the project online is on this sketchy website
Operation Sea-Spray was a test on unknowing San Francisco residents by spreading Serratia marcescens aerially. We’ll cover this one in another newsletter
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