Are Biological weapon tests being conducted over U.S. cities!

U.S. News & World Report October 21, 2002

Human guinea pigs By Lisa Stein

The Pentagon last week revealed that the United States secretly tested chemical and biological weapons on American soil, possibly exposing thousands of civilians in Hawaii, Florida, and Alaska to toxic agents. Roughly 5,500 servicemen were involved in the tests, also conducted in Maryland, Florida, and Utah, from 1962 to 1973. More than 50 veterans are seeking compensation for related health problems, but Pentagon and Veterans Affairs officials say they have yet to make the link between their symptoms and exposure to the biological "simulants" like E. coli, a bacterium believed at the time to be harmless. One of the agents used, Bacillus globigii, has since been found to cause infections in people with weakened immune systems. "The reasoning behind all of these," says William Winkenwerder, the Pentagon's top health official, "is not altogether clear from the record that we have." Will it ever be?


http://www.sciforums.com/archive/37/2002/08/4/10498

The Army has acknowledged that between 1949 and 1969, 239 populated areas from coast to coast were blanketed with various organisms during tests designed to measure patterns of dissemination in the air, weather effects, dosages, optimum placement of the source and other factors. Testing over such areas was supposedly suspended after 1969, but there is no way to be certain of this. In any event, open air spraying continued at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.

Following is a small sample of the tests carried out in the 1949-69 period:


Watertown, N.Y. area and Virgin Islands

1950:
The Army used aircraft and homing pigeons to drop turkey feathers dusted with cereal rust spores to contaminate oat crops, to prove that a "cereal rust epidemic" could be spread as a biological warfare weapon.


San Francisco Bay Area

September 20-27, 1950:
Six experimental biological warfare attacks by the US Army from a ship, using Bacillus globigii and Serratia marcescens, at one point forming a cloud about two miles long as the ship traveled slowly along the shoreline of the bay.

One of the stated objectives of the exercise was to study "the offensive possibilities of attacking a seaport city with a BW [biological warfare] aerosol" from offshore.

Beginning on September 29, patients at Stanford University's hospital in San Francisco were found to be infected by Serratia marcescens. This type of infection had never before been reported at the hospital. Eleven patients became infected, and one died.

According to a report submitted to a Senate committee by a professor of microbiology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook: "an increase in the number of Serratia marcescens can cause disea 2000 se in a healthy person and...serious disease in sick people."

Between 1954 and 1967, other tests were carried out in the Bay Area, including some with a base of operations at Fort Cronkhite in Marin County.


http://www.rense.com/general11/chemtraildeliv.htm

During the summer of 1994, U.S. military aircraft began dropping a gel substance on the tiny town of Oakville near the Pacific coast. Everybody in town came down with flu and pneumonia-like symptoms. Some people were hospitalized and remained ill for months. Pets and barnyard animals died.

The police chief was patrolling the town one morning at 3 a.m. when a deluge of sticky stuff coated the windshield of his patrol car. He cleaned the goo with rubber gloves but just breathing it made him deathly ill. By afternoon he had major trouble breathing.

The gel material was tested by a number of government and private labs which found human blood cells and nasty bacteria, including a modified version of pseudonomas fluorescens, cited in over 160 military papers as an experimental biowarfare bacteria. Unsolved Mysteries aired the story on national television in May, 1997. Several Oakville citizens reported bizarre encounters with FEMA officials and intelligence personnel from Fort Hood Texas -- home of the Black Hawk unit. These spooks made repeated visits to Oakville, probing people about their health and reportedly intimidating those who had been interviewed on television.

Also in 1997, rancher William Wallace was plowing his fields near Kettle Falls Washington when a U.S. Navy Intruder swooped down and sprayed him with a fine mist. He became so deathly sick he could not lift his arm above his head for days. He lost his job because of his illness. His cat's face became paralyzed and actually began to dissolve until it died.

Wallace went to the CBS affiliate in Spokane with his story. Two days later, a turbo prop aircraft dived over his house spraying something that made him and his family ill again. Wallace told chemtrail investigator Will Thomas he felt this was a warning to "shut up." The CBS affiliate in Spokane finally did a two-part news interview with Wallace in the spring of 1999.

Again in 1997, in Southern Idaho near the town of Caldwell, seven healthy people died in their sleep when their lungs collapsed. All were in perfect health. An article in the Arizona Republic noted that people had suspicions that officials might be covering something up. Two years later an eye-witness report was filed about a dark fibrous material falling on Caldwell homes, cars and lawns shortly before the mysterious deaths occurred. Residents said the material looked like feces.

Medical journalist Ermina Cassani has investigated nation-wide reports of such biological waste being dropped on neighborhoods from low-flying planes. Cassani investigated over 30 different yuk drops during the years 1998 and 1999. In 1998, she obtained a sample that looked like dried blood from a Michigan house. Examining this material, a University of Michigan lab found pseudonomas fluorescens, the same bug used on Oakville. It can cause horrible human infections including fatal shock, and because of its glowing properties, it allows the military to track its path.

There were also other ugly pathogens, including staph and several fungi which can cause lung disease. Consider the high fungi content of this sample in the context of the mysterious fungus that infected Kentucky horses last spring. Could not furtive aerial drops provide a convenient mode of economic sabotage?

Cassani also reported 29 biological "drops" in the state of Utah. HAZMAT teams in biochemical hazard gear cleaned up the feces with chlorine. Utah is home to the infamous Dugway Proving Grounds, a chemical-biological test center where hundreds of former workers have contracted Gulf-War like symptoms, according to a 1997 testimony before a government committee.

During numerous chemtrail spray episodes, the small town of Sallisaw in Eastern Oklahoma area was saturated with a web-like material in which lab techs discovered an unusually large enterobacteria. The critter was a mutant of E. coli, salmonella and anthrax; undoubtedly one of the military's designer bugs. Sallisaw resident Patrick Edgar has reported on the internet that the entire town was made extremely ill by the spraying and that the town now has epidemic rates of both lupus and cancer.

Biological weapons encapsulated in protective coatings like synthetic webbing would explain why so many people who see web-like filaments drifting down from the skies report illness after touching the webs. When the webbing is closely examined, it is proven to be man-made filaments of the type developed by both industrial and military entities. Last year, South Africans reported web-like filaments falling from aircraft that formed a blanket-like appearance across vegetation, telephone poles and fences. When the cattle ate it they developed large bumps on their hides, became listless and went blind. Informed people everywhere are now wary of "web looking" materials.

Chicago Tribune October 10, 2002


Army seeks to expand chemical, biological drills;
But critics fear possible effects around Utah site By Judith Graham


For 60 years, the U.S. military has tested its ability to withstand chemical or biological attacks at a desolate site in the Utah desert. Protective gear for troops, heavy equipment such as tanks and aircraft, and detection systems designed to signal an attack have all been run through intense simulations, sometimes using active chemical and biological agents.

Now, with a possible war with Iraq looming on the horizon, the military plans to more than double its testing at the 798,000-acre Dugway Proving Ground, 80 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, and to vastly expand its counterterrorism training activities at the site. The plans are disclosed in a draft environmental impact statement issued by Dugway, which has received little attention in Utah or nationally. The statement indicates that the Army facility wants to expand biological defense testing from an average of 11 events a year to 26, and boost chemical defense testing from 30 events a year to 70. Counterterrorism training would go from two events to 58 events a year.

Almost no test details are provided, making the few advocates following Dugway's plans uneasy about risks to public health and the environment if biological or chemical materials were accidentally released. The environmental statement notes systems are in place to make sure that does not happen.

"In principle, there's an appropriate role for this kind of testing. But essentially what they're saying is we want blanket permission to double our mission without telling anyone what we really plan to do," said Steve Erickson, director of the Citizens Education Project, a non-profit organization based in Salt Lake City. "With their track record, that's spooky."

Information released Wednesday by the Department of Defense shows that during the Cold War, Dugway was involved in testing dangerous biological and chemical agents on military personnel in exercises on land and at sea. This seems to suggest that past tests were not confined to the isolated Utah setting, and posed more of a potential threat to human health than previously acknowledged.

The 28 reports were released by the Pentagon after a two-year investigation prompted by veterans who claimed they had been exposed to harmful substances during their participation in the exercises. As many as 5,500 men and women in the military may have been involved.

In a news release, the Defense Department said safety precautions had been taken to protect service personnel at the time and its investigators had not been able to link the tests with "adverse health consequences." But it said the inquiry would continue.

The chemical and biological exercises were overseen by the Deseret Test Center in Utah from 1962 to 1973; those tests occurred in the coastal waters off Hawaii, California and Puerto Rico, as well as on land in Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Utah and Canada. The center, headquartered at Ft. Douglas, Utah, was combined with Dugway in 1968 and the alliance lasted until 1973, according to materials supplied this week by Dugway's public affairs office.

Some not fully informed

The Pentagon acknowledged that some soldiers may not have been fully informed about the tests, which included use of the military's deadliest nerve agent, VX.

Also, thousands of civilians in Hawaii and Alaska probably were unaware of their exposure to relatively mild bacteria meant to simulate germ weapons, a Defense Department health official said.

"How are we supposed to trust an outfit that did this kind of thing but never told anyone?" Erickson asked.

Dugway spokeswoman Paula Nicholson declined to comment, referring all questions to Defense Department officials.

A year ago, when the anthrax attacks struck Florida, New York and Washington, it also emerged that Dugway had been producing a weapons-grade form of the Ames anthrax strain--the same strain investigators found in letters implicated in five deaths.

The Utah complex had been making the lethal anthrax for a decade, and included the only military lab in the United States known to produce the finely milled, powdered form discovered in the letters.

If weapons-grade anthrax had been produced secretly at Dugway, Erickson wondered, what other active biological and chemical agents were there and how well were they supervised?

"There should be much greater oversight" of activities at the testing facility, he said.

The environmental statement indicates active agents will be used in defense exercises, along with much less dangerous substances that simulate chemical or biological agents.

Up to 250 workers who served at Dugway during the Cold War claim to have been exposed to harmful substances, and believe they contracted serious illnesses, such as cancer and multiple sclerosis, from their work.

"They don't want us to know anything about what they do out there, and they never have," said Beverly White, a former Utah state legislator who is leading an effort to get compensation for the workers.

"I'm concerned about the people who live here. I think we've just about had enough," she added.

In its draft statement, which has been circulating for comment in Utah, Dugway asserts the need for more tests and training "related to new enemy threats" and offers general examples of what these might entail.

"Testing would evaluate newly developed biological defense detection and protection equipment that is required to effectively prepare for potential terrorism incidents," reads one point under the biological defense testing section.

Mock city test planned

"Large-scale aircraft contamination control field testing" would "evaluate the way the military handles aircrew, passengers, and cargo in a chemically or biologically contaminated aircraft," another point notes.

Counterterrorism training scenarios could include constructing a mock city and simulating an attack for "urban chemical/biological incident training," according to the statement.

Since 1999, Dugway has been training weapons of mass destruction teams for the National Guard. Under expanded counterterrorism training, more emergency response teams would receive similar instruction.

One exercise would include firing a cruise missile into a building filled with containers of a chemical to see what would happen to the materials in such a scenario, the document said.

"Sometimes it's very difficult to delineate the differences between offensive and defensive purposes in biological and chemical weapons testing," said Erickson, the Salt Lake advocate.

Offensive testing is banned under biological and chemical weapons conventions signed by the United States.

If things go as planned, Dugway's environmental impact statement will become effective a little more than a year from now. Implementing the preferred option, which calls for expanded testing, will depend on Department of Defense funding, spokeswoman Nicholson noted.

- - -

U.S. conducted biological, chemical weapons tests

The Defense Department on Wednesday released data on secret biological and chemical weapons tests conducted during the 1960s.

EFFECT OF TESTED WEAPONS ON HUMANS

Harmless/near harmless

(A) Bacillus globigii: Used to simulate anthrax.

(B) Calcofluor: Irritant, used as a fluorescent tracer.

(C) Diethylphthlate: Irritant.

(D) Methylacetoacetate: Irritant.

(E) Trioctyl phosphate: Used to simulate VX nerve agent.

(F) Zinc cadium sulfide: Irritant, low risk of development of lung cancer.

Causes temporary sickness

(G) Ester of benzilic acid: Designed to cause stupor and hallucinations.

(H) Serratia marcescens: Can cause infections of the blood and urinary and respiratory tracts.

(I) Tear gas: Burns eyes and airways and blisters skin.

Potentially life-threatening

(J) E. coli: Can cause stomach cramps, diarrhea, kidney failure and death.

(K) Pasteurella tularensis: Causes infec-tious disease; 6 percent of infected die.

(L) Sarin: Lethal nerve agent; can perman-ently damage central nervous system.

(M) Soman: Nerve agent can cause difficult breathing, coma and death.

(N) Tabun: Nerve agent, death usually occurs within 20 minutes.

(O) VX: Nerve agent, death usually occurs within 15 minutes.


DATE LOCATION AGENT

1962 Ft. Greely, Alaska (L) (O)
1963 Ft. Greely (A) (F)
1964 Ft. Greely (O)
1965 Ft. Greely (A) (F)
Canada (A) (F)
Baker Island
Pacific Ocean (A) (F)
Ft. Greely (F) (L)
Ft. Greely; Edgewood Arsenal, Md.; Canada (O)
1966 Pacific Ocean (D)
Ft. Greely (D) (L)
Ft. Greely (L)
Hawaii (G)
Hawaii (G) (L)
Ft. Greely (O)
Pacific Ocean (A) (B) (F) (H) (J)
Ft. Greely (A) (H) (J) (K)
1967 Hawaii (D) (L)
Ft. Greely (L)
Ft. Greely (A) (H) (J) (K)
England, Canada (L) (M) (N) (O)
1968 Pacific Ocean (A) (D)
Yeehaw Junction, Fla. (A)
1969 Edgewood Arsenal (L) (M) (N) (O)
Ft. Douglas, Utah (I)
Vieques, PR (E)
1970 Ft. Douglas (A) (F)
1971 Ft. Douglas (C)

Source: Department of Defense
Chicago Tribune