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Conspiracy

Mystery 'fog' sprayed on US cities in 1950s linked to secret Army project

By T.K. Randall
September 4, 2025
Pruitt Igoe
Image Credit: USGS
70 years ago, neighborhoods in several big US cities were sprayed with a mysterious chemical compound.
The experiment, which took place in parts of St Louis, Missouri and Fort Wayne, Indiana as well as in several other cities in both the US and Canada, created a thick, foul-smelling chemical fog that residents reported had stuck to their skin, coated roads and rooftops and had made children sick.

The purpose of the experiment was to study how chemical weapons might spread through Soviet cities during the Cold War and while the chemicals used were supposed to be harmless, it turned out that this was definitely not the case.

The spray contained zinc cadmium sulfide (ZnCdS) - a powder known to cause cancer.

The Army had maintained that the amounts used were low enough not to cause harm, but a key report detailing the health risks from the experiment later went missing, leaving doubts over whether the Army was aware that what they were doing was harmful to local residents.

In later years, people who had actually lived in these areas at the time would come forward to tell of how they and their family members had suffered from a disproportionate number of health complications, in particular from various different types of cancers and respiratory diseases.
"They didn't ask our permission," said former Pruitt-Igoe resident Cecil Hughes. "We didn't ask for them to spray us. My government used me like I was a Guinea pig."

Another former resident, James Caldwell, described suffering from a rare form of lymphoma.

"You couldn't even see through it; it was that thick, and it would adhere to our skin," he recalled.

"And as far as the guys on top of the buildings, they tried to portray them to us as maintenance workers, but what are the maintenance workers doing in a hazmat suit?"

"They had masks and goggles."

Sadly, however, despite official admissions that the spraying took place, no definitive case has ever been brought against those responsible for the harm it caused.

Source: Mail Online




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