September 5, 2025 • 10 mins
Read the Article: https://weirddarkness.com/army-toxic-fog-experiments/
The US military secretly doused dozens of American cities with toxic chemical clouds during the Cold War, and residents are still dying from mysterious cancers decades later.
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#OperationLAC #ColdWarExperiments #GovernmentExperiments #PruittIgoe #ChemicalTesting #MilitaryExperiments #DeclassifiedDocuments #HumanExperimentation #USArmySecrets #ZincCadmiumSulfide
The US military secretly doused dozens of American cities with toxic chemical clouds during the Cold War, and residents are still dying from mysterious cancers decades later.
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WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2025, Weird Darkness.
#OperationLAC #ColdWarExperiments #GovernmentExperiments #PruittIgoe #ChemicalTesting #MilitaryExperiments #DeclassifiedDocuments #HumanExperimentation #USArmySecrets #ZincCadmiumSulfide
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm Darren Marler, and this is a weird darkness bonus bite.
Something terrible happened across America during the nineteen fifties and
sixties that most people never knew about. Government trucks rolled
through neighborhoods, spraying thick clouds while men in hazmat suits
worked on rooftops with industrial nozzles. Residents watched the strange activity,
(00:28):
unaware they were unwitting test subjects in a massive military
experiment that would haunt their families for generations. Cecil Hughes
was just a kid living in Saint Louis's Prudt I
Goo housing complex when the trucks started coming through. The
vehicles carried massive machines with industrial nozzles. They released clouds
(00:49):
so thick residents couldn't see through them. The fog had
a foul chemical smell that made children feel sick, and
it would adhere to their skin like a sticky film
that wouldn't wash off easily. James Caldwell remembered watching men
on the rooftops who wore full hazmat suits with masks
and goggles. The army told residents these were maintenance workers,
(01:11):
though nobody could explain why maintenance required protective gear that
looked like it belonged in a chemical warfare facility. The
spraying happened regularly, sometimes from trucks patrolling the streets, other
times from devices mounted on buildings that would release the
mysterious substance into the air, where it would drift down
onto the community below. The pruitt Igo complex housed thousands
(01:34):
of low income families in densely packed buildings. Children played
in the streets while this fog settled over playgrounds and
seeped through open windows. Mothers hung laundry that absorbed the chemicals.
Families ate dinner while particles floated through their apartments. Nobody
gave them a choice or even a warning about what
(01:55):
was happening. The Army had a specific reason for choosing
places like pruet i Go. Military strategists believed Saint Louis
resembled Soviet cities, particularly Moscow, in its urban layout and
building density. They needed to understand how biological weapons might
spread through enemy cities if the Cold War turned hot,
(02:16):
so they decided to use American cities as testing grounds.
This program known as Operation lack LAC, standing for large
area Coverage involved spraying zinc cadmium sulfide across thirty three
cities in the United States and Canada. The list included
Fort Wayne, Indiana, Corpus Christi, Texas, and dozens of other
(02:38):
communities where families went about their daily lives while military
personnel treated them as data points in weapons research. The
chemical they chose, zinc cadmium sulfide, or ZNCDS, contains cadmium,
a heavy metal that accumulates in the body over time.
When inhaled in sufficient quantities, cadmium damages kidney weekends, bones,
(03:01):
and causes lung problems. The International Agency for Research on
Cancer classifies cadmium as a known human carcinogen. The Army
knew they were spraying a toxic substance, but calculated the
exposure levels would remain low enough to avoid immediate health effects.
Philip Lyton, a scientist involved in the Biology Warfare Research Program,
(03:23):
wrote classified reports about these experiments. His work included Joint
Quarterly Report five, which detailed these ZNCDS spraying tests. That
document remains missing to this day, despite Freedom of Information
Act requests that the government has ignored beyond the legally
required twenty day response period. Jaqueline Russell lost two siblings
(03:46):
to cancer. Her neighbors developed brain tumors, kidney disease, and
rare eye cancers. Ben Phillips attended ten funerals in his community.
Seven or eight were cancer deaths among people who had
lived in Prudi Goo during the spraying. James Caldwell developed
a rare form of lymphoma that doesn't run in his family.
He connects his disease directly to those thick clouds that
(04:08):
stuck to his skin as a child. The cancer appeared
decades after exposure, following the typical latency period for cadmium
related cancers. The pruitt Igo complex was demolished in the
nineteen seventies, but the people who lived there during the
testing period carried the consequences in their bodies. Former residents
(04:29):
described entire social circles decimated by cancers, kidney failures, and
lung diseases, illnesses that cluster in patterns, suggesting environmental exposure
rather than random occurrence. The Army kept these experiments secret
for decades. Only in the mid nineteen nineties, after declassified
(04:49):
documents emerged, did they acknowledge spraying American cities with zncds.
The admission sparked congressional investigations and public outrage. The damage
was already spreading through the bodies of test subjects. In
nineteen ninety seven, the National Research Council released a three
hundred eighty seven page report examining the health risks. The
(05:11):
Council confirmed the Army's basic claims that exposure levels were
relatively low, but their conclusions came with significant caveats. They
couldn't rule out long term health effects because crucial data
was missing. Army records had disappeared or remained classified. Without
complete information about dosages, frequency, and exact locations, researchers couldn't
(05:35):
definitively link the spraying to the cancer clusters. The report
acknowledged that cadmium exposure could cause lung cancer, kidney damage,
and bone weakening, even at lower doses than previously thought,
Yet it stopped short of declaring the Army's actions definitively harmful,
trapped in the scientific gray zone between correlation and proven causation.
(06:00):
Apps in the official record seem almost deliberate. Joint Quarterly
Report five vanished into the classification system. Details about specific dosages,
spray patterns, and frequency of exposure remain unclear. The Army
admits to conducting the tests, but maintains strategic ambiguity about
the scope and intensity of the program. News Nation filed
(06:23):
Freedom of Information Act requests in May of twenty twenty
five for the Missing Lighton report. The law requires a
response within twenty working days, but months have passed in silence.
Missouri state lawmakers requested that the Environmental Protection Agency and
Department of Health and Human Services conduct new health studies
focusing on affected communities. No such studies have materialized. Former
(06:48):
residents see a pattern in this institutional amnesia. Ben Phillips
believes the government is simply waiting for all the test
subjects to die, then waiting for their children to die,
until nobody remains who can testify to what happened in
those neighborhoods when the fog rolled through the selection of
test sites reveals uncomfortable truths about how the military viewed
(07:10):
certain Americans. They chose low income housing projects populated primarily
by black families. They selected neighborhoods where residents had little
political power to protest or seek accountability. The scientists needed
dense populations to study dispersal patterns, and they found them
in communities already marginalized by poverty and racial discrimination. Saint
(07:33):
Louis wasn't unique in this targeting. The thirty three cities
selected for spraying shared similar demographics, working class neighborhoods where
people lacked the resources to question authority or demand answers
about the strange activities in their streets. The army treated
these communities as convenient approximations of enemy cities, their residents
(07:54):
as acceptable casualties in cold war preparedness. Cecil Hughes captured
the vihoilation simply when he said the government used him
like a guinea pig without permission. The spraying happened without consent, forms,
warning notices, or even basic disclosure about potential risks. Families
breathed in zinc cadmium sulfide while going about their daily lives,
(08:17):
their exposure levels determined by military personnel who viewed them
as test subjects rather than citizens deserving protection. No federal
agency has issued an official apology for the ZNCDS experiments.
No compensation program exists for victims or their families. The
government has never acknowledged a connection between the spraying and
(08:39):
the diseases that followed, maintaining that correlation doesn't prove causation,
even as former residents point to cancer rates that defy
statistical probability. The pruitt Igo survivors continue speaking out, sharing
their stories with journalists and researchers who will listen. They
describe the FOG's chemicals, smell, it's sticky residue on skin,
(09:03):
the way it made children feel sick. They list the
names of dead neighbors, the types of cancers that killed them,
the ages they died. Their testimony forms an oral history
of an experiment the government would prefer forgotten. The official
position remains unchanged since nineteen ninety seven. The spraying was
probably safe, The exposure levels were probably too low to
(09:26):
cause harm. The missing records probably wouldn't change these conclusions. Probably. Meanwhile,
in Saint Louis and Fort Wayne and Corpus Christie and
dozens of other cities, families bury their dead and wonder
what might have been if those trucks had never rolled
through their neighborhoods, If those men in hazmat suits had
(09:49):
never appeared on their rooftops, if that thick foul smelling
fog had never stuck to their children's skin. If you
like to read this story for yourself, I've placed a
link to the article in the episode description, and you
can find more stories of the paranormal, true crime, strange,
and more at Weird Darkness dot com slash news
I'm Darren Marler, and this is a weird darkness bonus bite.
Something terrible happened across America during the nineteen fifties and
sixties that most people never knew about. Government trucks rolled
through neighborhoods, spraying thick clouds while men in hazmat suits
worked on rooftops with industrial nozzles. Residents watched the strange activity,
(00:28):
unaware they were unwitting test subjects in a massive military
experiment that would haunt their families for generations. Cecil Hughes
was just a kid living in Saint Louis's Prudt I
Goo housing complex when the trucks started coming through. The
vehicles carried massive machines with industrial nozzles. They released clouds
(00:49):
so thick residents couldn't see through them. The fog had
a foul chemical smell that made children feel sick, and
it would adhere to their skin like a sticky film
that wouldn't wash off easily. James Caldwell remembered watching men
on the rooftops who wore full hazmat suits with masks
and goggles. The army told residents these were maintenance workers,
(01:11):
though nobody could explain why maintenance required protective gear that
looked like it belonged in a chemical warfare facility. The
spraying happened regularly, sometimes from trucks patrolling the streets, other
times from devices mounted on buildings that would release the
mysterious substance into the air, where it would drift down
onto the community below. The pruitt Igo complex housed thousands
(01:34):
of low income families in densely packed buildings. Children played
in the streets while this fog settled over playgrounds and
seeped through open windows. Mothers hung laundry that absorbed the chemicals.
Families ate dinner while particles floated through their apartments. Nobody
gave them a choice or even a warning about what
(01:55):
was happening. The Army had a specific reason for choosing
places like pruet i Go. Military strategists believed Saint Louis
resembled Soviet cities, particularly Moscow, in its urban layout and
building density. They needed to understand how biological weapons might
spread through enemy cities if the Cold War turned hot,
(02:16):
so they decided to use American cities as testing grounds.
This program known as Operation lack LAC, standing for large
area Coverage involved spraying zinc cadmium sulfide across thirty three
cities in the United States and Canada. The list included
Fort Wayne, Indiana, Corpus Christi, Texas, and dozens of other
(02:38):
communities where families went about their daily lives while military
personnel treated them as data points in weapons research. The
chemical they chose, zinc cadmium sulfide, or ZNCDS, contains cadmium,
a heavy metal that accumulates in the body over time.
When inhaled in sufficient quantities, cadmium damages kidney weekends, bones,
(03:01):
and causes lung problems. The International Agency for Research on
Cancer classifies cadmium as a known human carcinogen. The Army
knew they were spraying a toxic substance, but calculated the
exposure levels would remain low enough to avoid immediate health effects.
Philip Lyton, a scientist involved in the Biology Warfare Research Program,
(03:23):
wrote classified reports about these experiments. His work included Joint
Quarterly Report five, which detailed these ZNCDS spraying tests. That
document remains missing to this day, despite Freedom of Information
Act requests that the government has ignored beyond the legally
required twenty day response period. Jaqueline Russell lost two siblings
(03:46):
to cancer. Her neighbors developed brain tumors, kidney disease, and
rare eye cancers. Ben Phillips attended ten funerals in his community.
Seven or eight were cancer deaths among people who had
lived in Prudi Goo during the spraying. James Caldwell developed
a rare form of lymphoma that doesn't run in his family.
He connects his disease directly to those thick clouds that
(04:08):
stuck to his skin as a child. The cancer appeared
decades after exposure, following the typical latency period for cadmium
related cancers. The pruitt Igo complex was demolished in the
nineteen seventies, but the people who lived there during the
testing period carried the consequences in their bodies. Former residents
(04:29):
described entire social circles decimated by cancers, kidney failures, and
lung diseases, illnesses that cluster in patterns, suggesting environmental exposure
rather than random occurrence. The Army kept these experiments secret
for decades. Only in the mid nineteen nineties, after declassified
(04:49):
documents emerged, did they acknowledge spraying American cities with zncds.
The admission sparked congressional investigations and public outrage. The damage
was already spreading through the bodies of test subjects. In
nineteen ninety seven, the National Research Council released a three
hundred eighty seven page report examining the health risks. The
(05:11):
Council confirmed the Army's basic claims that exposure levels were
relatively low, but their conclusions came with significant caveats. They
couldn't rule out long term health effects because crucial data
was missing. Army records had disappeared or remained classified. Without
complete information about dosages, frequency, and exact locations, researchers couldn't
(05:35):
definitively link the spraying to the cancer clusters. The report
acknowledged that cadmium exposure could cause lung cancer, kidney damage,
and bone weakening, even at lower doses than previously thought,
Yet it stopped short of declaring the Army's actions definitively harmful,
trapped in the scientific gray zone between correlation and proven causation.
(06:00):
Apps in the official record seem almost deliberate. Joint Quarterly
Report five vanished into the classification system. Details about specific dosages,
spray patterns, and frequency of exposure remain unclear. The Army
admits to conducting the tests, but maintains strategic ambiguity about
the scope and intensity of the program. News Nation filed
(06:23):
Freedom of Information Act requests in May of twenty twenty
five for the Missing Lighton report. The law requires a
response within twenty working days, but months have passed in silence.
Missouri state lawmakers requested that the Environmental Protection Agency and
Department of Health and Human Services conduct new health studies
focusing on affected communities. No such studies have materialized. Former
(06:48):
residents see a pattern in this institutional amnesia. Ben Phillips
believes the government is simply waiting for all the test
subjects to die, then waiting for their children to die,
until nobody remains who can testify to what happened in
those neighborhoods when the fog rolled through the selection of
test sites reveals uncomfortable truths about how the military viewed
(07:10):
certain Americans. They chose low income housing projects populated primarily
by black families. They selected neighborhoods where residents had little
political power to protest or seek accountability. The scientists needed
dense populations to study dispersal patterns, and they found them
in communities already marginalized by poverty and racial discrimination. Saint
(07:33):
Louis wasn't unique in this targeting. The thirty three cities
selected for spraying shared similar demographics, working class neighborhoods where
people lacked the resources to question authority or demand answers
about the strange activities in their streets. The army treated
these communities as convenient approximations of enemy cities, their residents
(07:54):
as acceptable casualties in cold war preparedness. Cecil Hughes captured
the vihoilation simply when he said the government used him
like a guinea pig without permission. The spraying happened without consent, forms,
warning notices, or even basic disclosure about potential risks. Families
breathed in zinc cadmium sulfide while going about their daily lives,
(08:17):
their exposure levels determined by military personnel who viewed them
as test subjects rather than citizens deserving protection. No federal
agency has issued an official apology for the ZNCDS experiments.
No compensation program exists for victims or their families. The
government has never acknowledged a connection between the spraying and
(08:39):
the diseases that followed, maintaining that correlation doesn't prove causation,
even as former residents point to cancer rates that defy
statistical probability. The pruitt Igo survivors continue speaking out, sharing
their stories with journalists and researchers who will listen. They
describe the FOG's chemicals, smell, it's sticky residue on skin,
(09:03):
the way it made children feel sick. They list the
names of dead neighbors, the types of cancers that killed them,
the ages they died. Their testimony forms an oral history
of an experiment the government would prefer forgotten. The official
position remains unchanged since nineteen ninety seven. The spraying was
probably safe, The exposure levels were probably too low to
(09:26):
cause harm. The missing records probably wouldn't change these conclusions. Probably. Meanwhile,
in Saint Louis and Fort Wayne and Corpus Christie and
dozens of other cities, families bury their dead and wonder
what might have been if those trucks had never rolled
through their neighborhoods, If those men in hazmat suits had
(09:49):
never appeared on their rooftops, if that thick foul smelling
fog had never stuck to their children's skin. If you
like to read this story for yourself, I've placed a
link to the article in the episode description, and you
can find more stories of the paranormal, true crime, strange,
and more at Weird Darkness dot com slash news
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