IT GOES DEEPER · THE ARCHIVE · DEEP STATE & COVER-UPS · CASE 7561-03

Operation Sea-Spray

FILE DATE 1950
CROSS-REFS 02
STATUS NEVER CLOSED
SUMMARY
The Navy sprayed bacteria over San Francisco to test drift. The city found out in 1976.
FULL DOSSIER
Operation Sea-Spray, 1950: the U.S. Navy sprayed Serratia marcescens bacteria — then thought harmless — over San Francisco to model a bioweapon attack on a city. Documented: revealed in 1976-77 Senate hearings on Army open-air testing (which cataloged 239 such tests over populated areas, including bacteria in the New York subway, 1966). Eleven patients developed rare Serratia infections at a Stanford hospital shortly after; one died, and the family's lawsuit failed. The full catalog is the citation behind every 'they spray us' claim downstream — including the ones the catalog doesn't support.
SOURCES ON RECORD
01U.S. Army open-air testing hearings, Senate Subcommittee on Health (1977)
02Cole, Clouds of Secrecy (1988)
03Nevin v. United States, 9th Cir. (1981)
CROSS-REFERENCED FILES
PLUM ISLANDEDGEWOOD ARSENAL
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