“There had been three open-air nerve agent events on March 13 (1968), one of which was a test involving an F-4 fighter airplane operating two TMU-28B spray tanks, each holding 160 gallons of VX — a persistent nerve agent.”

Al Mauroni  — Who Killed the Dugway Sheep? Why It Matters Fifty Years Later

Modern War Institute – March 13 2018

March 13 2019 — The Dugway sheep incident, also known as the Skull Valley sheep kill, was a 1968 sheep kill that has been connected to United States Army chemical and biological warfare programs at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

RELATED POST: On This Day — The Skripals Drama Begins (March 4 2018)

RELATED POST: Remembering Ronald Maddison (23 January 1933 – 6 May 1953) [Porton Down]

RELATED POST: One Year Ago — Wormwood : Why Did The CIA Murder US Army Scientist Frank Olson?

RELATED POST: Dr Jeffrey S. Kaye — U.S. Dropped Plague-infected Fleas on North Korea in March 1952

“I chaired the commission for the Lancet for two years on COVID. After two years of intensive work, I am pretty convinced it came out of U.S. lab biotechnology, not out of nature.
This a blunder of biotech, not a natural spillover.”

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs 
(August 2022)

UPDATE (March 13 2023) — From the start, I stood firm against MSM and I have always argued that the Lab-Leak Theory was NOT a crackpot theory. And here we are today…

“The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.” [WSJ : Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says]

However, I find it quite interesting that the last ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT OF THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY (February 6, 2023) uses a different terminology. The report does not actually mention a laboratory leak, but instead a laboratory-associated incident.

“The IC continues to investigate how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, first infected humans, maintaining a Community of Interest across agencies. All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible explanations for the origin of COVID-19: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident.”

On May 15 2021, I reminded you that:

“The intermediary host species of SARS1 was identified within four months of the epidemic’s outbreak, and the host of MERS within nine months. But 16 months after the outbreak of this pandemic, neither the original bat population, nor the intermediate species to which SARS2 might have jumped, has been identified.”

And to this day, this statement remains true. That link — if it exists — is still unknown… Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Yet, this is becoming a serious issue for the proponents of the natural origin hypothesis. Amazingly, the ODNI report does not say a word about this issue…

PS — And by the way… The authors of this WSJ article are following my blog. Good for them!

END of UPDATE

“After examining all available intelligence reporting and other information, though, the IC remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19. All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident.”

ODNI (Aug. 27 2021)

UPDATE (March 13 2022) — On June 3 2021, Intel Today correctly predicted that the US Intelligence Community would not reach a definitive conclusion on the origin the COVID-90 pandemics.

“The assessment is the result of a 90-day sprint after Biden tasked his intelligence agencies in May to produce a report ‘that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion’ on the origins of a virus that has killed more than 4 million people globally and wrecked national economies. 

But despite analyzing a raft of existing intelligence and searching for new clues, intelligence officials fell short of a consensus, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report is not yet public.” [Washington Post]

The precise origins of COVID-19 — a virus that has killed more than 6 million people worldwide — remain shrouded in mystery. The U.S. spends $85 billion annually on its intelligence community.

END of UPDATE

“Greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest. Public health agencies and research laboratories alike need to open their records to the public. Investigators should document the veracity and provenance of data from which analyses are conducted and conclusions drawn, so that analyses are reproducible by independent experts.”

Investigate the origins of COVID-19
Science (May 14 2021)

UPDATE (March 13 2020) — It only took  30 years for the truth to emerge. Aliens — I am not talking about the Mexicans but those coming from a distant galaxy in their shiny dish-shaped UFOs — were not responsible for the Dugway sheep incident after all.

In truth, United States Army chemical and biological warfare scientists had just made a small mistake. That kind of glitch happens once in a while…

It took a bit longer to know what (and who) killed Ronald George Maddison, a twenty-year-old Royal Air Force engineer (23 January 1933 – 6 May 1953).

In 2004, the UK government revealed that military scientists from Porton Down killed Maddison with a nerve agent (Sarin) during an experiment. Again, this kind of thing happens. More often than not, it would seem because they even have words for that.

According to the inquest, Maddison was “unlawfully killed by his own government.” Nice…

On March 4 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the UK’s intelligence services, and his daughter Yulia Skripal were  found unconscious on a public bench in the centre of Salisbury.

They had been poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent known as ‘Novichok’.

And ‘Lo and Behold’, Salisbury is just located a few miles from the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), better known as Porton Down. Just a coincidence…

The coronavirus was first reported in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019. The city happens to be home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In 2015, this laboratory published successful research on whether a bat coronavirus could be made to infect human cells.

But according to the Washington Post, this is just (another) amazing coincidence. People “less qualified” than the Post reporters are not so sure.

Richard H. Ebright — an American molecular biologist —  is the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology.

According to Richard H. Ebright, the possibility that the virus entered the population due to a laboratory accident is very plausible.

But surely, considering the magnificent track records of the Washington Post, only conspiracy theorists will pay attention to Dr. Ebright?

Move on. There is no “there” there. Just another freaking coincidence…

PS — Ai Fen — Director of Wuhan Central Hospital’s emergency department — sounded the alarm about the coronavirus in December 2019. She was immediately censured. Why on earth would they do that?

END of UPDATE

“An official report, commissioned by Air Force Press Officer Jesse Stay and first made public in 1998, was called the “first documented admission” from the Army that a nerve agent killed the sheep at Skull Valley.”

Dugway Proving Ground is an Army test and evaluation center located about ninety minutes’ drive from Salt Lake City, Utah. It was established in 1942 to test US chemical and biological weapons.

Six thousand sheep were killed on ranches near the base, and the popular explanation blamed Army testing of chemical weapons for the incident, though alternative explanations have been offered.

“An alternate theory, that local ranchers had used an illegal organo-phosphate chemical herbicide to spray fields that were only a few miles from the affected sheep, was not accepted.

Certainly there were organo-phosphate pesticides such as Malathion and Parathion in use within the United States, and there was no Environmental Protection Agency to regulate their use.

The Utah congressional delegation and the governor preferred to believe that five gallons of liquid VX nerve agent — the unaccounted-for amount — had travelled as a gaseous cloud 30–45 miles from the spray incident over a mountain range and affected only sheep in Skull Valley.”

An official report, commissioned by Air Force Press Officer Jesse Stay and first made public in 1998, was called the “first documented admission” from the Army that a nerve agent killed the sheep at Skull Valley.

“At the end of the investigation, the Army would pay the ranchers for 4,372 sheep claimed to be killed by nerve agent, and 1,877 disabled and shot due to the ranchers being unable to sell their meat and wool.

The Army paid $376,685 for the 6,249 sheep in the claims—about twice the market value at the time.

Far from being over, though, the Army was drawn into a larger national debate over the US government’s role in developing chemical and biological weapons.”

The U.S. Congress passed a public law in November 1969 forbidding the open-air testing of any lethal chemical or biological warfare agent within the United States, unless the secretary of defense determined that such testing was necessary in the interests of national security, the US surgeon general reviewed the tests to ensure the public’s health and safety were protected, and the president informed Congress thirty days prior to the testing.

Was the Dugway Sheep Incident Around Area 52 a Smokescreen?

This is the only video regarding this event that I could find. And lo and behold, it blames the UFOs.

“Was there a hidden agenda behind the 1968 release of the deadly VX nerve agent which resulted in the overnight death of more than 6000 sheep 30 miles outside of Area 52?”

REFERENCES

Dugway sheep incident — Wikipedia

Who Killed the Dugway Sheep? Why It Matters Fifty Years Later — Modern War Institute

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On This Day — The Dugway Sheep Incident (March 13 1968)

On This Day — The Dugway Sheep Incident (March 13 1968) [Porton Down 1953, Skull Valley 1968, Salisbury 2018, Wuhan 2019]