During his investigation, Professor Schmidt also found that the UK used London commuters as test subjects. In fact, while this was sort of known for a bit, Schmidt found out the experiment was done at a far larger scale than previously assumed. It is known that several governments conducted experiments on their own people in the world of transit from the 1910s to the 1970s by now. Of course, it was usually to test how trains, subways, or cars worked for most.
[Image via Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock.com]Yet the British government actually decided to carry out a biological warfare field trial on the nation’s capital tube system at some point in May of 1964. Carried out by the government’s Porton Down Research Center, they released a chemical in large quantities known as Bacillus Globigii into the tube. The government scientists wanted to see if long-distance travel of aerosols in the tube network was due to train transportation, or if it simply came through the tube’s air ventilation system.