Back in the 1950s, governments conducted experiments on their own people quite often as a sort of “preparedness” test. The idea being that biological warfare was already a thing, and we needed to know how to respond to those issues. If something came to mainland America, how would we respond? The U.S. Government certainly wanted to know the answer. This is why they had the U.S. Navy spray a cloud of bacteria over the city of San Francisco.
[Image via Prapat Aowsakorn/Shutterstock.com]Since San Fran is the second-largest city in the state of California, it was perfect for the experiment. How could people not see random bacteria in the air? Simple. The city is known for its fog, which makes sense considering it’s near the ocean. This allowed the Navy to hide its bacteria cloud within the fog. The residents of the city were not made aware of the biological experiment, and many became sick with pneumonia-like symptoms. At least one confirmed death even happened as a result.