====== Operation Sea Spray ======

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**Operation Sea Spray** was a [[bioweapon|bioweapons]] project of the [[United States Navy]] in the 1950's.

===== History =====

Beginning on September 26, 1950, the crew of a U.S. Navy minesweeper ship spent six days spraying //[[Serratia marcescens]]// into the air about two miles off the northern [[united_states:California]] coast. The aim of the project was to determine the susceptibility of a big city like [[uniteed_states:california:San Francisco]] to a bioweapon attack by [[terrorism|terrorists]]. In the following days, the [[united_states_military|military]] took samples at 43 sites to track the [[bacteria]]'s spread, and found that it had quickly infested not only the city but surrounding suburbs as well. During the test, residents of these areas would have inhaled millions of bacterial spores. Clearly, their test showed, San Francisco and cities with similar size and topography could face germ warfare threats. “In this regard, the experiment was a success,” writes [[Rebecca Kreston]].((Thompson, H. (2015, July 6). //In 1950, the U.S. Released a Bioweapon in San Francisco.// Smithsonian Magazine. http://archive.today/2022.09.02-135108/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1950-us-released-bioweapon-san-francisco-180955819/))

===== Further reading =====

  * November 10, 2022: [[https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/a-wild-not-wild-hypothesis-about|A Wild Not-Wild Hypothesis About Annual Respiratory Illness]] by [[Mathew Crawford]]