Discover the untold stories. Dive into our carefully selected collection of mysterious and secret projects. Reveal hidden truths and undercover operations through our exclusive compilation of government-led dark projects.
TRAPAX Project by U.S. and Germany
U.S. and German intelligence agencies partnered on a scheme to dupe dozens of nations into buying rigged encryption systems on which for more than half a century, governments all over the world trusted to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers, and diplomats secret.
DICE Tests by England
The Dorset Biological Warfare Experiments were a series of experiments conducted between 1953 and 1975 to determine the extent to which a single ship or aircraft could dispense biological warfare agents over the United Kingdom. A bacteria was sprayed across South Dorset without the knowledge or consent of the inhabitants.
Operation Cauldron by the British
Operation Cauldron was a series of secret biological warfare trials undertaken by the British government in 1952. Scientists from Porton Down and the Royal Navy were involved in releasing biological agents, including pneumonic and bubonic plague, brucellosis, and tularaemia, and testing the effects of the agents on caged monkeys and guinea pigs.
Operation Whitecoat by the United States
Operation Whitecoat was a biodefense medical research program carried out by the United States Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland between 1954 and 1973. The stated purpose of the research was to defend troops and civilians against biological weapons.
Unit 731 – Maruta Project by Japan
Unit 731 short for Manshu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment and the Ishii Unit, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. The unit is estimated to have killed between 200,000 and 300,000 people.
Operation Paperclip by the United States
Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959.
Sverdlovsk Anthrax Leak by Russia
On 2 April 1979, spores of Bacillus anthracis (the causative agent of anthrax) were accidentally released from a Soviet military research facility in the city of Sverdlovsk, Soviet Union (now Yekaterinburg, Russia). The cause of the outbreak was denied for years by the Soviet authorities.
Edgewood Human Experiments by United States
From 1948 to 1975, the U.S. Army Chemical Corps conducted classified human subject research at the Edgewood Arsenal facility in Maryland. The purpose was to evaluate the impact of low-dose chemical warfare agents on military personnel and to test protective clothing, pharmaceuticals, and vaccines. A small portion of these studies were directed at psycho-chemical warfare
Project COAST by South Africa
Project Coast was a 1980s top-secret chemical and biological weapons (CBW) program instituted by the apartheid-era government of South Africa. Project Coast was the successor to a limited postwar CBW program, which mainly produced the lethal agents CX powder and mustard gas; as well as non-lethal tear gas for riot control purposes.
Operation Night Train by the United States
Operation Night Train was part of a series of chemical and biological warfare tests overseen by the Deseret Test Center as part of Project 112. The test was conducted near Fort Greely, Alaska from November 1963 to January 1964. The primary purpose of Night Train was to study the penetration of an arctic inversion by a biological aerosol cloud. All documents about Night Train were considered classified by the Russian military until 2002.
Project BACCHUS by the United States
Project Bacchus was a covert investigation by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency US Defense Department to determine whether it is possible to construct a bioweapons production facility with off-the-shelf equipment.
Operation Dark Harvest by the British
The Dark Harvest Commando of the Scottish Citizen Army was a militant group that in 1981 demanded that the British government decontaminate Gruinard Island, a site that had been used for anthrax weapon testing during World War II, by distributing potentially anthrax-laden soil on the mainland.
Operation Sea-Spray by the United States
Operation Sea-Spray was a 1950 U.S. Navy secret biological warfare experiment in which Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii bacteria were sprayed over the San Francisco Bay Area in California, in order to determine how vulnerable a city like San Francisco may be to a bioweapon attack.
Project SHAD by the United States
Project SHAD, an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense, was part of a larger effort called Project 112, which was conducted during the 1960s. It encompassed tests designed to identify U.S. warships’ vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical agents or biological warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability.
Tuskegee Study by the United States
An experiment that began in 1932 and lasted 40 years. It’s one of the most infamous cases of medical racism and abuse in U.S. history. With no informed consent, hundreds of Black men with low incomes were used as test subjects.
