Plum Island: Dark History of Bioweapons Research and Leaks

Plum Island's history includes bioweapon research, animal hybrids, and human experimentation, leading to safety failures and disease outbreaks.

### The Dark History of Plum Island: From Nazi Scientists to Bioweapons Research
* 🏝 ️ Plum Island, a top-secret government facility off the coast of Long Island, is officially a research lab for animal diseases, but rumors suggest a **darker past**.
* 🔬 In the 1950s, Plum Island was used for **anti-animal biological warfare research**, with ties to **Nazi scientists** recruited through **Operation Paperclip**.
* 🐀 Strange, unidentifiable animal carcasses began washing up on nearby beaches, fueling speculation about **genetic experiments and leaks from Plum Island**.
* The discovery of Lyme disease in the area coincided with Plum Island's research on **weaponizing ticks**, raising questions about a **potential connection**.
* 🏢 Security lapses, including a **1978 foot and mouth disease outbreak** and a **2002 Rift Valley fever incident**, have plagued Plum Island's history.
* 🏛 ️ The CDC, another high-security research facility, has also experienced **numerous safety failures and leaks of dangerous pathogens**.
* 🔒 The lack of transparency and oversight in bioweapons research labs raises concerns about **public safety and potential health risks**.
* 🌐 Plum Island is scheduled to be closed, with its research moving to a new facility in Kansas, highlighting **ongoing government bioweapons research**.

this episode of the Y-Files is brought to you by Henson Shaving. In July 2008, the carcass of an animal washed up on the beach at Montauk Point, Long Island. Local beachcombers are used to seeing dead animals - seagulls, fish, crabs, even the occasional whale - but they had never seen anything like this. Animal experts were brought in to identify it. They were stumped. It looked like part dog, part reptile, and part rodent, with the beak of a bird. This animal, whatever it was, became known as the Montauk Monster. But where did the monster come from? There could be only one answer: Plum Island. Plum Island is just a few miles from where the monster was found. Locals heard rumors that this was a top-secret government facility that created bioweapons, engineered animal hybrids, and maybe even experimented on people. Sounds like a wild theory, but then another animal washed up on the beach. Again, it couldn't be identified. And then another animal. And then two more. In 2010, the

rumors about Plum Island seem to be true when something else was found on the beach. This time it wasn't a strange animal, it was a body, a human body, well Almost Human. Look. [Music] Look, Mitch, I have an emergency. I need to borrow your car, two thousand dollars, and two pairs of ice patios. What is going on? You were supposed to be here two days ago. Extenuating circumstances. It means beyond my control. I know what it means. Okay, okay, calm down a minute. What is the emergency? Goody and I have a photo shoot for the modern goldfish. What the heck is the modern goldfish? Hello? Yeah, I don't go into your bathroom. I was in there six months ago and I'm still in therapy. What a snowflake. So, the modern goldfish is doing a profile on me and I got my Rolex, bespoke suit, and now I just need a nice close shave. What does any of this have to do with me? 22 grand for disposable razors, two thousand dollars for razors. All right.

well, yeah, the razor gets dull. Well, imagine your wife's legs were the size of a camel hump. I, I don't want to imagine that. I use one again. Look, you don't need any of those disposable razors, just try Henson shaving. Oh, it sure is. Henson shaving is a family-run Aerospace business that makes a Precision quality safety razor. The Henson al-13 has a cost of ownership that's way less than disposable or electric razors. It's completely plastic free, and the replacement blades cost about 10 cents each, so you can always have a safe, close shave. It is, and there aren't any subscription programs or monthly deliveries, just a solid, long-lasting, dependable razor. Click the link in the description to get your very own Henson al13 and use the code the Y files to get 100 free blades with your order. That'll give you three to five years worth of shaves. Okay, okay, I know I'm gonna regret asking this, but why do you need a pair of pantyhose?

why do you need them? What do you think? Your legs, she gets cold. Have you ever seen chicken skin on a camel's legs? It ain't pretty. So tell your wife to make with the pantyhose too sweet. What is it, baby? What is it? Hang on, hang on. I'll ask. Hey, yes. She wants you to make sure that fishnets. [Music] Less than two miles off the coast of Long Island, and about 85 miles from New York City, is a small island owned by the US government and unidentified on most maps. It's only accessible by ferry or by helicopter, but don't try visiting even if you have top secret clearance. Access to Plum Island is invitation only. Boats that wander too close are quickly chased away by armed military personnel. Officially, the island is home to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a federal research facility that studies livestock-related diseases, specifically foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever. These are highly contagious diseases that affect cows, pigs, sheep, and goats. The Plum Island Animal Disease

Center is the only lab in the U.S. authorized to work with live fmd samples. If these samples escape the island, it could devastate the country's food supply in a matter of weeks. Foot and mouth is so contagious that if a single case is found in imported meat, all meat imports from that country are instantly banned. In 2001, the UK had an outbreak of foot and mouth disease that resulted in a loss of almost 10 billion dollars and the slaughter of more than 6 million animals, whether they were infected or not. The center also studies African and classical swine fevers, as well as avian flu. Now, there's no question that since the 1950s Plum Island has studied diseases that affect livestock, but Plum Island's true history is much darker. For years, stories circulated that Plum Island was conducting genetic experiments on animals and possibly on people. So, when the bodies of strange animals began washing up on beaches around the Long Island Sound, it could mean only one thing: the rumors about Plum Island were true. The Manhattan

monster was found along the East River. Then, another creature washed up, and this one kind of looked like a pig. But you don't see a lot of those running around New York City. Besides, pigs have four toes on each foot that ends in a hoof. The Manhattan monster's feet had five toes that ended in what looked like claws. It had the body of a crib and a head of a cat. No, it had to be a crib kit. I know some thought it could be a huge rat. Now, I'm from New York, and I've seen some huge rats, especially under the F train. It was frustrated. They get big down there, but not this big. Plus, rats have four toes on their back feet. Again, this thing had five. Then, another unrecognizable animal appeared, then another, and another. Plum Island is supposed to be a medical research facility, originally under the purview of the Department of Agriculture. But Plum Island is actually part of Homeland Security. Why? In 2008, an Al-Qaeda operative was captured. She was in possession of

handwritten notes with possible sights for a mass casualty attack in the United States. One of the sites listed was Plum Island. Again, why? Well, Plum Island research wasn't always about curing diseases. When it opened, Plum Island was about creating them. In 1952, Plum Island was used to research anti-animal biological warfare. Specifically, it focused on weaponizing foot and mouth disease against enemy livestock to disrupt their food supply. But there's evidence that the bioweapons developed on Plum Island weren't only targeting animals, but targeting humans. In January 2010, a human body was found on Plum Island by a local security guard. It was described as a six-foot-tall black male with no obvious signs of trauma, but there were a few strange details about this man. One is that his fingers were described as abnormally large. Some news agencies reported that his hands seemed mutated. But the scariest detail of all: his skull had five holes drilled into it, indicating invasive brain surgery or experimentation. And that's where Plum

Island's dark history becomes even darker. Because when the United States wanted to create one of the deadliest germ labs on Earth, it brought in elite personnel to build it. To build Plum Island, the U.S. brought in bioweapon scientists with experience in human experimentation. To build Plum Island, the U.S. brought in the Nazis. Why couldn't the Montauk Monster be some critter that they were tinkering with that somehow went into the water and got swept by that outgoing tide? Montauk is south and east of Plum Island, not that far, maybe 10 miles as the crow flies, maybe less even. Why couldn't it be that Reems Island, Germany, is home to the oldest urological institution in the world? Reems was founded in 1910 to research foot and mouth disease, but during World War II, it became ground zero for Hitler's bio warfare program. Reems was run by scientist Eric Traub, who reported directly to Heinrich Himmler, who reported directly to Hitler. Traub experimented with unique forms of

biological warfare. He specialized in biting and stinging insects. He discovered that if you infect beetles and ticks with a deadly disease, you can drop them on enemy troops and their food supplies. You can devastate an entire Army without firing a single shot. Ticks were considered an ideal weapon for biological warfare. They're small, making them hard to detect. They're resilient, making them hard to kill, and they feed on human blood, making them motivated to spread disease. Tick is the perfect germ Vector, which is why it has long been fancied as a germ Weapon by early bio Warriors from Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan to the Soviet Union in the United States after the war. There was no Nazi Germany, there was no Empire of Japan, but the Soviet Union and the United States were still very interested in using poison ticks in Warfare. Except now they would be used on each other. So now the two allies became enemies and competition for German technology was fierce. The United States launched Operation Paperclip, a secret program that recruited German scientists, engineers

and technicians. The US gave German scientists the choice: work for us and your war crimes are forgiven. Not a difficult decision for most. Even if German scientists refused to work for the U.S., they could still find themselves swept up in Operation Osoviakhim. This was the Soviet counterpart to Operation Paperclip, but where the U.S. gave scientists a choice, the Soviets took them by force. Eric Traub was one of the scientists forced to work for the Soviets. From his lab on Reems Island, but in 1948, British intelligence got him out and brought him to the states. Soon, he was working at Fort Dietrich, the Army's biological warfare headquarters. And based on the design of Traub's Island in Germany, the United States built their own lab off the coast of New York. So, the Plum Island Animal Disease Laboratory opened its doors in 1954. A source who worked on Plum Island in the 1950s recalls that animal handlers and a scientist released ticks outdoors on the island. They called him the Nazi scientist. In 1951, they were inoculating

these ticks. It would take years before residents in the area would learn what was happening on Plum Island. And when locals found out, tensions were high. Nobody wanted to buy a weapons lab in their backyard. Moral issues aside, what if some disease baited to the mainland? After all, about 10 million people live within a hundred miles of the island. A lab leak would be catastrophic. But even when the government finally acknowledged the facility, they said that one, it wasn't researching bioweapons, and two, there's no way anything could escape the island. But here's the thing, those were both lies. This Animal Facility since 1954 when it was actually inaugurated as a biological warfare Facility by Nazi Germany's top germware officer. Warfare officer that we secretly imported to the United States. The goal was germ warfare. Is that true? It really was that a Nazi, a Nazi around the place, the next Nazi. Yeah, his name, his name was Eric Traub. We can find him in the depths of the National Archives and record Administration where

I found them in 1971, a mysterious virus began decimating Cuba's pig population, threatening a major food source. Within two years, over 500,000 pigs had died or been slaughtered. The cause was African swine fever, a highly contagious and usually fatal virus. This was the first and only outbreak of swine fever in the Western Hemisphere. As a result of the epidemic, Cuba was forced to slaughter every pig on the island. How African swine flu got onto the island was a mystery, well, a mystery to everyone except the Cubans. [Music] The Cuban government blamed the United States, specifically the CIA. After all, Operation Mongoose was well known to the Cubans. This was a covert operation initiated by the CIA in the early 1960s. Its primary objective was to remove Fidel Castro from power, and although they were never implemented, biological weapons were a part of this plan. The CIA had planned to spray botulinum toxin on the island. The justification for this is that it would save the lives of thousands of American soldiers. Cuban

civilians wouldn't be so lucky. Botulinum toxin is one of the most potent toxins on Earth. Estimates put the casualty count at somewhere between one and two percent of the Cuban civilian population. We're talking hundreds of thousands dead. Now, luckily, Operation Mongoose ended and this never came to pass. But when a disease landed on Cuba out of nowhere, all signs pointed to the CIA. Foreign [Music]. In 1977, Long Island newspaper Newsday reported two Cuban Exiles admitted they were part of the plot. They said in early 1971, they were given the virus at Fort Gulick in Panama. They then traveled to Navasa Island near Cuba and smuggled the virus to the island. Now, there is proof that the U.S. Navy was on Navasa Island in early 1971, but they claim this was a scientific mission. Though the science they were researching was looking for animal diseases that could jump to humans. Now, that might be a coincidence, but there's only one place in the Western Hemisphere that has live African swine flu, that's Plum Island, and the way

African swine flu is transmitted through ticks. This was the exact method of biological attack that Eric Trab specialized in. Of course, the CIA denied all of this and still does. But it has to. Why does the CIA have to deny this? Well, this attack happened in 1971. President Richard Nixon ordered all bioweapon research to stop in 1969. So, there's no way the CIA could have been involved, right? Oh, I know where this is going. But in 1975, a congressional report revealed that the CIA continued to maintain a stockpile of biological weapons, lots of them, in violation of the order. The CIA doesn't like to follow orders. No, they don't. And this was a terrifying prospect. Who was in charge of these dangerous bioweapons with no oversight? There's a high risk that one of these diseases could infect the population, and we'd never see it coming. Turns out, that's exactly what happened in 1975. Ronnie was working a security detail for a warehouse in Connecticut. During a shift, he walked the building, the parking lot, and the fence around the

property. During one of his rounds, he felt a pinch on his ankle. He was breaking in a new pair of boots, and he knew he'd spend the next few nights nursing sore feet. When he got home, the first thing he did was strip off those damn boots, and sure enough, he had a small red welt on his ankle. When he woke up the next morning, the small red welt had ballooned into a painful blister shaped like a bullseye. When he rubbed it, he felt a bump. He looked more closely; the bump was a bug, and it was alive. Ronnie grabbed a pair of tweezers, and when he pulled the bug out, it broke apart. A few days later, his joints started to ache, and he felt sick. He thought he had caught the flu, but it wasn't the flu. In 1975, the small town of Old Lyme, Connecticut, experienced an outbreak of a devastating new disease. Some people got rashes, some ran high fevers, others had painful swollen joints. Some people had all these symptoms as well as headaches.

dizziness and shortness of breath. In severe cases, people were becoming delusional, experiencing psychosis, and becoming paralyzed. At first, doctors misdiagnosed the condition as a type of arthritis. They named it Lyme arthritis after the town that had the first outbreak. Two years later, scientists finally connected Lyme arthritis to the bite of a deer tick. A type of single-cell bacteria called Borrelia was to blame for what's now known as Lyme disease. As the reports of symptoms came in, these cases were placed on a map. A disturbing picture started to appear. Ground Zero was Plum Island. This was another disease spread by ticks. This also has Eric Traub's fingerprints all over it. But was the outbreak an accident, or is the government conducting a test on the population without their knowledge? If it was a test, it wouldn't be the first time. In the 1930s, the Tuskegee experiment infected 400 men with syphilis to see how the disease affected black males. They were denied treatment. The US government has infected prisoners.

with cow blood and exposed people to plutonium, it really was the Kmart of human experimentation from 1951 to 1974. Operation Sea spray was a secret test in 1950 where the government dropped bacteria on the entire city of San Francisco. In 1966, the Army released bacteria into the New York subway to simulate a biological attack. Hey, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Project 112 and project Shad infected thousands of military personnel with biological agents like BZ and nerve toxins like sarin gas. The tests themselves were a lot of smoke. The planes would let out a uh like a smoke or a gas type thing, and it would also cover the ship. The crew was given gas masks and told not to worry. They were exposed to toxic nerve gas at least 46 times. Nobody knows how many people were killed. The records are still mostly classified, and there are more, lots more tests without consent have been conducted as recently as the 1990s.

many involving children, and that's just what's been exposed. Who knows how many more tests are still classified or if tests are still taking place. We do know that some civilians were exposed in tests that occurred in Hawaii, possibly in Alaska, and possibly in Florida. The military and intelligence community, of course, continue to deny any wrongdoing. They deny that bioweapon research was done at Plum Island, and they deny that Lyme disease was artificially created and released to the public. But denial is not good enough. We know the CIA and Military violate orders time and time again, and we know they lie when they do it. So in 2019, Congressman Christopher Smith from New Jersey proposed an amendment to the 2020 defense bill. For years, Mr. Speaker, books and articles have been written, incredibly asserting that significant research at Fort Dietrich, in Plum Island, and elsewhere, was conducted to turn ticks into bioweapons. Mr. Speaker, with Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases exploding in the United States, an estimated 300,000 to 427

000 cases new cases each year, and 10 to 20 percent of those people with chronic Lyme. Americans have a right to know whether or not any of this is true, but what prompted this? Well, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease is called Borrelia burgdorferi, after Willie Burgdorfer, who discovered it. Now, Burgdorfer was widely known as a leading researcher in the scientific study of insects, and his discovery of Lyme disease was historic. But what's not widely known about Burgdorfer is that early in his career, he developed biological weapons for the US military. Specifically, he weaponized ticks, and between 1966 and 1969, almost 300,000 research ticks they got out. Dr. Willie Burtoffer, the researcher who is credited with discovering Lyme disease, turns out to Dr. Burgdorfer was a bioweapons specialist. The interviews combined with access to Dr. Burgdorfer's files reveal that he and other bioweapon specialists stuffed ticks with pathogens in a quest to cause disability.

disease and death. Between 1966 and 1969, government researchers released 300,000 ticks into the wild. The ticks were irradiated so they could be tracked. Three hundred thousand irradiated ticks. Oh, what could possibly go wrong? Oh, plenty. One of the species released were lone star ticks. Lone star ticks are especially aggressive. Most tick species wait for prey by attaching to a blade of grass. When an animal brushes against it, the tick latches on. This is called questing. Lone star ticks are different. They don't wait, they actively hunt. They can smell the ammonia and sweat and the carbon dioxide from breath. They are the only ticks with eyes. Unlike other ticks, the Lone Star can bite multiple times. Even their young, called nymphs, can feed on humans. Lone star ticks can go months without food. They can absorb water from the air. They can survive underwater. They can be frozen. Female lone star ticks lay hundreds of thousands of eggs at a time. And scariest of all, lone star ticks swarm. They'll ball themselves up in

groups of almost 10,000 ticks. When an animal or person brushes up against a group, it means thousands of tick bites. And these ticks carry a lot of diseases: Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, ehrlichiosis, tularemia, Heartland virus, and on and on. A bite from a lone star tick can even trigger a delayed allergic reaction to meat. That tick bite leads to an allergic response to the alpha-gal sugar that's found in red meat. I wish they would invent the tape that gives you an allergic reaction to fish, huh? Now, forever the lone star tick was confined to the southeast United States, but thousands were released in Virginia in the late 1960s. Since then, they've expanded to the entire eastern half of the United States, from Minnesota to Maine, down to Florida, and all the way across Texas, and they're still moving. I was called to investigate an outbreak, and I was horrified. I've studied ticks for 10 years, and the number of Lone Star larvae I found was just astonishing.

they're everywhere. Every property that we have gone to, we've found lone star ticks. They're literally every place. I hope this isn't The New Normal, but I fear that they're exploding in numbers. The CDC says Alpha gal syndrome, traditionally found in Mid-Atlantic States, breading and identified since 2010, but experts estimate the true number affected is closer to 450,000. Plum Island boasted how it was considered the safest virus lab in the world, until it wasn't. In 1978, foot and mouth disease did get out. Every animal on the island had to be cremated, but not before lunch. Did you just say lunch? Well, hey, even scientists working at a top secret government germ lab gotta eat on kill day. The guys upstairs would carve up stakes from sirloins to pork chops, not USDA grade A, but USDA grade V for virus. Everyone to a man would deny it, but we did it, we ate the meat. Ugh, I don't feel well. Yeah, not only is it gross to eat meat infected with foot and mouth disease, it's a little

irresponsible. You know, FMD isn't dangerous to humans, but this speaks to shoddy conditions at Plum Island. After the foot and mouth breakout, the USDA inspected the facility. They wrote a 190-page report detailing how mismanaged it was. They found leaking roofs, leaking walls, steel beams rusted through. They found an incinerator lying in a ditch, half filled with dirty water. And soon after this, there was an outbreak of Rift Valley fever on the island. Weaponized RVF was being tested by infecting mosquitoes. Some mosquitoes got out and bit the scientists. Now, luckily, they knew how to treat it. But if those mosquitoes got off the island and made it to shore, Rift Valley fever presents like the flu. But if you don't treat it, it kills you. In 2002, 76 Plum Island workers went on strike. Scabs were brought in to replace them, and it did not go well. The FBI conducted an investigation and found all kinds of issues. A 600-gallon container of liquid nitrogen somehow fell off one

of the Island's ferries, hundreds of gallons of oil and chemicals were spilled all over the island. Two workers drove off with a minivan and didn't come back. The van was later found, but whatever was in it was gone. Failing to learn from their mistakes, two years later, there were two more outbreaks of foot and mouth disease on Plum Island in New Haven, Connecticut. A worker at Yale University's arbovirus lab became infected with Sevilla virus. This virus causes extremely high fevers and internal bleeding. So, he got infected, went home, and took a trip to Boston. If anyone got sick, that information is not public. More recently, a Fort Detrick researcher accidentally stuck herself with a needle containing Ebola. These breakdowns in security of facilities like Plum Island prompted a nationwide investigation, but a 2007 report revealed that 113 bioweapon-capable labs around the United States refused to comply with inspections. And this is not just a violation of federal law, it's a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

President George W. Bush granted the facilities amnesty from inspections, and Congress agreed. The United States can decide when it doesn't want to follow the Geneva Conventions. No, but it decides anyway. Yes, and other countries don't complain. Oh, they complain, but if you want the billions of financial aid to keep flowing, shut your yep. Bingo. Biological weapons were banned in 1925 by the Geneva Protocol, but the United States refused to sign it. It wasn't until Richard Nixon banned bioweapons research that the U.S. agreed to a worldwide ban. The U.S. finally signed the Geneva Protocol in 1975. Ah, somebody let the CIA know. These scary events happened in relatively small labs around the country with maybe a few dozen to a few hundred employees. Can you imagine what would happen if there was a leak at the CDC with 10,000 employees? CDC had a leak, a-league. No. Oh, thank God. They've had dozens. [Music] Yeah. In May 2012, 24-year-old Amy Copeland

a few friends were ziplining near the Tallapoosa River in Georgia. During one of Amy's runs, she heard a snap. The zip line broke, and she fell into the creek below. She landed on sharp rocks and cut her leg pretty badly. She went through routine surgery, but over the next two days developed a fever and severe pain. Amy was infected with Aeromonas hydrophila, a rare type of flesh-eating bacteria. This bacteria moves faster than antibiotics can work, so the only way to remove it is to remove the limbs it infects. So you have to move fast. Amy survived but lost both hands, both feet, and her entire left leg. But suddenly more cases of this rare disease were popping up in Georgia, South Carolina, and Northern Florida. When looking at these cases on a map, people started asking, how secure is the CDC building in Atlanta? Well, not as secure as you'd hope. In June of 2012, just weeks after Amy Copeland's accident, it was reported that the CDC building in Atlanta had an airflow problem rather than drawing

clean air into a contaminated lab. It was blowing contaminated air out dirty. Jeremy, yeah yep, in that building, they study SARS, monkeypox, and Anthrax, the disease that makes more sense while transporting samples. About 80 employees in Atlanta may have been exposed to live Anthrax, live Anthrax. So you mean like, gay and constant still the disease, right? About a year later, it was found that the CDC was storing Anthrax in unlocked refrigerators in unrestricted areas. At least five times, the CDC improperly handled and shipped deadly pathogens to different labs around the country. Anthrax, botulism, and bird flu. About a week after this report, old vials of smallpox were discovered in a building on the Bethesda Campus of the National Institutes of Health. And this was after the NIH promised to do better, better than what? Well, about a year before, a deadly bacteria got out and 12 people died. In 2016, investigations show more CDC safety lapses with storing and handling Anthrax and Ebola. From software errors to power outages to ceiling doors with

duct tape. Uh, did you just say they used duct tape to keep in deadly viruses? Yep, and this goes on and on, and these are just the instances we know about. It's not like the CDC issues a press release every time there's a security failure. Most of these discoveries were made with Freedom of Information requests from citizens. These types of leaks and failures do happen, and they happen more frequently than most people think. These safety problems are at the CDC in Atlanta, one of the most secure facilities on the planet. If a leak can happen there, they can happen in other places. Yeah, Chinese places. Well, let's not single out any specific country. Look, just because that rare flesh-eating bacteria is not so rare anymore, I'm not saying it came from the CDC, and Lyme disease probably wasn't created on Plum Island because there's evidence it existed for a long time. You know Otzi, the 5,000-year-old mummy who was found in the Alps, while his DNA showed evidence of Lyme disease, but the outbreak of Lyme disease does

coincide with. Research into weaponizing ticks, and the expansion of lone star ticks does coincide with the uncontrolled releases of thousands of them in the late 1960s. Dr. Willie Bergdorfer, before he died, did kind of say that Lyme disease was a research experiment gone wrong. Maybe he had Advanced Parkinson's, so it's really hard to tell what he was saying, but there are people who believe that there's no question about it. Books like Lab 257 by Michael Christopher Carroll and Bitten by Chris Newby lay out a very convincing case. Now there's plenty of evidence, but evidence isn't proof, and researching this episode was stressful. The idea that the government has tested bioweapons on its citizens is upsetting enough, but what's really scary is how sloppy the security is in our Labs. I had no idea was this bad, and given what's happened over the past couple of years, we need to pay attention. If you have one of these labs near you, get to know your Congressman, demand that lab safety Protocols are made public.

demand to know the result of any safety investigations. Now they're not going to tell you any of that, but if they know we're watching, they'll pay closer attention to safety procedures, we hope. And look, if you're in the New York or Boston area, you can stop worrying about Plum Island. It's scheduled to be closed at the end of this year, but the work currently being performed there will continue. It'll just take place at a new facility in Kansas, in the middle of the country, in the middle of America's food supply. Bon appétit. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. My name is AJ, that Cyclone Fish. This has been The Y Files. If you had fun or learned anything and you're not too scared to death, do us a favor and like, subscribe, comment, and share. That stuff really helps us out. And like most topics we cover on the channel, today's is recommended by you. So if there's a story you'd like to see or learn more about, go to theyfiles.com/tips. And if you need

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[Music] Thank you. [Music] I feel the crap Daddy. I got stuck inside Mel's home with MK Ultra. [Music] Did Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing alone on a film set? I wear the shadow people there. [Music] I'm dancing with the [__]. [Music] [Music] The Mothman sightings and the solar storm still come to have got the secret City Underground mysterious number stations Planet Circle. [Music] I can't believe. [Music] All I ever wanted to just give the truth when they change today. [Music] [Music] [Music] Thank you. [Music]

The Horrors of Plum Island | Hybrids, Human Experiments and Weaponized Killer Insects

The Why Files

The Mystery of the Montauk Monster and Plum Island

A strange creature, known as the Montauk Monster, washed up on the beach at Montauk Point, leading to rumors of experiments on nearby Plum Island.

The island is home to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a government facility that officially studies livestock diseases.

The proximity of the unmarked island and the mysterious creatures sparked conspiracy theories about bioweapons and hybrid animal experiments.

Plum Island is the only US lab authorized to handle live foot and mouth disease samples, with the potential to devastate the country's food supply if they escape.

The island's history is marred by rumors of genetic experiments on animals and humans, with strange creatures washing up on nearby beaches.

Additionally, there are allegations of the island's involvement in bioweapon research, including the targeting of both animals and humans, with the involvement of Nazi scientists in its establishment.

Ticks were considered ideal for biological warfare due to their small size, resilience, and motivation to spread disease through feeding on human blood.

After World War II, both the Soviet Union and the United States were interested in using ticks as weapons, leading to a fierce competition for German technology.

German scientist Eric Traub was forced to work for the Soviets but was later brought to the US to continue research on biological warfare.

The Plum Island Animal Disease Laboratory, established in 1954, was involved in releasing and inoculating ticks for germ warfare research, despite the government's denial of conducting bioweapon research.

Ticks were seen as perfect for biological warfare due to their characteristics and motivation to spread disease.

After World War II, there was a competition between the Soviet Union and the United States to use ticks as weapons, leading to the recruitment of German scientist Eric Traub.

The Plum Island Animal Disease Laboratory

The CIA's Alleged Role in Biological Attacks

The CIA was implicated in a plot to smuggle botulinum toxin into Cuba in 1971, despite their denial of involvement.

A congressional report in 1975 revealed that the CIA had been stockpiling biological weapons in violation of an order to stop all bioweapon research, raising concerns about oversight and the risk of a disease outbreak.

The outbreak of Lyme disease in 1975, initially misdiagnosed as arthritis, was later connected to the bite of a deer tick and linked to Plum Island, raising questions about whether it was an accidental outbreak or a government test on the population.

Unethical Human Experimentation and the Connection to Lyme Disease

The US government conducted secret and unethical human experimentation, including the exposure of civilians to biological agents and toxic nerve gas.

Congressman Christopher Smith proposed an amendment to the 2020 defense bill to investigate the potential connection between Dr.

Burgdorfer, the discoverer of Lyme disease, and his involvement in bioweapon research.

Burgdorfer, a bioweapons specialist, released 300,000 irradiated ticks into the wild between 1966 and 1969, potentially contributing to the spread of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.

The Spread of Ticks and Disease in the US

Lone star ticks, carrying multiple diseases, have rapidly expanded across the eastern US since the 1960s.

The increase in these ticks has led to a rising number of people affected by Alpha-gal syndrome, with experts estimating the true number to be around 450,000.

The biosecurity breaches and disease outbreaks at Plum Island, including foot and mouth disease and Rift Valley fever, have raised serious concerns about the management of bioweapon-capable labs in the US.

The CDC has a history of safety lapses, including airflow problems, anthrax exposure, and mishandling of deadly pathogens.

These lapses have occurred in various CDC facilities across the country, raising concerns about the security of such high-containment labs.

The frequency of these safety issues, coupled with the CDC's prestigious reputation, highlights the potential for similar lapses in other facilities worldwide.

The Possible Connection Between Ticks and Bioweapon Research

Research suggests a possible link between the weaponizing of ticks and the release of thousands of them in the late 1960s.

Willie Bergdorfer's statement before his death about Lyme disease being a research experiment gone wrong has caused concern.

There are calls for better lab safety protocols and public access to safety investigations, especially with the planned relocation of the bioweapon research facility to Kansas.