Operation Big Buzz: When the U.S. Army Tested Mosquito Warfare

Описание: In 1955, the United States Army conducted a classified biological warfare experiment over an American city. Hundreds of thousands of uninfected mosquitoes were released from aircraft—not as pest control, but to test whether insects could survive aerial dispersal and actively seek out human hosts.

This video examines Operation Big Buzz, a Cold War–era test conducted in Savannah, Georgia, designed to evaluate mosquitoes as potential delivery systems for biological agents. Drawing on declassified military documents, this episode explores why mosquitoes were chosen, how the test was planned and executed, what the Army concluded, and why the public was never informed.

Operation Big Buzz was not about disease. It was about delivery. And in answering that narrow technical question, it crossed ethical lines that would only be acknowledged decades later.

This is a story about Cold War fear, secrecy, and how easily civilian populations became variables in military experiments—all in the name of national security.

Chapters:
0:00 — Cold Open
0:53 — Cold War Fear and the Birth of Biological Testing
3:38 — Why Mosquitoes Were Chosen
5:45 — Planning Operation Big Buzz
9:51 — The Release Over Savannah
14:17 — What the Army Concluded
18:09 — Ethics, Consent, and the Line Crossed
22:18 — Declassification and Rediscovery
26:10 — Legacy and Modern Parallels
29:53 — Closing