Newly discovered Pentagon documents have confirmed that the United States is experimenting with the use of swarms of “killer mosquitoes” as biological weapons.
According to a report from Daily mail, The 69-page declassified document from 1977, currently available at the Defense Technical Information Center, reveals details of a secret US military project dubbed Project Bellweather.
The document also sheds light on several other secret projects involving insects, including Operation Drop Kick and Operation Big Buzz.
The Pentagon conducted actual experiments, between September and October 1959, to analyze how mosquitoes bite under different environmental conditions.
The goal of the experiments was to assess how mosquito swarms would behave as a biological weapon if unleashed against enemy troops or other populated areas.
Human biting Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were used in these experiments. The species is known to cause several life-threatening diseases, including chikungunya, dengue, yellow fever and Zika.
The document says: “The literature indicates that the deliberate employment of infected arthropod vectors against enemy targets has great strategic potential. »
Military researchers have studied the use of mosquitoes in war zones through these experiments.
The insects were not infected with pathogens. Instead, researchers analyzed how far they could travel, how long they could survive after being dispersed, and whether they would actively seek out and bite human hosts.
