Government Experiments Part 1
from Haunted Real Estate
In 1950, San Francisco residents went about their normal lives — walking to work, sending kids to school, opening their windows, and breathing in the city’s famous fog — with no idea they had become part of a classified military experiment. As part of Operation Sea-Spray, the U.S. Navy released bacteria off the coast of San Francisco to study how a biological attack might spread through an American city. The public was never warned. The test remained classified for decades. And shortly afterward, a rare cluster of infections appeared at a local hospital. In this episode of Haunted Real Estate, Ashley introduces a new series on documented government experiments and explores the unsettling history of Operation Sea-Spray — a story about secrecy, consent, Cold War fear, and how a place can be haunted by decisions that were very, very real. Sources: National Academies, CDC, US Army and Senate testimony on open‑air biowarfare tests; reporting from KQED, Smithsonian Magazine, PBS American Experience; historical materials on Ohlone land and Mission San Francisco de Asís from NPS and Muwekma Ohlone sources.
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