Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) is a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

facility established in 1942 to test

biological Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of ...

and

chemical weapon A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as ...

s, located about southwest of

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt ...

and south of the

Utah Test and Training Range The Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) is a Department of Defense military testing and training area located in Utah's West Desert, approximately west of Salt Lake City, Utah. UTTR is currently the largest contiguous block of over-land superso ...

Location

Dugway Proving Ground is located about southwest of

, in southern Tooele County and just north of

Juab County Juab County ( ) is a county in western Utah, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 11,786. Its county seat and largest city is Nephi. Juab County is part of the Provo– Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statisti ...

. It encompasses of the

Great Salt Lake Desert The Great Salt Lake Desert (colloquially referred to as the West Desert) is a large dry lake in northern Utah, United States, between the Great Salt Lake The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the ei ...

, an area the size of the state of

Rhode Island Rhode Island ( ) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Is ...

, and is surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges. It had a resident population of 342 as of the 2020 United States Census, all of whom lived in the community of Dugway, Utah, at its extreme eastern end. It is south of the

and together they form the largest block of overland contiguous special use airspace measured from surface or near surface within the continental U.S.(). The transcontinental

Lincoln Highway The Lincoln Highway is one of the first transcontinental highways in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated Octob ...

passed through the present site of the Dugway Proving Ground, and is the only section of the old highway closed to the public. At least one old wooden bridge over a creek still stands. The name ''Dugway'' comes from a technique of digging a trench into a hillside to create a flat surface along which a wagon can travel.

Mission

Dugway's mission is to test United States and Allied

and

defense systems in a secure and isolated environment. DPG also serves as a facility for

US Army Reserve The United States Army Reserve (USAR) is a reserve force of the United States Army. Together, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard constitute the Army element of the reserve components of the United States Armed Forces. History Origi ...

and

US National Guard The National Guard is a state-based military force that becomes part of the U.S. military's reserve components of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force when activated for federal missions.US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

flight tests, mostly from nearby

Hill Air Force Base Hill Air Force Base is a major U.S. Air Force (USAF) base located in Davis County, Utah, just south of the city of Ogden, and bordering the Cities of Layton, Clearfield, Riverdale, Roy, and Sunset with its largest border immediately adja ...

in Clearfield. DPG is controlled by the

United States Army Test and Evaluation Command The U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, or ATEC, is a direct reporting unit of the United States Army responsible for developmental testing, independent operational testing, independent evaluations, assessments, and experiments of Army equip ...

(ATEC). The area was also used by

Army special forces The United States Army Special Forces (SF), colloquially known as the "Green Berets" due to their distinctive service headgear, is a branch of the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC). The core missionset of Special Forces ...

for training in preparation for deployments to the

War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC), the conquest of Afghanistan by the Macedonian Empire * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan, a series of campaigns in ...

History

In 1941, the US Army Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) determined it needed a testing facility more remote than the US Army's

Edgewood Arsenal Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States. More than 7,500 civilians and 5,000 military personnel work at APG. There are 11 major commands among the tenant units, ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

. The CWS surveyed the Western U.S. for a new location to conduct its tests, and in early 1942, construction of Dugway Proving Ground began, including the establishment of Michael Army Airfield. Since its founding, much of Dugway Proving Ground activity has been a closely guarded secret. Testing commenced in mid-1942. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, DPG tested toxic agents,

flamethrower A flamethrower is a ranged incendiary device designed to project a controllable jet of fire. First deployed by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century AD, flamethrowers saw use in modern times during World War I, and more widely in World W ...

s, chemical spray systems,

biological warfare Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of biological toxins or Pathogen, infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and Fungus, fungi with the intent to kill, harm or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an ...

weapons,

fire bombing Firebombing is a bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs. In popular usage, any act in which an incendiary d ...

tactics, antidotes for chemical agents, and protective clothing. During 1943 the " German Village" and " Japanese Village" set-piece domestic "hamlets" were built at Dugway, for practice in the fire-bombing of homes of the types in urbanized areas of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

's Home Islands. In October 1943, DPG established biological warfare facilities at UTTR's range telemetry and tracking radar installation, which is an isolated area within DPG known as the

Granite Peak Installation The Granite Peak Installation (GPI) — also known as Granite Peak Range — was a U.S. biological weapons testing facility located on of Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The GPI was a sub-installation of Dugway but had its own facilities, includi ...

. DPG was slowly phased out after World War II, becoming inactive in August 1946. The base was reactivated during the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

, under Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Speers Ponder, and in 1954 was confirmed as a permanent

Department of the Army The United States Department of the Army (DA) is one of the three military departments within the United States Department of Defense. The DA is the federal government agency within which the United States Army (U.S.) is organized. It is led ...

installation. In October 1958, the United States Army Chemical Center, Maryland, moved the U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Weapons School to Dugway Proving Ground. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Project Bellwether—a study of weaponized, mosquito-spread infections—was based at DPG. From 1985 to 1991, Dugway Proving Ground was home to the

Ranger School The Ranger School is a 62-day United States Army small unit tactics and leadership course that develops functional skills directly related to units whose mission is to engage the enemy in close combat and direct fire battles. Ranger training w ...

's short-lived Desert Training Phase. It was first known as the Desert Ranger Division (DRD) until redesignated the

Ranger Training Brigade The Ranger School is a 62-day United States Army small unit tactics and leadership course that develops functional skills directly related to units whose mission is to engage the enemy in close combat and direct fire battles. Ranger training w ...

's 7th Ranger Training Battalion in 1987, and taught students basic desert survival skills and small unit tactics. The program was later moved back to its original site at

Fort Bliss Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in New Mexico and Texas, with its headquarters in El Paso, Texas. Established in 1848, the fort was renamed in 1854 to honor William Wallace Smith Bliss, Bvt.Lieut.Colonel William W.S. Bliss (1815–1853 ...

, Texas, in 1991, where it was deactivated in 1995. On September 8, 2004, the ''Genesis'', a NASA spacecraft, was directed to impact into the desert floor of the Dugway Proving Ground because the topsoil there is like talcum powder, or moondust, and would likely cushion the troubled spacecraft's impact. The ''Genesis'' spacecraft's accelerometer had been installed backwards, which caused the spacecraft to malfunction upon re-entry to Earth's atmosphere preventing the originally planned air retrieval. On January 26, 2011, Dugway Proving Ground was placed on lockdown. Al Vogel, a public affairs specialist for the installation, would only say that the lockdown began at 5:24 p.m. Employees were not allowed to leave, and those coming to work were not allowed in. Vogel said there were no injuries, no damage and no threats reported at the proving ground. There were about 1,200 to 1,400 people at Dugway when the lockdown occurred. It was later announced that the lockdown was in response to the temporary loss of a vial containing

VX nerve agent VX is an extremely toxic synthetic chemical compound in the organophosphorus class, specifically, a thiophosphonate. In the class of nerve agents, it was developed for military use in chemical warfare after translation of earlier discoverie ...

. The lockdown was lifted on January 27 following recovery of the material. The incident was described as a mislabeling problem. Dugway Proving Ground was also home to the

High Resolution Fly's Eye Cosmic Ray Detector The High Resolution Fly's Eye or HiRes detector was an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray observatory that operated in the West Desert of Utah from 1981 until April 2006. HiRes (HiRes-I, HiRes-II, and HiRes prototype) used the "atmospheric fluoresce ...

, which discovered the first

ultra-high-energy cosmic ray In astroparticle physics, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) is a cosmic ray with an energy greater than 1 EeV (1018 electronvolts, approximately 0.16 joules), far beyond both the rest mass and energies typical of other cosmic ray part ...

. Dugway is home to several radio telemetry and tracking radar (i.e. RIR-777, TPQ-39 (Ver. V) and MPQ-39) sites which track national flight assets during flight tests at UTTR. Activities included aerial nerve agent testing. According to reports from ''New Scientist'', Dugway was still producing quantities of

anthrax Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Bacillus anthracis'' or ''Bacillus cereus'' biovar ''anthracis''. Infection typically occurs by contact with the skin, inhalation, or intestinal absorption. Symptom onset occurs between one ...

spores as late as 2015 to be used to develop anthrax testing detection and countermeasures, more than four decades after the United States renounced biological weapons, and shipping material intended to be inert to military bases and military contractors around the globe.Norrell, Brenda
"Skull Valley's Nerve Gas Neighbors"
''Indian Country Today'' (Oneida, N.Y.), October 26, 2005.McCombs, Brady, and Robert Burns
"Pentagon: Anthrax shipments broader than first thought"
AP via ''Military Times'', May 30, 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-31. There were at least 1,100 other chemical tests at Dugway during the period of the Dugway sheep incident (see below). In total, almost 500,000 lb (230,000 kg) of nerve agent were dispersed during open-air tests. There were also tests at Dugway involving other weapons of mass destruction, including 328 open-air tests of biological weapons, 74 dirty bomb tests, and eight furnace heatings of nuclear material under open-air conditions to simulate the dispersal of fallout in the case of meltdown of aeronautic nuclear reactors. On December 13, 2019, the U.S. Air Force said it had kept the Ultra Long Endurance Aircraft Platform (Ultra LEAP) at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah airborne for two days during testing of the surveillance drone at the site.

"Sheep Kill" incident

In March 1968, 6,249

sheep Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to d ...

died in Skull Valley, an area nearly thirty miles from Dugway's testing sites. When examined, the sheep were found to have been poisoned by an

organophosphate In organic chemistry, organophosphates (also known as phosphate esters, or OPEs) are a class of organophosphorus compounds with the general structure , a central phosphate molecule with alkyl or aromatic substituents. They can be considered ...

chemical. The sickening of the sheep, known as the Dugway sheep incident, coincided with several open-air tests of the

nerve agent Nerve agents, sometimes also called nerve gases, are a class of organic chemistry, organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanisms by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by the blocking of acetylcholinesterase (ACh ...

VX at Dugway. Local attention focused on the Army, which initially denied that VX had caused the deaths, instead blaming the local use of organophosphate

pesticide Pesticides are substances that are used to control pests. They include herbicides, insecticides, nematicides, fungicides, and many others (see table). The most common of these are herbicides, which account for approximately 50% of all p ...

s on crops. Necropsies conducted on the dead sheep later definitively identified the presence of VX. The Army never admitted liability, but did pay the ranchers for their losses. On the official record, the claim was for 4,372 "disabled" sheep, of which about 2,150 were either killed outright by the VX exposure or were so critically injured that they needed to be

euthanized Animal euthanasia (euthanasia from ; "good death") is the act of killing an animal humanely, most commonly with injectable drugs. Reasons for euthanasia include incurable (and especially painful) conditions or diseases, lack of resources to con ...

on-site by veterinarians. Another 1,877 sheep were "temporarily" injured, or showed no signs of injury but ultimately were not marketable due to their potential exposure. All of the exposed sheep that survived the initial exposure were eventually euthanized by the ranchers, since even the potential for exposure had rendered the sheep permanently unsalable for either meat or wool. The incident, coinciding with the birth of the

environmental movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement) is a social movement that aims to protect the natural world from harmful environmental practices in order to create sustainable living. In its recognition of humanity a ...

and anti-

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

protests, created an uproar in Utah and the international community.

U.S. GAO report

The U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies performed "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of weapons tests and experiments involving hazardous substances. The quote from the study: There are reports that certain nerve agents such as

tetrodotoxin Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is a potent neurotoxin. Its name derives from Tetraodontiformes, an Order (biology), order that includes Tetraodontidae, pufferfish, porcupinefish, ocean sunfish, and triggerfish; several of these species carry the toxin. Alt ...

and ''

Datura stramonium ''Datura stramonium'', known by the common names thornapple, jimsonweed (jimson weed), or devil's trumpet, is a poisonous flowering plant in the ''Datureae, Daturae'' Tribe (botany), tribe of the nightshade family Solanaceae. Its likely origi ...

'' have been tested at this military base.

Anthrax shipments

In May 2015 it was revealed that Dugway lab had inadvertently shipped live anthrax bacillus to locations around the country. Shipped samples, it was said, were supposed to be inert. Labs receiving the live samples were in Texas, Maryland, Wisconsin, Delaware, New Jersey, Tennessee, New York, California and Virginia, the Associated Press reported. Days after the first report, the military divulged that the mis-shipments had been broader than initially reported and launched an investigation. Dugway was involved in developing a test to identify biological threats in the field. In September 2018, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released findings of an investigation into the anthrax shipping lapses made at Dugway. The investigation looked into whether "systemic oversight changes regarding biosecurity have since been implemented across DOD facilities. The findings are mixed." The U.S. Army had sought 35 specific changes, but only 18 of them had been made, as of the GAO report. According to the report, the DOD "had not fully identified the infrastructure capabilities required to address threats, had not planned to identify potential duplication without considering information from existing federal studies, and had not updated its guidance and planning process to include specific responsibilities and time frames for risk assessments."

UFO speculation

Following the public attention drawn to

Area 51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range in southern Nevada, north-northwest of Las Vegas. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force B ...

in the early 1990s, UFOlogists and concerned citizens have suggested that whatever covert operations may have been underway at that location, if any, were subsequently transferred to DPG. The ''

Deseret News The ''Deseret News'' () is a multi-platform newspaper based in Salt Lake City, published by Deseret News Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Deseret Management Corporation, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS ...

'' reported that Dave Rosenfeld, president of Utah UFO Hunters, claimed but provided no proof for "Numerous UFOs have been stored and reported in the area in and around Dugway ... ilitary aircraft can't account forall the unknowns seen in the area. It might be that our star visitors are keeping an eye on Dugway too. ... ugway isthe ''new'' Area 51. And probably the new military spaceport." Dugway Proving Ground has often made light of the rumors, satirizing the conspiracy on their official social media posts. A 2021 community event at the base had shooting targets with alien profiles set up by the base's police department for children to target with an

airsoft gun Airsoft guns are air guns used in airsoft sports. They are a special type of low-power smoothbore guns designed to shoot Airsoft pellets, plastic pellets often colloquially (but incorrectly) referred to as "BB (ammunition), BBs", which are typ ...

. A 2023

5K run The 5K run is a long-distance road running competition over a distance of . Also referred to as the 5K road race, 5 km, or simply 5K, it is the shortest of the most common road running distances. It is usually distinguished from the 5000 me ...

10K run The 10K run is a long-distance road running competition over a distance of . Also referred to as the 10K road race, 10 km, or simply 10K, it is one of the most common types of road running event, alongside the shorter 5K and longer half ...

Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...

costume race announced at the base was dubbed the "Alien Invasion" with the tag-line "come see the history of Area 52".

References

Dugway Proving Ground: Blocks 3000, 3001, 3004, and 3005, Census Tract 1306, Tooele County, Utah
United States Census Bureau

External links

*
Dugway Proving Ground NewsWest Desert Test CenterArticle: Is Dugway's Expansion an Alien Concept?Article: Does Utah Have an 'Area 51'?Article: Dugway Expansion a MysteryHigh Resolution Fly's Eye Experiment
*

Historic American Engineering Record Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). It administers three programs established to document historic places in the United States: Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American E ...

(HAER) documentation, filed under Dugway, Tooele County, UT: ** ** ** **
P. Bradford Westwood collection on the Dugway Proving Ground, MSS 7524
a
L. Tom Perry Special Collections

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

{{Authority control Biological warfare facilities Buildings and structures in Tooele County, Utah Chemical warfare facilities Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah Great Salt Lake Desert Lincoln Highway Military installations in Utah Proving grounds Research installations of the United States Army Military facilities on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah Historic American Buildings Survey in Utah Historic American Engineering Record in Utah National Register of Historic Places in Tooele County, Utah 1942 establishments in Utah United States biological weapons program