Operation Big Buzz was a U.S. military

entomological warfare Entomological warfare (EW) is a type of biological warfare that uses insects to interrupt supply lines by damaging crops, or to directly harm enemy combatants and civilian populations. There have been several programs which have attempted to instit ...

field test conducted in 1955 on

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

, Georgia's predominantly Black Carver Village neighborhood. The tests involved dispersing over 300,000 mosquitoes from aircraft and through ground dispersal methods. The test appears to have been conducted by the Chemical Corps and the Army's Research and Development Command.HAY, ALASTAIR. “A Magic Sword or a Big Itch: An Historical Look at the United States Biological Weapons Programme.” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 15, no. 3 (1999): 215–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45351959.

Operation

Operation Big Buzz occurred in June 1955 in the U.S. state of Georgia. The operation was a field test designed to determine the feasibility of producing, storing, loading into munitions, and dispersing from aircraft the yellow fever mosquito (though these were not infected for the test) (''

Aedes aegypti ''Aedes aegypti'' ( or from Greek 'hateful' and from Latin, meaning 'of Egypt'), sometimes called the Egyptian mosquito, dengue mosquito or yellow fever mosquito, is a mosquito that spreads diseases like dengue fever, yellow fever, malar ...

''). The second goal of the operation was to determine whether the

mosquito Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a Family (biology), family of small Diptera, flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by ''Musca (fly), mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mos ...

es would survive their dispersion and seek meals on the ground. Around 330,000 uninfected mosquitoes were dropped from aircraft in E14 bombs and dispersed from the ground in

, Georgia's predominantly Black Carver Village neighborhood. In total about one million female mosquitoes were bred for the testing;Novick, Lloyd and Marr, John S. ''Public Health Issues Disaster Preparedness'',
Google Books
, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2001, p. 89, (). remaining mosquitoes were used in munitions loading and storage tests. Those mosquitoes that were air-dispersed were dropped from airplanes above the ground, spreading out on their own and due to the wind.

Results

Mosquitoes were collected as far away as from the release site. They were also active in seeking blood meals from humans and

guinea pig The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy ( ), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus ''Cavia'', family Caviidae. Animal fancy, Breeders tend to use the name "cavy" for the ani ...

s.Rose, William H.
An Evaluation of Entomological Warfare as Potential Danger to the United States and European NATO Nations
, U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command,

Dugway Proving Ground Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) is a United States Army facility established in 1942 to test biological and chemical weapons, located about southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah and south of the Utah Test and Training Range. Location Dugway Provin ...

, March 1981, via '' thesmokinggun.com'', accessed December 27, 2008.

References

{{U.S. biological weapons Big Buzz Big Buzz Big Buzz Big Buzz 1955 in the United States

Operation

Results

See also

References