Secret Pentagon files reveal US military tested use of 'killer mosquitoes' as biological weapons

Newly unearthed documents from the Pentagon have confirmed that the United States (U.S.) was experimenting to use swarms of “killer-mosquitoes” as biological weapons.

According to a report by Daily Mail, the 69-page declassified document from 1977, currently available at the Defense Technical Information Center, reveals details of secret U.S. Army 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 real world experiments, between September and October 1959, to analyse how mosquitoes bite in different environment conditions.

The purpose of the experiments was to evaluate how mosquito swarms will perform as a biological weapon if unleashed against enemy troops or other populated areas.

The human biting Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were used in those experiments. The species is known to cause several life-threatening diseases, including chikungunya, dengue fever, yellow fever and Zika.

The document reads, “The literature indicates that the deliberate employment of infected arthropod vectors against enemy targets holds great strategic potential.”

Military researchers studied the use of mosquitoes in war zones with these experiments. 

The insects were not infected with disease-causing agents, instead the researchers analysed how far the insects could travel, how long they could survive after being dispersed and whether they would actively seek out and bite human hosts.