U.S. Bio/chem missile?

I was told this tale years ago by someone who I have known very well all my life. This is top secret information so I'm going to be a little vague here and there to try to protect this persons identity. It may not matter to the government that I'm going to tell this. Better safe than sorry.
This person received a commission in the US military after getting an electrical engineering degree. within a few years he had added a masters to this degree. He worked with missiles, actually he worked with a system that is used in the support or maintenance of missiles. Some years later he had attained a field officers rank and was put in command of training all soldiers in every branch how to use this device. It's not an exotic device but is used on a wide array of the larger missiles. I'll not say more about it, except that it isn't anything fantastic, just a part of modern missile technology.
Speaking of modern, this event is not terribly recent. It occurred after the Reagan presidency ended however.
One night he received a call from his superior telling him that first thing tomorrow he had to go to another location on a project. He wasn't told much else. I guess I should mention that he had attained a top secret clearance by this time. He had been given a secret clearance almost the day he recieved his commission. He described secret clearances as being given out to almost everybody in missile work. At some point he attained a top secret clearance. I also know why he recieved the clearance to begin with. It concerns the START treaty and is something I should not know, but that isn't really a big deal in my mind.
He boards a C130 and flies for 3 hours. When he lands he is met by a bus on the tarmac. It has tinted windows and is a white school bus type bus. When he gets on the bus he sees that the windows may be tinted, but inside they are sheet metalled over. When he exits the bus he is inside a building. He believes he is under ground. He is led to a room where 11 missiles are laid out on their sides. Each is 2/3 covered by canvas so that only the front portions are visible.These are familiar missiles today, but were cutting edge at this time. His job is to use the equipment that he trains others on (this equipment came with him on the trip) to do something unorthodox on these missiles, something that would not normally be done to them. As he began doing his job he became aware that the missiles looked a little different inside than normal. Some things were just arranged differently. He needed access to something which required a part of the missile skin be removed (he specifically mentioned that on a normally configured missile of this type it would be unnecissary to remove anything but a standard hatch or port. There were other people who did this for him. Some wore lab coats, others black BDUs with no insignia.
After the outer covering had been removed he saw a stainless steel tank with biohazard markings. He described it as a shade bigger than a 5 gallon bucket. It was situated where the warhead or explosives would normally be. He said he only saw the foremost part of the tank so he did not know how long it was, but estimated it to be 4 to 5 feet long based on the normal "cargo" size of the missile.
He is a career military officer with a lot of experience in this field and he is sure these missiles were meant for biological or chemical weapons. Further he believes they were meant for aerosol spraying.
After completing his job he was sworn to secrecy and flown for 3 more hours back home. He told me that a 3 hour flight would not have taken him to any significant base that he was aware of. He believes that he was on his own base.
I have told this story as it was told to me by someone that I trust very much.

Your choice to post about a so called friends Top Secret information was a extremely bad decisions.

The info you gave in this post is more than enough to narrow down the potential security leak caused by your friend.

No branch, no rank, 20+ year time frame, no base, no specialty beyond missile work. That seems pretty vague to me.

Originally posted by Erectus
No branch, no rank, 20+ year time frame, no base, no specialty beyond missile work. That seems pretty vague to me.

They don't need the information of the military member when they have you.

They know that you have Top Secret information, do you think they are not going to investigate you? Also, they don't know that he did not tell you specific information about other military projects. Do you think ATS will keep your anonymity when the national security Agency comes "knocking" on their door to get your IP address, don't fool your self, ATS does have your IP address.... that's a method they use to ban/temp ban people.

flight time description of the event could help them narrow it down unless its sop to have every one see the missles under tarps or covers and their degree and major will narrow it down enough for them to have an idea of who might have leaked it which will potentaly lead to any and all suspects getting investigated for secrity links and thus otheres who werent leakign info will have their lives turned upside down to catch the one leak that is if its true and the govenrment cares but either way not a nice thing to do to your friend (forwarded this to my friend in army intelligence btw to get her take on it )

reply to post by KilrathiLG


I never swore an oath to keep any secrets. As far as I or you know this is hear say. I'll bet nothing comes of this anyway. I know a lot of military across generations and more than one was willing to tell things they shouldn't. This was the biggest deal I've heard, though.
Military intelligence huh? Gee wizz.

reply to post by Erectus

Thankyou for sharing your story. It was kind of alarming to see two posters jump in with scare tactics to rag you. Nothing in your story identifies anyone or any base for me. I got a lot of flack once just for convincing a local paper to run a series on the grids in the sky so you just never know what's innocent and what's not in the minds of whomever. I think the sort of thing you describe is against every treaty there is but on the other hand it goes on...we just don't usually get to hear about it until 50 years later.

reply to post by Erectus


i never said you swore an oath....just that they might be able to figure it out who was the leak,and i sent it to my friend because I figured shed get a kick out of it with what her job description is(she tends to be mostly amused by what i send her as opposed to suspicious hence why i said her take) but she did say that was not standard operating procedure,but i dont know if shes an expert on missiles bio/chem or otherwise but for what its worth she didnt seem to concerned.only know her from high-school and was randomly talking to her on fb over chat when i saw the thread so i figured id investigate the authenticity of the claims made by the op
www.law.cornell.edu... relevant link on what could happen to those that share classified information good luck

Twenty years was a long time ago. Anybody who has done any research on the subject is fully aware that the United States has a massive biological weapons capability, and we have been capable of it since World War II.

The OP relating a story (and yes, it is hearsay) from many years ago in no way leaks any "secrets" that would concern national security. It only confirms what most of us already know.

Thanks for sharing that, OP.

en.wikipedia.org...

The biological weapons convention was in force during the Reagan Administration. There is pretty strong evidence (defectors and post-breakup exposes) that the USSR cheated in a major way.

It became US policy (I think shortly after the Cold War ended) that it disclaimed all use of intentionally lethal biological and chemical weaponry. I think it's a matter of practicality.

Chemical weapons are not really weapons of mass destruction, and require direct and specialized equipment. Sure, Saddam gassed a town with sprayer aircraft, but if you have full air superiority you can do just as much hurt with cluster bombs. He didn't prove anything that the Nazi bombing of Guernica didn't, namely that air power vs defenseless town is slaughter.

Biological weapons are weapons of mass destruction, but they have highly unpredictable effects, and infectious ones can obviously go well beyond the area of intent with catastrophic political consequences.

Generally bioweapons can result in really really really pissing people off but not reliably having sufficient military effect. Unless you intend on exterminating the entire species.

I wonder if the guy in the original poster actually observed a nuclear warhead and mistook the radiation hazard symbol? He said something about "START" treaty. A stainless steel canister is exactly what they look like on the outside.

My guess, it could have been a cruise missiles with a W-80 or W-84 warhead.

en.wikipedia.org...:W84.gif


upload.wikimedia.org...

reply to post by Erectus


My uncle's father's brother's work friend from Mongolia knew this guy who was on a top secret mission that proved the Earth actually is in a giant fishbowl. Trust me, I trust this person very much. I'd like to say more, but I just can't.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


you lie - my imaginary friend PROOVED that the world is ballanced on 4 elephants , riding a giant turtle [ sex undetermined ] - and he had pics [ untill my dog ate them ]

Yea, I know this is nothing that can be substantiated in any way. It's just a story that someone none of you know told. I knew this post would get some jokes at its thinness. I'll not defend it.
It is what it is.

First off, almost all US Air Force members have a secret clearance.

Certain jobs require Top Secret. That isn't the end all be all though, you still need to have a reason of "need to know" and be part of the programs. If you work on something like the F-22, that doesn't mean you have clearance to know about nuclear things.

You tried to make it sound like he was something special receiving these clearances. It's honestly not, especially not in the military. Top Secret is fairly common by the way, and your commanders wont call you to tell you your orders. That is a breach of security.

The START treaty is something you SHOULD know. There is a reason that this is a public treaty. You can Google the document and download the whole thing to read if you care to. The treaty is about the type and numbers of WMDs between the US and Russia.

The military has the technology yes, but that doesn't mean the military would use it. A lot of research and development is done just to understand the technology so we can counter it.

In short, this is nothing note worthy, and your friend felt special about something that is pretty normal. Don't be a sheep and believe the crap that comes out of your friends mouth when it's something like this.

P.S. Your friend signs a non-disclosure agreement when working on Top Secret projects, any and all information posted here is a breach of that and he could receive charges if any of this is true.

We know about Japan's Bio Weapon developments that were left for the US to
dismantle or use in secret. Japan and Hitler did not use the Bio weapon for
fear such a weapon would be turned on them as Churchill had warned.
So Japan might have aided Hitler in bio weapons as there was some help
given Japan perhaps in drawings for aircraft that remained on the drawing boards
for Japan for the most part.

Well a missile delivery system seems the next step as Japan sailed paper high
altitude balloons across the Pacific with explosives and never did have a strategic
delivery system to match the US.
ED: The problem here is developing a system that someone might spy out to an
enemy country. Not exactly like the Bison, Bear and Muskrat airplanes that US
Congress refused to buy so the designer sold the designs to Russia. This Missile
seems strictly a secret build. Such a missile might be against US policy.

Originally posted by Slayton
P.S. Your friend signs a non-disclosure agreement when working on Top Secret projects, any and all information posted here is a breach of that and he could receive charges if any of this is true.

Agreed, although ambiguous and mundane the OP's post constitutes a breach of OPSEC ( if true, no offence to anyone ).

O.P., I wouldn't panic about the F.B.I knocking on your door but your friend should be more careful about what he shares with someone who repeats it on an internet forum.

Edit: Current U.S. bioweapons research is defensive in scope and has been for decades.

The reasoning is simple and rational in that germs are finicky and unpredictable, nuclear weapons are both consistently predictable and exponentially more effective.

I never said this person was in the Air Force. He worked with soldiers from every branch (as do many other MOS's). I only mentioned the secret clearance to establish that I wasn't confused about the latter top secret clearance. I am aware of the START treaty and that it is public knowledge. I was establishing how this person recieved his clearance to begin with.

This person was a career officer with a lot of education. He wasn't bragging. He was disclosing something to me that he found disturbing.

Wrong or not, I can assure you that a lot, if not most, people with secret knowledge divulge it at some point. He is not the only soldier that has told his tale. I also know one old marine who once guarded ICBMs in a country that "refused" to let the U.S. put them there. Now I guess somebody will say that Marines don't guard ICBMs, the Air Force does that.

Originally posted by Erectus

This person was a career officer with a lot of education. He wasn't bragging. He was disclosing something to me that he found disturbing.

Wrong or not, I can assure you that a lot, if not most, people with secret knowledge divulge it at some point. He is not the only soldier that has told his tale. I also know one old marine who once guarded ICBMs in a country that "refused" to let the U.S. put them there. Now I guess somebody will say that Marines don't guard ICBMs, the Air Force does that.

That's fine, I understand that he found this disturbing, but much like how the military doesn't tell the public everything, the military isn't going to explain their actions to each and every member working for them. A previous poster mentioned that the US has defensive BIO/CHEM research. This is correct, and true with many countries. Normally, we reconstruct or recreate the ability to so that we can understand and build defenses against such attacks.

You're right that some people with clearances divulge information, however they really shouldn't. If they feel it is wrong then they can go up the chain of command. There are people outside of his direct chain of command that can help him if he feels that what he is doing is wrong. Telling the public is not the right thing to do.

I'm saying this because I'm in the military, and have a TS clearance, however, I find it to be selfish when people talk about classified material out of personal desires to "do right" or to tell someone because they feel like it should be said. That isn't their call to make.

Sorry, I'm not pointing the finger at you, but the take away here should be that information "leaks" are why other countries know a lot about us or have started developing stuff on their own, not including giving away spy positions and putting their lifes in danger. So, if your friend does continue telling you stuff, try to keep it between the two of you as a form of damage control.

On topic though; as stated previously, the US more than likely has BIO/CHEM capabilities, but is probably limited to research and has limited supply which would be unable to arm enough warheads to pose a threat to a country deemed as a valid target.