Flashback: When nerve gas testing killed 7,000 sheep near Dugway in Utah
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The Deseret News, Mar. 19, 1968. Image via Utah Digital Newspapers/University of Utah
"A sea of dead animals" was the description shared by witnesses who saw Utah's Skull Valley in March 1968 after thousands of sheep suddenly died — and changed America's weapons testing protocols.
- This is Old News, our weekly autopsy of Utah's past.
Driving the news: About 6,400 sheep died in a single week 56 years ago, starting March 14. Another 600 were slaughtered because they could no longer move or eat.
- Initially, the scientists who rushed to Utah suspected the herd was poisoned, possibly by plants they ate.
Yes, but: They also noticed the sheep were about 30 miles from the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Grounds, where crews tested biological and chemical weapons.
- Army personnel said they hadn't run any recent hazardous tests and were "definitely not responsible" for the deaths.
Reality check: The Army was testing the VX nerve agent the day before the sheep dropped dead.
Under the rug: That detail emerged a week later, only after the Pentagon inadvertently released a "for official use only" report admitting to the tests.
- Ranchers said they lost the chance to treat their sheep because of Dugway's false denials.
The intrigue: The Army insisted VX wasn't the culprit, noting the sheep didn't suffer some textbook symptoms of nerve gas poisoning.
- But one of the ranchers later said his family also became ill, and other dead animals were found in the area.
The bottom line: The Army confirmed in a 1978 report — which wasn't publicly released until the Salt Lake Tribune obtained it 20 years later — that "incontrovertible" evidence showed VX was to blame.
The big picture: Most observers didn't need 30 years to reach that conclusion once the "Dugway sheep incident" became international news.
- The outcry prompted Congress to restrict open-air nerve gas testing and then-President Nixon to abandon biological weapons and scale down the nation's chemical arsenal a year later.