Comments on: The Sheep Incident

By: Anonymousx2

Anonymousx2 — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 23:06:48 +0000

Was the wool pulled over anyone’s eyes?

By: Anonymousx2

Anonymousx2 — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 01:16:25 +0000

Jeremy:

Good one!

By: Jeremy M

Jeremy M — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 22:00:13 +0000

What a sheepish way for the Army to act…

By: eye-doc

eye-doc — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:24:55 +0000

My father was one of the developers of VX, working as a contracted chemist. He was fully aware the gas had caused the sheeps death. He was so disgusted by the army’s cover up that he quit working with them. It’s so typical for the army and government to cover up everthing. Just glad my father had the integrity to walk rather than put up with the government games.

By: Azronus

Azronus — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:32:30 +0000

[quote]1c3d0g said: “Damn, that was an interesting read. I already knew VX was highly poisonous if airborne and inhaled even in extremely small quantities, but I wasn’t aware that if the chemical came in contact with your skin you’d be dead in 10 minutes or less. How does it achieve this? Is it like some type of acid, where it burns through your skin and goes into your bloodstream?”[/quote]

No, Many things are simply absorbed through the skin and into the blood stream, Muscle Rubs, Neosporin, and other creams are a prime example of this principal.

By: bolivar

bolivar — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 02:42:42 +0000

Well, the last comment was about 2 years ago and this topic is probably pretty much dead.
But, I’ll throw this out anyway.
I was there at Dugway. I was in Bio Test, the guys in Chem Test ran the failed test. But I, along with most of the enlisted people at Dugway got to bury the sheep.
Several smaller wrong things have been stated. The sheep were not buried on Dugway. Of course, the land was/is owned by BLM, Bureau of Land Management and leased to LARGE ranchers for sheep grazing. In the mid-90’s they dug all the remains up and took them somewhere for destruction.
The valve on the spray tank did not fail before the test, it was the cutoff mechanism that failed and this, of course, was at the end of the test.
The test failure was because setting up the test was extremely expensive. Thousands of test samplers were set out (very simple, just pieces of paper in a holder). Extensive photographic equipment, weather instumentation, etc, etc, etc was set up. Arming the F4 with 320 gallons of VX in two spray tanks. Several ‘chase’ planes and a photo plane were in the air. (I think the Air Force (right about not being Army) were from Elgin AFB, Fl not Hill). Even starting out that morning the weather was ‘marginal’. High winds, snow were there in the morning. They were ‘losing the light’ when the test officier gave the go-ahead to run the test late in the afternoon. This was the mistake. It was run because of the pressure of calling off a test that took a huge amount of money/manpower to set up. Immediately after the test there were thunderstorms just to the north and south of the test area. Wind blew over a trailer and blew down a weather instrument tower just after the test. 50mph winds. I’m talking within the next 10 minutes or so. This caused the problem. The cutoff valve did malfunction and who knows how much VX was put high into the air at the end of he run. But the thunderstorm moving thru the test grid picked up a large amount of the agent cloud and blew it off Dugway. It got two large herds of sheep, one just at the end of Dugway, the next about 5 miles or so further in Skull Valley. But it also went about 10 miles further and sickened several sheep at the rancher’s headquarters. And it also passed across or thru a pass in a very tall mountain range and also sicked a few sheep on the other side – about a total of 50 miles downrange. I knew the ‘counters’ at the holes where the sheep were dumped. About 3,500 sheep were buried. The Army paid for about 6,500.
The rancher put 10 healthy marked (big red smear of paint) sheep, brought in from outside, into a pen right where the first herd went down. Within just a few days (5 or so) about 6 of the sheep, eating same grass that the herd ate, showed the same symptoms that the other thousands showed. This mean the agent was there and was still viable. And, this was the same time we were picking up the dead sheep. With NO PROTECTIVE GEAR. We wore fatigues, caps, and regular boots. No rubber gear or breathing masks.
I have several health problems. I tried for over 5 years to get VA comphensation for my health problems. I was rejected each time. At the last rejection, the VA ‘Judge’ admitted, in writting, that I had been ‘exposed’ to VX. But I have no proof there is any long-term health danger to being exposed. So my claim was rejected again. To file an appeal to this, it would have to be done in person in Washington DC, and would require a lawyer. I don’t have the money to continue with this, so it’s the end of my claim.
The only reason people get Agent Orange benefits is because a medial school, Texas at Austin I think, took this up as a ’cause’ and spent about 10 years reseaching and capturing info to submit to the VA about veterans health problems. There are now about 20 illnesses that are accepted as being caused by Agent Orange exposure. One of these I have. If I had been in Vietnam for 30 days, I would be receiving VA benefits now. Noone has ever took up anything about VX exposure, so me, and many other military and civilian R&D people that were exposed have no ‘evidence’ to quote for health problems.
There wasn’t much ‘coverup’ when this happened. I was national news for a couple of weeks. No way to cover it up. Utah State University and Utah University were heavily involved in digging into this. Utah State has large vet school and were highly involved. But since they had no idea what VX was or what it did, there was little they could report.

By: Mirage_GSM

Mirage_GSM — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:02:50 +0000

Seems the Forum swallowed part of the code.
The first paragraph should be a quote from post #152.

By: Mirage_GSM

Mirage_GSM — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:49:24 +0000

[/quote]They blamed the entire incident on the “relocation” of a waterhole. The sheep got confused and disoriented. So confused that 3,483 to 6,400 suddenly died of thirst. If that were the case, it strikes me that the animals not yet dead would recover quite nicely in fairly short order if they were wet down and allowed to drink a bucket of water. Yet the surviving sheep here were “euthanized.” Why?[/quote]
If you read the article carefully, you will note that the story with the relocated waterhole had nothing to do with the sheep incident. That was regarding an incident six years later with about 50 dead horses. Of course it is a very dubious explanation for that incident as well…

By: golight

golight — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:54:57 +0000

The battle cry of the British during their efforts to retake the Falkland islands..”Don’t give up the sheep”.

By: Lareth

Lareth — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:51:56 +0000

“When you’re taking the casuality tolls of massive sheep death, how do you manage to stay awake?”

Nothing funnier than this, you deserve a medal.