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38-450: The Granite Peak Installation ( GPI ) — also known as Granite Peak Range — was a U.S. biological weapons testing facility located on 250 square miles (650 km) of Dugway Proving Ground in Utah . The GPI was a sub-installation of Dugway but had its own facilities, including utilities. Established in 1943, GPI was deactivated with the end of World War II . In October 1943, because of

76-476: A pump house and an underground "igloo storage building". Transportation resources at GPI included an airplane landing strip and 22 miles (35 km) of surfaced roads. Utilities at the site included, sewer and septic systems , power plants, and delivery systems for electricity, water and steam. The base was much larger than the BW site at Horn Island. Dugway Proving Ground Dugway Proving Ground ( DPG )

114-514: A new location to conduct its tests, and in the spring of 1942, construction of Dugway Proving Ground began, including the establishment of Michael Army Airfield . Since its founding, much of Dugway Proving Ground activity has been a closely guarded secret. Testing commenced in the summer of 1942. During World War II , DPG tested toxic agents, flamethrowers , chemical spray systems, biological warfare weapons, fire bombing tactics, antidotes for chemical agents, and protective clothing. During 1943

152-409: A report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies performed "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of weapons tests and experiments involving hazardous substances. The quote from the study: ... Dugway Proving Ground is a military testing facility located approximately 80 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. For several decades, Dugway has been

190-496: A technique of digging a trench into a hillside to create a flat surface along which a wagon can travel. Dugway's mission is to test United States and Allied biological and chemical weapon defense systems in a secure and isolated environment. DPG also serves as a facility for US Army Reserve and US National Guard maneuver training, and US Air Force flight tests, mostly from nearby Hill Air Force Base in Clearfield. DPG

228-521: Is a United States Army facility established in 1942 to test biological and chemical weapons , located about 85 miles (137 km) southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah and 13 miles (21 km) south of the 2,624-square-mile (6,800 km ) Utah Test and Training Range . Dugway Proving Ground is located about 85 mi (137 km) southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah , in southern Tooele County and just north of Juab County . It encompasses 801,505 acres (1,252.352 sq mi; 3,243.58 km ) of

266-838: Is controlled by the United States Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC). The area has also been used by Army special forces for training in preparation for deployments to the War in Afghanistan . In 1941, the US Army Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) determined it needed a testing facility more remote than the US Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland . The CWS surveyed the Western U.S. for

304-673: The Bonneville Salt Flats . Several small mountain ranges occupy the edges of the desert, such as the Cedar Mountains , Lakeside Mountains, Silver Island Mountains , Hogup Mountains , Grassy Mountains, and Newfoundland Mountains. On the western edge of the desert, just across the border in Nevada, stands Pilot Peak in the Pilot Range . The desert is cool during the winter and includes unusual plants adapted to

342-809: The Granite Peak Installation . DPG was slowly phased out after World War II, becoming inactive in August 1946. The base was reactivated during the Korean War , under Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Speers Ponder, and in 1954 was confirmed as a permanent Department of the Army installation. In October 1958, the United States Army Chemical Center, Maryland, moved the U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Weapons School to Dugway Proving Ground. In

380-501: The Great Salt Lake Desert , an area the size of the state of Rhode Island , and is surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges. It had a resident population of 795 as of the 2010 United States Census , all of whom lived in the community of Dugway, Utah , at its extreme eastern end. It is 13 mi (21 km) south of the 2,624 sq mi (6,796 km ) Utah Test and Training Range and together they form

418-901: The Sierra Nevada . Howard Stansbury explored the desert in 1849. In 1956, I-80 replaced the Wendover Cut-off across the desert, including a straight east-west section for ~50 miles (80 km) between the Cedar Mountains to the east and Wendover on the Utah/Nevada border. Following a railway completed across the desert's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1910, the flats were first used as a speedway in 1914. The world records for highest land speeds are regularly broken here. In July 2022, archaeologists discovered about 88 footprints had been left behind by humans at least 12,000 years ago using ground-penetrating radar (GPR). In

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456-518: The " German Village " and " Japanese Village " set-piece domestic "hamlets" were built at Dugway, for practice in the fire-bombing of homes of the types in urbanized areas of Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire 's Home Islands . In October 1943, DPG established biological warfare facilities at UTTR's range telemetry and tracking radar installation, which is an isolated area within DPG known as

494-418: The "ghost tracks", as the archaeologists called them, the footprints absorb moisture and are only visible when it rains and disappear when dry. The Great Salt Lake Desert experiences a desert climate with hot summers and cold winters. The desert is an excellent example of a cold desert climate . The desert's elevation, 4,250 feet above sea level, makes temperatures cooler than lower elevation deserts, such as

532-532: The GAO report. According to the report, the DOD "had not fully identified the infrastructure capabilities required to address threats, had not planned to identify potential duplication without considering information from existing federal studies, and had not updated its guidance and planning process to include specific responsibilities and time frames for risk assessments." Following the public attention drawn to Area 51 in

570-731: The United States renounced biological weapons, and shipping material intended to be inert to military bases and military contractors around the globe. There were at least 1,100 other chemical tests at Dugway during the time period of the Dugway sheep incident (see below). In total, almost 500,000 lb (230,000 kg) of nerve agent were dispersed during open-air tests. There were also tests at Dugway involving other weapons of mass destruction, including 328 open-air tests of biological weapons, 74 dirty bomb tests, and eight furnace heatings of nuclear material under open-air conditions to simulate

608-677: The base was dubbed the "Alien Invasion" with the tag-line "come see the history of Area 52". Great Salt Lake Desert The Great Salt Lake Desert (colloquially referred to as the West Desert ) is a large dry lake in northern Utah , United States, between the Great Salt Lake and the Nevada border. It is a subregion of the larger Great Basin Desert , and noted for white evaporite Lake Bonneville salt deposits including

646-479: The causative agent of Anthrax , and Brucella suis , the causitive agent of Brucellosis . The M33 cluster bomb was used in a series of tests from August–October 1952 at GPI, with the Army Chemical Corps exposing over 11,000 guinea pigs to Brucella suis . The guinea pig trials caused one Chemical Corps general to remark, "Now we know what to do if we ever go to war against guinea pigs" GPI

684-568: The dead sheep later definitively identified the presence of VX. The Army never admitted liability, but did pay the ranchers for their losses. On the official record, the claim was for 4,372 "disabled" sheep, of which about 2,150 were either killed outright by the VX exposure or were so critically injured that they needed to be euthanized on-site by veterinarians. Another 1,877 sheep were "temporarily" injured, or showed no signs of injury but ultimately were not marketable due to their potential exposure. All of

722-538: The development and construction of GPI was around $ 1.3 million (equivalent to $ 22 million in 2023). When World War II ended in 1945 GPI was deactivated and closed. GPI was the U.S. bio-weapons program's main testing site. Granite Peak was a sub-installation of Dugway Proving Ground and many of GPI's administrative task were overseen by the post commander at Dugway. Personnel stationed at the main Dugway grounds cooperated with tests at GPI. For example, air missions were flown by Dugway detachments, and weather forecast data

760-718: The dispersal of fallout in the case of meltdown of aeronautic nuclear reactors. On December 13, 2019, the U.S. Air Force said it had kept the Ultra Long Endurance Aircraft Platform (Ultra LEAP) at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah airborne for two days during testing of the surveillance drone at the site. In March 1968, 6,249 sheep died in Skull Valley , an area nearly thirty miles from Dugway's testing sites. When examined,

798-475: The dry conditions. Most of the desert receives less than 8 inches (200 mm) of annual precipitation. The salt crust covering the desert reforms yearly when the rain evaporates. The military's Utah Test and Training Range is in the northern portion of the desert. The lowest part of Juab County is located just south of the Dugway Proving Grounds, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) northwest of

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836-431: The early 1990s, UFOlogists and concerned citizens have suggested that whatever covert operations may have been underway at that location, if any, were subsequently transferred to DPG. The Deseret News reported that Dave Rosenfeld, president of Utah UFO Hunters, claimed but provided no proof for "Numerous UFOs have been stored and reported in the area in and around Dugway ... [military aircraft can't account for] all

874-417: The exposed sheep that survived the initial exposure were eventually euthanized by the ranchers, since even the potential for exposure had rendered the sheep permanently unsalable for either meat or wool. The incident, coinciding with the birth of the environmental movement and anti- Vietnam War protests, created an uproar in Utah and the international community. The U.S. General Accounting Office issued

912-482: The first ultra-high-energy cosmic ray . Dugway is home to several radio telemetry and tracking radar (i.e. RIR-777, TPQ-39 (Ver. V) and MPQ-39) sites which track national flight assets during flight tests at UTTR . Activities included aerial nerve agent testing. According to reports from New Scientist , Dugway was still producing quantities of anthrax spores as late as 2015 to be used to develop anthrax testing detection and countermeasures, more than four decades after

950-642: The first report, the military divulged that the mis-shipments had been broader than initially reported and launched an investigation. Dugway was involved in developing a test to identify biological threats in the field. In September 2018, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released findings of an investigation into the anthrax shipping lapses made at Dugway. The investigation looked into whether "systemic oversight changes regarding biosecurity have since been implemented across DOD facilities. The findings are mixed." The U.S. Army had sought 35 specific changes, but only 18 of those 35 changes have been made, as of

988-426: The largest block of overland contiguous special use airspace measured from surface or near surface within the continental U.S.(207 by 122 mi (333 by 196 km)). The transcontinental Lincoln Highway passed through the present site of the Dugway Proving Ground, and is the only section of the old highway closed to the public. At least one old wooden bridge over a creek still stands. The name Dugway comes from

1026-675: The late 1950s and early 1960s, Project Bellwether —a study of weaponized, mosquito-spread infections—was based at DPG. From 1985 to 1991, Dugway Proving Ground was home to the Ranger School 's short-lived Desert Training Phase. It was first known as the Desert Ranger Division (DRD) until redesignated the Ranger Training Brigade 's 7th Ranger Training Battalion in 1987, and taught students basic desert survival skills and small unit tactics. The program

1064-625: The limitations of a 2,000-acre (8.1 km) site at Horn Island off the coast of Mississippi a biological weapons testing site was established at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Known as the Granite Peak Installation, the site was activated as the U.S. military's principal bio-weapons testing site beginning in June 1944. Construction on the massive facilities required by GPI began on July 10, 1944, and continued for seven months, finally ending on January 30, 1945. The total cost for

1102-549: The northwest corner of the Fish Springs Range. During Jedediah Smith's 1826-27 expedition , Robert Evans nearly died while crossing the desert and in the 1840s, westward emigrants used the Hastings Cutoff through 130 miles (210 km) of Great Salt Lake desert to reduce the distance to California . The 1846 Donner Party 's difficulties in making the crossing contributed to their becoming snowbound in

1140-533: The proving ground. There were about 1,200 to 1,400 people at Dugway when the lockdown occurred. It was later announced that the lockdown was in response to the temporary loss of a vial containing VX nerve agent . The lockdown was lifted on January 27 following recovery of the material. The incident was described simply as a mislabeling problem. Dugway Proving Ground was also home to the High Resolution Fly's Eye Cosmic Ray Detector , which discovered

1178-456: The sheep were found to have been poisoned by an organophosphate chemical. The sickening of the sheep, known as the Dugway sheep incident , coincided with several open-air tests of the nerve agent VX at Dugway. Local attention focused on the Army, which initially denied that VX had caused the deaths, instead blaming the local use of organophosphate pesticides on crops. Necropsies conducted on

Granite Peak Installation - Misplaced Pages Continue

1216-559: The site of testing for various chemical and biological agents. From 1951 through 1969, hundreds, perhaps thousands of open-air tests using bacteria and viruses that cause disease in human, animals, and plants were conducted at Dugway ... It is unknown how many people in the surrounding vicinity were also exposed to potentially harmful agents used in open-air tests at Dugway. More specifically, there are reports that certain nerve agents such as tetrodotoxin and Datura stramonium have been tested at this military base. The complete nerve agent

1254-456: The spacecraft to malfunction upon re-entry to Earth's atmosphere preventing the originally planned air retrieval. On January 26, 2011, Dugway Proving Ground was placed on lockdown. Al Vogel, a public affairs specialist for the installation, would only say that the lockdown began at 5:24 p.m. Employees were not allowed to leave, and those coming to work were not allowed in. Vogel said there were no injuries, no damage and no threats reported at

1292-533: The unknowns seen in the area. It might be that our star visitors are keeping an eye on Dugway too. ... [Dugway is] the new Area 51. And probably the new military spaceport." Dugway Proving Ground has often made light of the rumors, satirizing the conspiracy on their official social media posts. A 2021 community event at the base had shooting targets with alien profiles set up by the base's police department for children to target with an airsoft gun . A 2023 5K run & 10K run Halloween costume race announced at

1330-405: Was a 250-square-mile (650 km) area of Dugway that was located 30 miles (48 km) west from the nearest active area, known as "Dog Area". Because of this isolation the installation developed many of its own facilities, separate from the main facilities at Dugway. GPI had its own utilities, laboratories, living quarters and medical facility. By 1985 only two surviving structures remained at GPI:

1368-641: Was also provided by personnel at Dugway. Despite the assistance from Dugway, GPI maintained control over all technical aspects of its operations and testing. GPI was overseen by the Special Projects Division, part of the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories . One weapon tested was a 91-pound bomb containing "vegetable killer acid", known as VKA ( 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid ), now commonly sold as an ingredient in household "weed n' feed" products. Testing of other munitions continued from 1943–1945, including tests using Bacillus anthracis ,

1406-558: Was code-named "VX"—one of a series of "V" nerve agents tested at the base. In May 2015 it was revealed that Dugway lab had inadvertently shipped live anthrax bacillus to locations around the country. Shipped samples, it was said, were supposed to be inert. Labs receiving the live samples were in Texas, Maryland, Wisconsin, Delaware, New Jersey, Tennessee, New York, California and Virginia, the Associated Press reported. Days after

1444-498: Was later moved back to its original site at Fort Bliss, Texas , in 1991, where it was deactivated in 1995. On September 8, 2004, the Genesis , a NASA spacecraft, was directed to impact into the desert floor of the Dugway Proving Ground because the topsoil there is like talcum powder, or moondust, and would likely cushion the troubled spacecraft's impact. The Genesis spacecraft's accelerometer had been installed backwards, which caused

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