Biological Chernobyl - The Sverdlovsk Incident

In April of 1979, people from the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk began falling strangely ill with inexplicable symptoms. Soviet intelligence is believed to have covered-up the true number of casualties.

When the Kremlin sent scientists and military officials to investigate the zone, they concluded it was contaminated meat from the local cattle.

But it was not.

The USSR hid the truth from its population and the world.

Eventually, word got out. What truly happened, whistleblowers said, was an accident at a clandestine biological weapons laboratory that liberated deadly anthrax spores that contaminated Sverdlovsk's air.

It was an omission that cost the Soviet military the secrecy of its top-secret biological warfare projects.

And at the height of the Cold War, during the aggressive Regan administration, the USSR could not afford the luxury of having its secret military programs exposed.

Thus, the accident was buried deep in propaganda.

After the accident occurred, Soviet officials took over the zone and closed the city. The military has been patrolling the area until this very day....