Tod MaffinCanadian Commentator, From Far and Wide · Emotional Support Canadian

Unfortunately for Americans, history doesn’t clear as quickly as smoke.

19 Jul 2026 · 3 min

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2:50

The video narrates a covert Cold War program in which the U.S. military conducted open‑air dispersion experiments using zinc cadmium sulfide (ZnCdS) as a surrogate for biological weapons. In the summer of 1953, 6 kg of the bright‑glowing powder was released over Winnipeg—chosen for its similarity to Soviet cities—via aircraft 36 times over three weeks, and similar operations were performed in U.S. cities such as Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, and St. Louis using fans on buildings and vehicles. The government publicly framed the tests as a defensive study of artificial fog, but this was false. Decades later, in the 1990s, reports of cancer and infertility prompted investigations: a 1994 Manitoba review concluded limited public danger but called for further study, and a 1997 U.S. National Research Council assessment was criticized as inadequate, with missing documentation and scant mention of toxicity. Cadmium, a heavy metal component of the powder, is known to be hazardous, especially when inhaled as fine particles, though the official reports downplayed risks. The speaker concludes that the U.S. government lied about the experiments, exposed a major city to a potentially toxic chemical, and failed to provide transparent follow‑up.

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You want to talk about smoke crossing borders? Okay, let's talk about the time the US military secretly pumped chemicals into our air and lied to us about it. During the Cold War, the US ran open-air dispersion tests to model how biological weapons would spread if they were to use them on Moscow and Leningrad. Now, the chemical they used for this was zinc cadmium sulfide, not itself a biological weapon, but it was used as kind of proxy. Its particles were about the same size as biological weapons. It glows brightly when you place it under ultraviolet light, so it was easy to detect. At the time of the test, it was thought to be non-toxic. And one of the places that the American military chose to test? Winnipeg. Chosen because its meteorology, its terrain, uh, its layout were a lot like target Soviet cities. Did they tell us they were doing this? Sort of. But they lied about it. They told us it was a defensive study, that they were testing some kind of artificial fog that would protect the city from a Russian attack, but it wasn't true. These tests ran in the summer of 1953. 6 kilograms of this powder were dispersed. The American military sprayed Winnipeg 36 times from aircraft during a 3-week period. They did this to their own cities as well: Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, uh, St. Louis. The army there used giant fans on buildings and on the backs of station wagons. It wasn't until the '90s that this became widely known amid reports of cancer and infertility. The author of a book on the topic said the powder contained radioactive components. Now, in 1994, Manitoba found out, ran the numbers, and said there probably wasn't much danger to the public, but asked to be added to a list of American cities which would be studied. That study was done in 1997 by the National Research Council in the US, and it was a joke. The Army claimed it lost a bunch of the documentation. I couldn't find Winnipeg mentioned more than like one or two lines. It didn't even say if it was toxic. The best it did say was to say that, well, they fed it to some animals and they seemed okay. But cadmium is toxic. It's a heavy metal. It's not as well absorbed as soluble salt form, but it's still considered a hazardous material, and breathing in the fine powder is the main pathway of concern. So to sum up, the American government lied to us, sprayed one of our biggest cities with a chemical compound that may or may not have been toxic, and then brushed us off when we asked them to look into it. Uh, but— I'm sorry, you were saying about the smoke?