You got it. I pulled together a concise, sourced list of the best-documented U.S. government / military / intelligence experiments or releases that affected unsuspecting people in cities or communities, plus when/where they happened, who ran them, how they became public, and who was harmed. I also generated a downloadable table for you.

Download the table (CSV)

Here are the major cases (with dates and sources):

1. Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis — 1932–1972; Macon County, Alabama (Tuskegee).

PHS/CDC monitored Black men with syphilis without proper consent or treatment. Exposed by an Associated Press story on July 25, 1972; formal U.S. apology in 1997. 

2. Guatemala STD inoculation experiments — 1946–1948; Guatemala (prisons, army, mental hospital).

U.S. Public Health Service–run infections with syphilis/gonorrhea/chancroid without consent. Became public in 2010 via archival discovery; U.S. apologized Oct 1, 2010. 

3. Operation Sea-Spray (San Francisco) — Sept 1950; San Francisco, CA.

U.S. Navy/Army released Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii over the city to study dispersion; later linked to a cluster of hospital infections (causality disputed). Publicly discussed in 1977 Senate hearings; widely reported afterward. 

4. NYC subway bacteria release — 1966; New York City subway.

U.S. Army shattered lightbulbs filled with Bacillus subtilis var. niger to trace spread through trains/tunnels. Details surfaced later from declassified reports and coverage. 

5. Operation LAC (zinc cadmium sulfide dispersal) — 1957–1958 (with related tests into early 1960s); St. Louis, Minneapolis, others.

U.S. Army Chemical Corps dispersed ZnCdS tracer over cities. Declassified and reviewed by the National Research Council in 1997; NRC concluded public doses were far below levels expected to cause harm, though the secrecy and siting (e.g., around St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe) remain controversial. 

6. Project SHAD / Project 112 — 1962–1973; at sea (U.S. Navy) and some land sites.

DoD tests of chemical/biological agents and simulants on ships and crews, many without informed consent. Declassified beginning in 2000–2002; DoD released fact sheets. 

7. MK-ULTRA & Operation Midnight Climax — ca. 1953–1963 (SF safehouses closed 1965; NY soon after).

CIA dosed unwitting civilians with LSD and other substances, including in CIA-run brothels in San Francisco and New York. Became public during the 1975–1977 Rockefeller/Church/Senate investigations; CIA IG materials later released. 

8. Human Radiation Experiments (incl. plutonium injections, total-body irradiation) — 1940s–1960s; various hospitals/labs.

AEC/DoD/PHS-linked studies often performed without consent. Investigated by the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (1994–1995); presidential apology followed.

9. “Green Run” radioactive release — Dec 2–3, 1949; Hanford Site, WA, and downwind communities.

AEC/USAF intentionally released iodine-131 and other radionuclides to test detection—without telling the public. Acknowledged via declassified DOE documents in 1986; later summarized by NPS and DOE histories. 

10. Project 4.1 (Marshall Islands fallout study) — 1954 onward; Marshall Islands (Rongelap/Utirik).

AEC-led medical study of Indigenous Marshallese after Castle Bravo fallout; consent and timeliness of evacuation remain disputed. Documentation published/declassified over time. 

11. Edgewood Arsenal human experiments — 1955–1975; Edgewood, MD.

U.S. Army exposed thousands of soldiers to nerve agents, incapacitating chemicals, and psychedelics; “volunteer” consent has been heavily disputed. Became widely known via congressional/GAO inquiries and litigation. 

12. Willowbrook hepatitis studies (government-funded) — 1956–1970; Staten Island, NY.

Researchers intentionally exposed institutionalized children to hepatitis to study disease course/prevention; consent ethically compromised. Publicly debated in the 1960s–70s and later condemned. 

About your specific follow-ups

• “Three cities where they spread down a fog”: You’re likely thinking of the zinc-cadmium sulfide tracer dispersals—most prominently St. Louis and Minneapolis (U.S.), plus Winnipeg (Canada). The Army’s use of ZnCdS was confirmed and reviewed by the National Research Council in 1997 after documents were declassified. 

• Plum Island & Lyme disease: There’s no credible evidence Lyme disease “got loose” from Plum Island. Lyme was identified from clusters in Old Lyme, Connecticut, in the mid-1970s; the pathogen (Borrelia burgdorferi) was discovered in 1981–82, and studies show Borrelia and its tick vectors existed in North America long before Plum Island. DHS/USDA also say Lyme was not researched there. 

Was it “consistently non-whites”?

• Not exclusively, but many of the worst cases targeted or disproportionately harmed marginalized people: Black men in Tuskegee; Guatemalan prisoners/psychiatric patients; Indigenous Marshallese communities; poor or institutionalized children at Willowbrook; residents of segregated St. Louis housing near Pruitt-Igoe; and downwind rural/Indigenous communities near Hanford. Others (e.g., NYC subway, San Francisco releases) exposed the general public, and several programs used mostly enlisted servicemembers (Edgewood, SHAD). The pattern shows repeated harms to populations with little power to refuse or seek redress. 

How did they “admit” it / when did it become public?

• Press exposés and whistleblowers (Tuskegee 1972 AP story).

• Congressional/commission investigations (Rockefeller Commission, Church/Senate hearings 1975–1977; MK-ULTRA).

• Declassification & FOIA (Operation Sea-Spray, NYC subway test, Green Run, SHAD/112).

• Presidential/agency apologies (Guatemala 2010; radiation experiments 1995). 

If you want, I can also export this as a nicely formatted PDF handout or add more rows (e.g., additional radiation or prison studies).