Gruinard Island in Scotland became heavily contaminated with Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) spores during World War II due to secret biological weapons tests... In 1942, British military scientists from Porton Down requisitioned the island (codenamed "X-Base") to test anthrax bombs on tethered sheep. The tests proved highly lethal to the animals, and resilient anthrax spores persisted deeply in the soil for decades. A dead sheep even washed ashore on the Scottish mainland in 1943, killing local livestock. In 1981, workers at Britain’s chemical defence research centre found a bucket sitting outside the complex. Inside was soil taken from a remote Scottish island. The soil contained anthrax. Almost 40 years earlier, during the Second World War, the British government had deliberately contaminated Gruinard Island, a tiny island off Scotland’s north-west coast, as part of a secret biological weapons programme. Scientists from Porton Down wanted to discover whether anthrax could be used effectively in warfare. Sheep were taken to the island and exposed to bombs containing anthrax spores. The experiments worked frighteningly well. The animals died, but the spores remained alive in the Scottish soil. When the scientists left, the island could not simply be handed back. Warning signs went up, landing was forbidden and Gruinard remained contaminated for decades. A piece of Scotland had effectively been sacrificed for a wartime experiment and was still considered unsafe nearly 40 years later. Then a mysterious group calling itself the Dark Harvest Commando appeared. They claimed they had secretly landed on Gruinard with help from local people and removed around 300 pounds of contaminated soil. Their demand was simple. The British government should finally clean up the island it had poisoned. In a message sent to Scottish newspapers, they warned that the soil would be distributed around Britain. On 10 October 1981, some of it appeared outside Porton Down, the very establishment whose scientists had carried out the original experiments. Dark Harvest described it as returning the “seeds of death” to where they had come from. Tests confirmed that the container contained genuine anthrax-contaminated soil. Five days later another container appeared in Blackpool, where the Conservative Party conference was taking place, although that sample was found not to contain anthrax. Nobody was ever publicly identified as being behind the group. The government eventually began a major decontamination operation in 1986. Gruinard was treated with formaldehyde, contaminated soil was removed and extensive testing followed. In 1990, after almost half a century of quarantine, the island was finally declared safe and returned to the original owner’s family for £500. For nearly 50 years, a Scottish island remained contaminated because the British government had deliberately used it for biological warfare experiments. Nobody ever publicly identified the people behind Dark Harvest, but in 1981 someone went onto Gruinard, dug up the contaminated soil and sent it straight back to the establishment responsible for putting it there. #drthehistories