This classic (and spooky) 1970 photo, taken by an unnamed Denver Post reporter and now housed at the Library of Congress, shows a worker at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal using a caged rabbit to detect leaks of Sarin gas, which that plant produced. Poor bunny. An odorless, colorless, lethal nerve gas, Sarin was used in the 1995 terrorist attacks in the Tokyo’s subway system. Rabbits weren’t the only ones exposed to the deadly gas. An excerpt from a 2002 Telegraph article, which stated that sarin was tested on British soldiers as recently as 1983:
“One former soldier who underwent a Sarin test in 1983 alleges that Government scientists assured him that there had never been problems with the nerve agent during previous experiments. He says he was not told that Ronald Maddison, an airman, died minutes after being tested with Sarin in 1953.
Ian Foulkes, 38, who was then a private in the 28th Signal Regiment, said: ‘I specifically asked them what the long-term implications of taking part in the tests were because I was not happy about it. Of course if they had mentioned what happened to Ronald Maddison I would not have taken part.'”