Anthrax Island

I spent one of my first summers as a New Yorker just outside the city in Montauk, one of the villages surrounding Long Island's Hamptons.  Just off the coast of Montauk is one of the country's more mysterious locations.  The Plum Island Animal Disease Center occupies a 3 by 1 mile island, which is replete with its own fire department, power plant, water treatment plant, and, of course security.  The island, once used to protect New York City in the Spanish-American war at the turn of the 19th century, became a biological-weapons and animal disease research laboratory after WWII.  It is currently owned by the Dept. of Homeland Security.

Plum Island- NW of Long Island

Personnel are ferried to and from the island by armed security officers, and the public are not welcome.  Before entering the island, the personnel must strip naked and put on plastic clothing.  No animal is allowed to leave the island alive and any animal on the island is killed if it comes on-shore. According to a 2002 Wall Street Journal article, freezers on the island contain live polio, Rift Valley Fever, and a host of other deadly diseases.  Plum Island's stated objective is to study diseases communicated between man and animals, but many suspect the laboratory's research goes much deeper.  In 2008, suspected Al Qaeda terrorist Aafia Siddiqui was captured in Afghanistan with a liter of Cyanide in her purse and a list of potential US targets.  Plum Island was included on that list.


"Montauk monster" washed ashore in 2008


The island has been the subject of many conspiracy theories.  Some believe Lyme disease originated on the island and was communicated by accident to nearby Lyme, Connecticut where it spread to the mainland.  Separately, many believe the island has been the source for genetically mutated animals, including what has been dubbed the "Montauk monster," a beastly looking creature that washed on Montauk's shore in July 2008 and horrified three beach-goers.  The mystery has never been solved, although some scientists contend the animal is merely a raccoon or a turtle.  In the 1989 film Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter is offered vacation time on "Plum Island Animal Disease Center" if he cooperates.  Pausing, he mocks the island by calling it, "Anthrax Island."