They Live By Night
Photographs by David McClister
If this were a movie, the opening credits would read ‘Based on A True Story.’
There were 18 in all, including two children. They were each injected with radically high doses of plutonium between the years 1945-47. All were done under the supervision of the US Army’s Manhattan Project and the guise of determining safe exposure levels for the Project’s many scientists and employees. No consent forms were presented or signed. No notations were made on their medical charts. Their selection was purely random. Their diagnosis was considered terminal. The injections took place in hospitals in Rochester, NY, Oak Ridge, TN, Chicago, IL, and San Francisco, CA.
In my series of noir-inspired photographs entitled They Live By Night, those injected have been badly disfigured. They have been transformed into real-life monsters and have become potential public relations and libel nightmares for the US Government.
Like a B-movie production from the same time period, a secret task force has been created to eliminate all traces of the 18. These crime scene photographs are evidence of both their existence, and their extermination.
David McClister is a professional photographer and filmmaker living in Nashville, TN.
