On Aug. 16, 1951, the inhabitants of the small French town, Pont Saint Esprit, were suddenly struck by illness and hallucinations. Originally, the incident was attributed to food poisoning in a local bakery, but new evidence suggests there could be a link to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operations.

The descriptions of events occurring during this time period provide a record of the disorder that took over Pont Saint Esprit that August. The Daily Telegraph, a newspaper published in the UK, accounts several of the incidents: a child attacking his grandmother and a man jumping from a second floor window while shouting, “I am a plane.”

In the same article, the Telegraph reported that, “Many were taken to the local asylum in straightjackets.”

While only about 10 percent of the poisoned Pont Saint Esprit residents experienced mental side-effects, those who did had intense, violent reactions.

Victims of the poisoning experienced such intense symptoms that they were at risk to themselves and others.

“Among the stricken, delirium rose: patients thrashed wildly on their beds, screaming that red flowers were blossoming from their bodies, that their heads had turned to molten lead,” according to Time Magazine. “Pont Saint Esprit’s hospital reported four attempts at suicide.”

At the time, investigators claimed that ergot, a poisonous fungus that grows on grain, was the cause. This theory has been questioned by some investigators, however, since there had not been a verified epidemic of ergot in France since 1816.

In his recent book, “A Terrible Mistake: The murder of Frank Olsen and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments,” investigative journalist HP Albarelli claims that the CIA used the town to experiment with a man-made hallucinogen similar to LSD.

“The outbreak at Pont Saint Esprit had actually been produced by a top-secret, joint Army-CIA experiment conducted as part of the Project MK/NAOMI, an adjunct project to the CIA’s ultra-secret Projects Artichoke and MK/ULTRA,” Albarelli said.

Steven Kaplan, professor of European history at Cornell University who specializes in French history and the history of bread, has serious doubts about Albarelli’s theory.

“There is absolutely NO evidence that the CIA had anything to do with the collective intoxication,” said Kaplan in an e-mail interview. “I have an open-mind, in part because I have no particular affinity for the CIA. But I have never seen the least iota of a case for CIA intervention in PSE, certainly not in Albarelli’s book.”

Like Albarelli, Kaplan has studied the incident and does not subscribe to the theory of food poisoning. His book, “Le Pain Maudit,” questions the ergotism thesis and provides material reasons why it does not fit.

Both authors believe the French government needs to take a second look at this event to discover the true causes. Until then, it will most likely remain a disturbing and widely-disputed event, shrouded in mystery.