Project Clean Slate: The Purge Test of Ash Hollow

In 1978, a government experiment called Project Clean Slate turned a forgotten Nevada town into a one-night purge test—twelve hours where all crime was legal. Residents of Ash Hollow were told it was a drill. Cameras were hidden in streetlights. Guns sat in unlocked crates. At 7 p.m., the sirens wailed and the town tore itself apart: neighbors attacking neighbors, a schoolteacher setting her principal on fire, and a 9-year-old running through the chaos clutching her father’s severed hand.

By morning, 72% of the town was dead. The footage never leaked; top officials called the trial a “success.” In 1980, whistleblower Lyle Denton stole a tape and mailed it to a Utah station—the broadcast cut mid-air