We all know that cats are pretty sneaky, but we really never thought about using them for spying, the CIA however, are not like you and me, they come up with some crazy ideas and plans. They tapped into the kitty world, they realized that kitty’s are small, stealthy and they excel at seducing human beings with their purrs, and once the kitty has infiltrated into the system, they just purr away as their new found owners release their secrets.
The CIA decided to implant listening devices into the cat’s ears and then train them to obey them so they could go exactly where they wanted them to and where they were told. That alone is a hell of a task, not even a cat version of Cesar Milan can accomplish that on a cat. The CIA opened up their new program called Project Acoustic Kitty, a 5 year long, 20 Million dollar program.
The CIA picked a Gray and white female cat to be the first under cover kitty agent. They added recording devices, listening devices, and then opened up the cat’s skull and attached a microphone so it was hidden behind the ear canal. An antena ran down the middle of the cat’s back down to the tail underneath the fur and skin. A battery was attached to the front of the cat but it was only able to record for a short amount of time so the kitty had to hurry on it’s mission.
So 20 million dollars from our tax money, a whole bunch of surgery installing a listening device and 5 years of training so the cat could get from point A to point B without having to stop and eat, or even play around with other humans, the cat was ready to go out on it’s first mission.
The First mission given to Kitty code name PAK was to go and eavesdrop on a conversation. The mission took place in a park near the Soviet embassy, the CIA agents sat in a reconnaissance van across the street and they opened the kitty door to release their feline secret agent cat into the field. The secret kitty took a few steps out of the van towards the street and she was ran over by a taxi. This was pretty much then first an only mission of Project Acoustic Kitty because the CIA concluded that “it would not be practical.”
After the cat’s death, a CIA operative returned to the accident site and collected the spy’s remains. They didn’t want the Soviets to get their hands on the audio equipment. Project Acoustic Kitty was completely abandoned in 1967. Deploying agents that the CIA had little to no control over was deemed a phenomenally bad idea. The project was declared an utter failure. Documents relating to Acoustic Kitty were released in 2001 following a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archives, but remain partially censored.
So for 5 years in training and over $20 million the united states Central Intelligence Agency managed to train a cat, this is quite impressive, it comes to show you that if you had just about as much money and just about as much time, you to can teach a cat to walk to a given direction.You can read more about Project Acoustic Kitty and other CIA projects in the book
Via: Dvice & Mental Floss
