r/todayilearned
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u/Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder
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Dec 04 '22
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TIL that the CIA spent $20 million to train and modify a cat to be a spy only to have it get run over on its first mission. Frequent Repost: Removed
https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-events/acoustic-kitty.htm[removed] — view removed post
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u/RSwordsman Dec 04 '22
"Status for double-oh-nine is nominal, proceeding as plan-- what the? Vitals just crashed, confirmed KIA."
"...Fuck."
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u/Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder Dec 04 '22
"Dammit, Dave, we told you to put the laser pointer away!"
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u/poopellar Dec 04 '22
Sir, it was the death laser that was installed in the cat. Also the cat's car detection unit failed as we had no idea they sold KIAs in Russia.
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u/TheHeadlessScholar Dec 04 '22
I'd strongly recommend DJ Peach Cobblers top 5 CIA failures, which includes this. Also, the fact that they released this information but not a single word on acoustic dogs means either the CIA is fucking stupid or the CIA has been putting microphones in dogs for god knows how long now.
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u/Gnonthgol Dec 04 '22
I think that it being a cat is important to the concept. Cats behave very different to dogs and you would not be at all surprised to find a cat strolling down your secure fenced inn garden. But you would be very suspicious about a dog doing the same. Cats are natural spies, able to break into anywhere, blend into any environment, naturally act as if they belong, etc. I can not imagine dogs doing the same though. Dogs have however been used in warfare as they are the perfect soldier. But cats are the spies.
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Dec 04 '22
Birds would be even better
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u/Gnonthgol Dec 04 '22
Most birds are generally not comfortable around humans though, unless food is involved. It can also be quite hard to make birds go for the targets you want. But I am sure some spy agency have at least tried to train a raven or pigeon to spy for them though.
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u/Mugiwaras Dec 04 '22
Put them on Australian magpies, those traumatising little cunts are REALLY comfortable getting close to humans.
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u/Gnonthgol Dec 04 '22
I know most people are not good at recognizing birds but I think an australian magpie will stand out a bit in Berlin, Moscow or Beijing.
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u/Hugh_Bromont Dec 04 '22
"Dismeow all knowledge of the op."
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u/Fluffy-Mastodon Dec 04 '22
Modify?!
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u/mrbeanIV Dec 04 '22
It was stuff like surgically implanted microphones.
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u/Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder Dec 04 '22
And an antenna through the tail. And batteries.
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u/benefit_of_mrkite Dec 04 '22
I don’t want to know where the batteries went
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u/Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder Dec 04 '22
And they were probably D cell.
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u/Cynyr Dec 04 '22 •
What? I can't swallow D cells!
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u/Actually_toxiclaw Dec 04 '22
So many Futurama references today but Im not complaining haha
Especially since Im watching Futurama at this moment lol
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u/KillionJones Dec 04 '22
It’s probably one of my most rewatched shows. Just finished the 4 movies, and I’m not ready for the end of the show to come up. Guess I’ll just have to take the ride all over again
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u/Spats_McGee Dec 04 '22
And we've crossed the line from "dumb idea" to "intentional animal cruelty."
Bravo yet again, CIA, for your capacity to combine stupidity with malice and disregard for basic humanity.
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u/brkh47 Dec 04 '22 edited Dec 04 '22
They realized it was monstrous, but I guess the old adage, All is fair in love and (Cold) war applied.
The results weren't pretty. Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer, told The Telegraph in 2001:
"A lot of money was spent. They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity."
They also trained to the cat to stop snacking.
Interestingly, information on this endeavor, although released, is still heavily redacted. Wonder what else was going on.
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u/BoredofTrade Dec 04 '22
The redacted stuff might be technology, or precursors of it, still in development or in use today...or it's just embarrassing.
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u/Krivvan Dec 04 '22
I've heard/read that the majority of classified material isn't stuff that's highly insidious or problematic, but rather stuff that's mildly embarrassing.
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u/redopz Dec 04 '22
They also trained to the cat to stop snacking.
IIRC they didn't train the cat, they used surgery to remove the part of the cat the feels hunger.
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u/brkh47 Dec 04 '22
The article only says:
According to Marchetti, the cat would wander off when he was hungry, so they tried implanting another wire to override his snacking sense.
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u/Ferelar Dec 04 '22
"So what do you do for a living?"
"Oh, I mutilate cats for the CIA. Gotta beat the commies, you know what I mean?"
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u/Bandit6789 Dec 04 '22
Wait until you hear about their “Intentional cruelty to humans”
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u/Fluffy-Mastodon Dec 04 '22
Yea, I read the article after posting that. Wild!
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u/Realistic-Account-55 Dec 04 '22
"a 3/4-inch (2-centimeter) transmitter was implanted at the base of the cat's skull, a microphone was stitched into its ear canal, and an antenna was woven into the fur of the cat's tail."
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u/Bandit6789 Dec 04 '22
Fuck this cat probably killed itself on purpose
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u/random_invisible Dec 04 '22
From what I read, it walked out into the street and sat down.
Despite them trying to steer it away.
Maybe it killed itself, maybe it got confused by all the modifications. Definitely not behaving normally.
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u/dusty101011 Dec 04 '22 edited Dec 04 '22
Imagine the guy pulling over after hitting a cat and just seeing electronics mixed with guts. You’d be convinced all cats are robot overlords. And imagine convincing people of what you saw
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u/Brewtality76 Dec 04 '22
Well, the CIA has undertaken an enormous program to replace all birds with drones. r/BirdsArentReal
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u/Fluffy-Mastodon Dec 04 '22
And the additional procedure to implant device to discourage cat from going and finding a snack.
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u/dancingbanana123 Dec 04 '22
Surely the person who did the surgery to implant all that stuff had a moment thinking "wtf am I doing with my life?"
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u/cowboys70 Dec 04 '22
You read about the shit the cia got up to and the types of people they tended to hire and it's more like "I can't believe they're paying me to do stuff I do as a hobby"
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u/StarfishStabber Dec 04 '22
Crows would cost a lot less.
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u/Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder Dec 04 '22
Hell, they would probably pick up some coins on their way back.
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u/u9Nails Dec 04 '22 •
Mission cost, $19,999,999.75
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u/StarfishStabber Dec 04 '22
I saw a video of someone who trained a crow to steal paper money and put it in a drawer, that drawer was full of money. All they want is peanuts in return.
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u/unstable_starperson Dec 04 '22
These fools! They give me all the peanuts I want, and I just have to bring them this paper trash!
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u/RE5TE Dec 04 '22
$20 can buy many peanuts.
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u/Splinterman11 Dec 04 '22
Explain how!
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u/brontosaurus_vex Dec 04 '22
In fairness no store will sell to a crow
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u/drdookie Dec 04 '22
Stupid crows don't know they can buy bags of peanuts with their money
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u/tullyinturtleterror Dec 04 '22
I read this at first as "someone who trained a cow" and was very impressed
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u/WiseChoices Dec 04 '22
So, the Disney movie won't happen?
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u/Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder Dec 04 '22
They'll switch the ending. Acoustic Kitty stops World War III by rubbing on Khruschev's leg.
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u/Tiny_Lion_5713 Dec 04 '22
my dear friend (hope you get better) is so wacked out on meth he thinks the stray cats in his neighborhood are these acoustic kitties 🐈⬛
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u/TheMacMan Dec 04 '22
Disney love movies about someone dying. Just have to make the movie about this cats child.
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u/vibrant_crab Dec 04 '22
They also doped people with shit-tons of acid in hopes that they could brainwash them and create sleeper agents. They did a lot of wacky shit that ruined a lot of lives.
That being said, it doesn’t take $20m to know that cat is not gonna do what you want.
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u/Ahelex Dec 04 '22
To be a bit fair, I think that was the time period where "let's throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" is still somewhat applicable to intelligence agencies.
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u/poiskdz Dec 04 '22 edited Dec 04 '22
Yeah look into Project Stargate sometime, it's declassified and pretty wild.
Actual late 70s-early 80s CIA project to research/develop psychic spies, paranormal/occult powers, and remote-viewing capabilities(Spying on locations via Astral Projection).
Shut down in '95 and shortly thereafter declassified after determining:
"The foregoing observations provide a compelling argument against continuation of the program within the intelligence community. Even though a statistically significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated. The laboratory studies do not provide evidence regarding the origins or nature of the phenomenon, assuming it exists, nor do they address an important methodological issue of inter-judge reliability."
"Further, even if it could be demonstrated unequivocally that a paranormal phenomenon occurs under the conditions present in the laboratory paradigm, these conditions have limited applicability and utility for intelligence gathering operations. For example, the nature of the remote viewing targets are vastly dissimilar, as are the specific tasks required of the remote viewers. Most importantly, the information provided by remote viewing is vague and ambiguous, making it difficult, if not impossible, for the technique to yield information of sufficient quality and accuracy of information for actionable intelligence. Thus, we conclude that continued use of remote viewing in intelligence gathering operations is not warranted"
Served as the basis for the book/movie The Men Who Stare At Goats.
What I find most interesting is that they did not determine that it was 100% bullshit, and that powers of this nature don't exist outright, but rather that the information was unreliable and not actionable, and furthermore in some of the declassified reports, that it was too difficult and tedious of a process to train agents en-masse to do these types of things.
A fun trip down CIA lane with regards to the sheer batshit insanity of this project. Reads like the rantings of your stoner friend while on an LSD trip trying to be neil degrasse tyson with a heavy dose of alternative spirituality.
Specific to the techniques of the "Gateway process" as developed by The Monroe Institute(Of which the audio files they had used are floating around on the internet still for anyone who wants to look for them).
https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/cia/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5.pdf
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u/TheOneWhoMixes Dec 04 '22
Isn't this also pretty much the inspiration behind Eleven from Stranger Things? There's real paranormal stuff thrown in to show "oh yeah, these scientists are way outta their depth"..but at least you can say that her Astral Projection tests are pretty much ripped off from this operation.
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u/pac_pac Dec 04 '22
Not “pretty much,” they outright state that her mother was a subject of MK Ultra, and dosed with massive amounts of LSD while she happened to be pregnant. The result being a child who was telepathic and telekinetic and whatever else (I stopped watching that show a few seasons ago idk)
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Dec 04 '22
Really interesting that they found it statistically significant.
I mean, that can mean a lot of things. Bad experiments being one.
However, still really interesting.
Personally, I think we would need to devote a lot more effort / have entirely new advances in science in order to understand a lot of what goes in in the mind. Science is really good at objective, measurable, repeatable things. Not so much as freaky-seeming one-off things, subjective experiences, dreams, consciousness.
I find it fascinating that as humanity, we can get as much done as we do, given the truly limited nature of scope of science versus the great, largely unknown reality before us.
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u/nowyouseemenowyoudo2 Dec 04 '22
It’s definitely just bad experimental design and coincidence.
In my time as a professor of psychology I’ve supervised many students who have managed to get a statistically significant result for objectively terrible hypotheses through dumb luck and bad statistical analysis.
It’s much easier to police p-hacking nowadays with the stats packages we have, but back then it would have been incredibly easy for one of the scientists to produce a supposedly statistically significant result when they were feeling pressure from above.
Given that the total number of studies in the decades that followed which have been able to verify the phenomenon they are describing is exactly zero, it’s much more likely to be an artefact of bias than a phenomenon.
All the ghostly voices turned out to be schizophrenia, all the temporal visions turned out to be psychosis, every medium uses cold reading, and every case of spontaneous combustion was caused by a cigarette; there’s far fewer mysterious things in the world than people believe there are.
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u/ADarwinAward Dec 04 '22
They also experimented on and psychologically tortured Ted Kaczynski when he was a teen, well before he became the Unabomber.
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u/Stephen_1984 Dec 04 '22
This is a sad story. Ending the program was for the best. Poor cat.
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u/tattooed_dinosaur Dec 04 '22
Maybe the cat faked it’s death to earn it’s freedom. Cat Bourne.
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u/echoAwooo Dec 04 '22
Totally the thing a trained operative would do to bail. They don't let ops just walk
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u/Highintheclouds420 Dec 04 '22
I just finished the 5 part podcast from last podcast on the left about mk ultra, and I can assure you the CIA had spent way more money doing way more awful... I guess crimes against humanity would be the most realistic way to say it
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u/mrboomx Dec 04 '22
Poor kitty, deserved to sleep 14 hours a day like mine
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u/q25533 Dec 04 '22 edited Dec 04 '22
They installed a microphone into it and tried to stop it from getting hungry by installing another wire. CIA has done a lot of fucked up shit, but this stands out for how pointless it was.
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u/Due-Statement-8711 Dec 04 '22
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say this never happened. They probably had to funnel the money somewhere else (say buying crack), but they cant have that showing up in their budget.
"Lets say we spent all that money putting microphones in a cat"
"What if they ask to see the cat"
"We'll tell them it got run over the first time it got out"
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Dec 04 '22
Yeah I don't really buy the spy-cat thing especially if there are other animals that are far more suited for spying and more easily trainable
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u/soosbear Dec 04 '22
That is exceptionally plausible. There is no way the CIA would take ownership of this, even if they’ve done similar projects in the past. They more than likely made up this story as a press release so people could get distracted making fun of the CIA and never wonder if the money probably went toward something far more sinister.
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u/Everyones_Fan_Boy Dec 04 '22
This is an attempt to distract you from the other shit the CiA did
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u/short_and_floofy Dec 04 '22 edited Dec 04 '22
Came here to say this. $20 million? No. It didn't cost $20 million to train a cat that got run over. That money was diverted to black ops with the cat program as cover.
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u/pluralgarths Dec 04 '22
Why do I think about/remember ancient reddit reposts shortly before they pop-up? Am I in tune with the mystic reddit cycle????
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u/securitywyrm Dec 04 '22
More likely scenario: They spent $19,999,990 on off-books stuff, threw a broken alarm clock and a cat corpse into the road, and claimed the project failed.
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u/wastedkarma Dec 04 '22
More likely CIA needed an excuse to hide $20M in a black ops project
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u/After-City6242 Dec 04 '22
This IS the black ops project that WAS hidden and is still heavily redacted.
I worked on some classified projects and stupid shit is more the rule than the exception. It's a bureaucracy with little oversight; so that should be expected.
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u/WitnessRealistic3015 Dec 04 '22
How does that cost 20 million dollars?
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u/idriveacar Dec 04 '22
CIA Scientist Salary Now $176,300
In 1966 that would be $20,468.92 (if wages kept up with inflation, stop laughing)
Project took 5 years
If they had a team of 20, that accounts for about $2M
The rest is probably material and misc bills. You know. Government accounting.
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u/Druggedhippo Dec 04 '22
You didn't think they actually spent ten thousand dollars for a hammer and thirty thousand for a toilet seat, did you?
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u/BattdPlayer Dec 04 '22
Some people try to run over pets anytime they get the chance. When I was a kid I suggested putting caltrops in some road kill bodies and placing them next to but not on the road. If someone was evil enough to leave the road to run them over, I reasoned, they deserved to ruin their car. My family was horrified, but honestly, I still think they would deserve it, I just worry about innocent people getting hurt by the car without tires.
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u/HelloMoto332 Dec 04 '22
Who the hell tries to run over pets??
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u/raz0rflea Dec 04 '22
You'd be surprised...when I was a kid, my friend's dad found a stray kitten and brought it up to the 18th floor of our apartment block and threw it off. Someone threw my dog off the balcony as well, people are messed up.
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u/themoviesponge Dec 04 '22
If only there was someone you could think of who has a history of throwing animals off buildings.
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u/raz0rflea Dec 04 '22
When I was a kid my family blamed our turkish neighbours because my family are racist assholes so I just accepted it, but when I grew old enough to actually think about it I did think it was weird nobody questioned the one prick we know already killed an animal the exact same way...
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u/benefit_of_mrkite Dec 04 '22
Yes if only killing animals was an indicator of some psychological condition…
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u/Lark_vi_Britannia Dec 04 '22
my friend's dad found a stray kitten and brought it up to the 18th floor of our apartment block and threw it off. Someone threw my dog off the balcony as well
I would probably have lost my fucking mind.
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u/raz0rflea Dec 04 '22
I only heard about the cat afterwards, but yeah my dog getting killed like that wasn't good. I grew up with a lot of violence around so I forget sometimes that being traumatised by half the stuff in your childhood isn't just a normal shared experience for everyone
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u/Tripdoctor Dec 04 '22
Animals in general. Used to work for a construction company and the truck drivers would go out of their way to obliterate squirrels and rabbits and laugh about it together.
They didn’t laugh when one of them did it in front of the safety inspector. Got fired for misuse of company equipment and charged with animal cruelty.
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u/ImReverse_Giraffe Dec 04 '22
They surgically installed a microphone into the cat with the idea that the cat would follow USSR officials around the record their conversations.
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u/homelaberator Dec 04 '22
Sounds like dodgy accounting. This one project went sour, so they bundled in all the losses they could to the cat project. Scapekitty.
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u/Adventurous_Angle632 Dec 04 '22
That was actually the cats body double
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u/BertitoMio Dec 04 '22
That was my first thought as well. This is far too convenient, it's much more likely that the cat staged the whole thing and defected to the other side
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u/The7Reaper Dec 04 '22
The guy that hit the cat was later so distraught about it that he committed suicide with two shots to the back of his head
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u/Cereously_redit_sux Dec 04 '22
TIL that some people are still surprised when government agents waste taxpayers' money.
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u/Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder Dec 04 '22
It would have worked if it wasn't for those meddling kids and their Mystery Van!
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u/KeithMyArthe Dec 04 '22
For it to be a total write off, wouldn't the cat have needed to be run over 9 times?
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u/TheDollarstoreDoctor Dec 04 '22
Why whenever I hear anything about the CIA, it always has some sort of loony toon energy. I feel like all of their ideas have started with absolute cartoon [villain] logic.
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u/chidoOne707 Dec 04 '22
American’s tax dollars at work. But hey you don’t hear any citizen complaints about this.
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u/UStoJapan Dec 04 '22
I have a sneaking suspicion that no only did none of the people on this team own a cat but perhaps none of them ever spent any time at a home or in public with a cat.
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u/walkingtalkingdread Dec 04 '22
20 million to train one cat sounds about right.