CIA's secret experiments: what went wrong with the cats

The article discusses the CIA's secret Acoustic Kitty program, which in the 1960s attempted to turn cats into covert listening devices. It describes the technical details of the operation, the behavioral problems that led to the project's closure in 1967, and subsequent experiments with dolphins.

The article details the CIA's secret program called Acoustic Kitty, launched in 1964 at the height of the Cold War. The project aimed to turn ordinary stray cats into living covert listening devices. Veterinarians performed complex surgical operations: implanting a microphone in the animal's ear, a transmitter under the skin, and camouflaging the antenna in the fur. However, in practice, it turned out that cats are not trainable and move exclusively at their own discretion. According to rumors, the first test cat was killed under the wheels of a taxi, although the CIA denies this. By 1967, the project was closed as unpromising. Subsequently, attention shifted to dolphins under the OXYGAS program, but its funding was also cut in 1970. The article concludes with an ethical assessment of such experiments.

CIA's secret experiments: what went wrong with the cats