In the 60s CIA used $20M cats as walking bugging devices to spy on the Kremlin but...

F

Farid

Artist formely known as Vysez
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/04/wcia04.xml

In one experiment during the Cold War a cat, dubbed Acoustic Kitty, was wired up for use as an eavesdropping platform. It was hoped that the animal - which was surgically altered to accommodate transmitting and control devices - could listen to secret conversations from window sills, park benches or dustbins.

Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer, told The Telegraph that Project Acoustic Kitty was a gruesome creation. He said: "They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him and tested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another wire in to override that."

Mr Marchetti said that the first live trial was an expensive disaster. The technology is thought to have cost more than £10 million. He said: "They took it out to a park and put him out of the van, and a taxi comes and runs him over. There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead."
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I expect a riot from the cat lovers we have on the forum.
 
They took it out to a park and put him out of the van, and a taxi comes and runs him over.
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That made me grin a bit.

But they really got the cat to work? I remebers seeing something like this on discovery only with rats I think only I cant remember if they got it to work or not.
 
Getting the cat into position would be rather difficult I'd imagine. Now if you found an individual that you needed to spy on and had a cat you could take his cat, wire it up, then return it. Doing that without being noticed would take some work.
 
Davros said:
they should of put motors in the lges then they could of steered them
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A much easier solution would be to have a remote controlled mouse in front of the cat for him to follow.
Certainly it would be a little less noticeable than a cat going about without moving his legs... ;)
 
The military's use of dolphins was interesting but this... this I find atrocious. I can't be the only cat lover round these parts can I??

I don't think cats were the way to go. Trying to get them to do anything you want is near on impossible!
 
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I'm a cat-lover but I assumed Mr. Vysez was just making stuff up to annoy me. ;) Still, I'm not going to get upset over something that happened in the 60s now. it'd be nice if i coud wire my own cats though. we've talked about webcamming our kitties for awhile now, but they're too unpredictable -- again, the genius who thought of this should be shot, not for using cats, but for wasting money. Haven't they ever heard of dogs!? :?: :?: :?:
 
_xxx_ said:
Just like with other animals, either a half-arsed supplement for missing human friends or a habit from the childhood.
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Wow... :)

I've never had a pet before my gf moved in with her cat. So it's not a childhood habit. I'm off to count how many friends I have. I wonder what an acceptable amount is?
 
_xxx_ said:
C'mon, you know how I meant it. Lonely old ladies or computer geeks never leaving the screen etc.
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Actually, come to think of it if I plotted a graph from the date I first signed up upto now versus the amount of time I spend on here... Well, best leave that sentence unfinished I think!

Cheers.
 
That's the best part to me:
The memo ends by congratulating the team who worked on the Acoustic Kitty project for its hard work. It says: "The work done on this problem over the years reflects great credit on the personnel who guided it . . . whose energy and imagination could be models for scientific pioneers."
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CIA: Congratulations on taking 5 years to lead this project, about butchering cats and wasting a large amount of taxpayer dollars, to a ridiculous and more than ironical end! Now, let's never talk about this anymore or else this total failure, on so many level, could be noticed by the higher ups and as a responisble I risk to lose my job because of this mess. Take your medals and get the hell out of here!
PS: the projects "Accoustic Doggy" and "Acoustic Kiddy" won't be financed.
 
There's probably nothing too goofball and expensive for the CIA to try. This one seems pretty obscene tho, making "Frankenkitty".
 
Boss - "Right chaps now that the acoustic kitty project is over time to move on to humans, please say hello to your new subject mr Denton"
Mr Denton "you can call me j.c" ;)
 
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