During the Cold War, the CIA had an awesome idea: since cats could wander around even the most secure areas with impunity, why not wire them up for surveillance? The project named Acoustic Kitty began in earnest in 1961.
A grey and white cat was chosen as the test subject. A microphone was surgically implanted in the cat’s ear canal and a radio transmitter was placed at the base of the cat’s skull. Thin wire was wound into the fur along the back and down the tail. This served as an antenna. A small battery pack was implanted in the chest. This equipment would record the voices of those around the cat. The cat just needed to be sent in the right direction.
The first round of tests were disastrous. The cat would wander around and was easily distracted, especially by food. The scientists tried to direct the cat using ultrasonic sounds with a small measure of success.
The cat was taken in for a second surgery. CIA documents released in 2001 stated that this surgery involved implanting a wire to tame the cat’s hunger response. Much of the document is redacted and no description of this procedure is available.
That's a lot of surgery for one cat. Even state-of-the-art spy electronics in the 1960s were huge compared to what we have today. The cat was sent on its first mission in 1966, and that's where things took a sharp left turn. Read how the Acoustic Kitty experiment turned out at I Can't Believe It's Nonfiction. -via Strange Company
