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CIA Animal Tech: Bats, Cats and Rats As Covert Operatives
Posted by Wilson Rothman at 4:20 AM on May 23, 2008
I was surprised to learn that the CIA has had a long though not always fruitful relationship with the animal kingdom. In Spycraft, the authors describe many clever animal-assisted devices, from the dead-rat dead-drop pouch to the "acoustic kitty," a cat with a remote listening system embedded in its body. And what's this about the 1 million bats the CIA's precursor, the OSS, were gonna use to firebomb Tokyo during WWII?
The acoustic kitty was a bionic feline with a 3/4-inch radio transmitter embedded at the base of its skull. The transmitter's antenna was woven in to the cat's fur, while the microphone was placed in the cat's ear canal. Yes, PeTA members, the cat project did consider "questions of humane treatment." Once the system was up and running, the cats didn't seem to mind it at all. Boom, total success right? Well, no. Spycraft author Bob Wallace told me in an interview: "The cat wanted to do what the cat wanted to do, and not what we wanted it to do."
The British secret service actually used mice in a similar fashion, not as live microphones, but as a means to drag wire along the studs inside walls. The CIA trained pigeons to fly to laser dots and drop payloads, generally wireless mics. Obviously dogs too were trained for ops—though the Soviets were up on dog training, too, according to Spycraft co-author Keith Melton: the KGB trained dogs to sniff out the glue used by the CIA in equipment drops.
Says Melton re: animals in the line of duty: "If you have a choice between putting human and animals at risk—and I'm an animal lover—you have to use an animal."
Dead animals worked as well or better. Deceased rats, which apparently had lived long happy lives and died of natural causes, were hollowed out and used to stash secret information for drops in hostile territory. The reasoning was that people don't go around picking up dead rats to see what's inside. As for animals who might be looking for a tasty snack, the rats were painted with Tabasco sauce, repellent to every critter but humans. Fun fact: The CIA used white rats for this, so that they could dye them to match the indigenous colouration of local rats.
Before the CIA was born, live rats—with wings—were considered for strategic use. Project X-Ray a.k.a. BAT was an OSS plan to release 1 million bats rigged with tiny explosives over Japan towards the end of World War II. Bats from Carlsbad Cavern in New Mexico were brought to a test facility. According to Spycraft, the bats' most successful test run resulted in the fiery destruction of a new hangar. The plan was killed off, it seems, because no one knew how to automate the bat-arming process in a cost-effective manner. Bombs were also attempted with the Norwegian rat and trained domestic cats, who were supposed to swim to a target after being dropped in the ocean. (Anyone see a problem with that?) [More CIA Spytech on Giz]
All of this CIA tech and much more like it is covered with great depth and hair-raising anecdotes in Spycraft, a new book by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton, reviewed by us, and available for pre-order at Amazon.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
StarChaser Tyger
Posted 6:16 PM 23/5/08
There was a show on one of the science channels about the bat bomb... it would have worked, and they had everything figured out (the bombs were armed when the bats left their carrier by the simple expedient of a string tied to it pulling the pin), but it was overshadowed by the atomic bomb.
StarChaser Tyger
Crescent
Posted 5:38 PM 23/5/08
Dead-Rat envelope: great idea!
Cat agent: who thought of this obviously has never even seen a cat before!
Crescent
centerpeace
Posted 5:00 PM 23/5/08
While I was clandestinely planning character assassination of GWB w/ comrades at the dock one night. A seagull overhead accurately dropped 2..eh...poop bombs on me. My hair and my shoulder was hit. Now I know how the CIA got wind of our plans and foiled out plot!!!
centerpeace
GadgetPlay
Posted 3:46 PM 23/5/08
Don't forget Operation Sampson where a flaming fox was used to destroy the enemies food supply.
GadgetPlay
Kaiser-Machead
Posted 1:23 PM 23/5/08
@Git Em SteveDave: Or just ask the dogs to gnaw out our throats.
Kaiser-Machead
Maxwells_Nylon_Hammer
Posted 10:18 AM 23/5/08
Didn't the first outing of the acoustic kitty end in massive failure when it was run over by a car. $15 million it cost. [www.damninteresting.com]
The Brits also had a "rat bomb" that they gave to the French Resistance. It was half a pound of explosive in a dead rat, the idea being, the Germans would find the dead rat in their base, pop it into the stove/fire before it started to smell and several minutes later explode.
Maxwells_Nylon_Hammer
russdanger
Posted 8:34 AM 23/5/08
My cat is already a spy. But she works for the race of aliens who inhabit the planet that she originally came from. If you have a cat, watch it closely for signs that it may be communicating with it's home world. This usually takes the form of running back and forth at 3:00 AM meowing at the top of it's lungs. Under no circumstances alert the cat to your suspicions. It will go badly for you. Treat the cat with kindness and let it eat from your plate. This will guarantee you a place of privilege when the the Mothercat-Ship arrives.
russdanger
GeekyNerdGuy
Posted 8:28 AM 23/5/08
I wonder if those magnetic rat throwees with LED eyes on instructable.com were inspired by the dead rat drop pouches ... probably not.
GeekyNerdGuy
Git Em SteveDave
Posted 8:25 AM 23/5/08
@Kaiser-Machead: How? Would they find an ingenious way to use birds to spy on/kill us? B/c using other mammals would make them as bad as us. But then the birds will revolt and use reptiles, who in turn will revolt and use...
Git Em SteveDave
Kaiser-Machead
Posted 7:51 AM 23/5/08
@Kaiser-Machead: closest*
Kaiser-Machead
Kaiser-Machead
Posted 7:51 AM 23/5/08
Pray the intellect of our closes mammalian companions never fully comprehend the things we can do to them. They'd kill us in our sleep.
Kaiser-Machead
txpunk
Posted 6:49 AM 23/5/08
Brilliant! -- it's posts like these that keep me coming back 4 mores, not the glut of posts on cellphones (ooh, this one is .2mm thinner and has 1 hour of standby!)
txpunk
Git Em SteveDave
Posted 6:46 AM 23/5/08
@Narual: They used timers on the bats, b/c they wanted to give them time to fly before they roosted. They did destroy a base, but it was a abandoned base. This was also mostly a Japanese thing, due to their homes being constructed of mostly wood materials.
Git Em SteveDave
Sora57
Posted 6:33 AM 23/5/08
Me-owch!
Sora57
Narual
Posted 5:47 AM 23/5/08
And on the subject of cool stuff from WW2... Pykrete takes the cake. Or at least part of the cake. Or maybe the bats take the cake, but the Pykrete is the accompanying ice cream scoops...
[www.combinedops.com]
Narual
Narual
Posted 5:46 AM 23/5/08
Pretty sure project XRay was canceled because of the horrible success of another project developed at the same time. Hiroshima ring a bell? Everything I've ever read on it has indicated that the arming wasn't particularly difficult (and it wasn't
XRay was a brilliant idea though. They'd load the sleeping bats into cannisters which would pop open as air pressure increased, warming enough to wake the bats. The bats would fly off and find places to roost for the night, typically in the eaves of buildings, etc. And then the fires would start. All over the place. Not all at once, but gradually, more and more. And they'd be devastating, because the typical building materials were (presumably) not particularly fire resistant. The fire would likely have destroyed the evidence, increasing the confusion for a while -- being able to set fire to thousands of locations at once, doing enormous property damage, with a relatively lower loss of life than bombing might do (and certainly less than the nuclear weapons did). With no idea how it was done or if it could be done again, it's quite possible those little bats could have ended the war... but history had other plans.
Narual
packetsniffer
Posted 5:36 AM 23/5/08
"I was surprised to learn that the CIA has had a long though not always fruitful relationship with the animal kingdom."
Hmmm, I'd have to say you're either incredibly naive and trusting, or you don't get out much. ;-)
packetsniffer
MagnoliaBoy
Posted 5:27 AM 23/5/08
So far with this series of cool CIA stuff, I haven't seen anything that I haven't seen on Biography, History, or Discovery channel already. Thanks TV, you succeed where Books and School fail!
MagnoliaBoy
GiltProto
Posted 5:26 AM 23/5/08
I can haZ nU battrEE?
GiltProto
aec007
Posted 5:26 AM 23/5/08
So, Q...
Again... Where do the batteries go on this kitty???
Never mind..... you do it....
aec007
klaybc
Posted 5:17 AM 23/5/08
But the loveliest of all was the unicorn...
klaybc
B1663R
Posted 5:15 AM 23/5/08
@Bokusatsu_Tenshi: Thanks for the fix
B1663R
Bokusatsu_Tenshi
Posted 5:11 AM 23/5/08
@B1663R:
[images.icanhascheezburger.com]
Sorry, screwed up my last post.
Bokusatsu_Tenshi
Bokusatsu_Tenshi
Posted 5:09 AM 23/5/08
@B1663R:
[mine.icanhascheezburger.com]
Bokusatsu_Tenshi
B1663R
Posted 5:00 AM 23/5/08
What, no lolcatz caption? i was kinda hoping to see one. (didn't get enough of them yesterday)
B1663R
sisedi
Posted 4:55 AM 23/5/08
That is so cool and yet epic failure at the same time, too bad.
sisedi
shamoononon
Posted 4:52 AM 23/5/08
They should use my dog, his habit of peeing on strangers is awe-inspiring. (let's not forgot the doggy flatulence )
shamoononon
Rabid Penguin
Posted 4:43 AM 23/5/08
@icegnome: @liveinvt: I know... they could have just used Democrats to accomplish the same thing... I kid, I kid...
Rabid Penguin
liveinvt
Posted 4:40 AM 23/5/08
Good. PETA was getting bored.
liveinvt
dry-roasted-peanuts
Posted 4:39 AM 23/5/08
Well no crap that the cat isn't going to do what you tell it to do. IT'S A CAT! That's what they do! They piss you off just enough that you are ready to wring their neck and then they pull an absolutely adorable face/pose and you forgive them.
dry-roasted-peanuts
OtioseScandal
Posted 4:36 AM 23/5/08
Now I know how POSTAL came up with the cat-silencer...
[media.moddb.com]
OtioseScandal
nutbastard
Posted 4:36 AM 23/5/08
"Before the CIA was born, live rats-with wings-were considered for strategic use."
ahem
nutbastard
icegnome
Posted 4:34 AM 23/5/08
That was fabulous usage of taxes.... government trained pussies....
icegnome
Mooby
Posted 4:33 AM 23/5/08
I grow tired of pigeons dropping payloads all over public places.
Mooby
killarclown
Posted 4:24 AM 23/5/08
Never, ever, ever trust a pussy... cat.
killarclown