Operation Acoustic Kitty: When The CIA Tried To Train Cats As Spies
YouTubeAn illustration showing how Operation Acoustic Kitty might have worked.
In the 1960s, the CIA devised an outlandish — but possibly brilliant — idea. What if they could fit a cat with spying technology and train it to cozy up to Soviet officials? With that, Operation Acoustic Kitty was born.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, the project took five years and $20 million dollars to get off the ground. CIA analysts had to build a 3/4-inch-long transmitter to place at the base of the cat’s skull, put a microphone in its ear, and wrap an antenna around its tail.
“They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up,” Victor Marchetti, a former assistant to the CIA director, said, according to Smithsonian Magazine. “They made a monstrosity.”
CIAA redacted memo from Operation Acoustic Kitty outlining the possibility of training as spies.
But this government operation was far from a success. That cat in question was a largely unwilling subject, who exhibited the cat-like tendency of wandering off wherever it wanted to, whenever it wanted to. Still, the CIA was determined to test out their new technology.
Agents brought their feline spy to a park, where they hoped it would sit near two men on a bench and pick up their conversation. Instead, the cat dashed off, ran into the road, and was promptly hit and killed by a taxi. In 1967, the CIA officially ended Operation Acoustic Kitty.
“Our final examination of trained cats… convinced us that the program would not lend itself in a practical sense to our highly specialized needs,” CIA analysts admitted in a heavily redacted memo about the covert operation, according to History.
However, perhaps hoping to justify a $20 million price tag, the memo also noted that Operation Acoustic Kitty had proved that: “cats can indeed be trained to move short distances… in itself a remarkable scientific achievement.”
