Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here a little bit of a
Speaker 1: warning on this one. It's the story of Cold War
Speaker 1: experiment patient on a cat that did not wind up
Speaker 1: going well for the cat. That we don't get graphic,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to give you a head step. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: The Cold War made people do some pretty wild things.
Speaker 1: The United States government was so desperate to defeat Communism
Speaker 1: that it threw money at pretty much any half baked
Speaker 1: scheme that might give Americans an advantage over the Soviet menace.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about Project Acoustic Kitty, a top secret
Speaker 1: Central Intelligence Agency research program that tested whether house cats
Speaker 1: could be used to spy on Soviet operatives. If that
Speaker 1: sounds like the plot of a bad movie from nine six,
Speaker 1: well it was just with a dog instead of a cat.
Speaker 1: It might also remind you a bit of the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies TV show The six Million Dollar Man, in which
Speaker 1: a badly injured test pilot was rebuilt with mechanical parts
Speaker 1: and transformed into a cyborg superhero. But Project Acoustic Kitty
Speaker 1: was a real thing that really happened, and we have
Speaker 1: the heavily redacted CIA documents to prove it. Back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, the CIA wanted to create a cyborg
Speaker 1: superspy out of a cat. The CIA's Office of Technical
Speaker 1: Research and Office of Research and Development spent five years
Speaker 1: and an estimated twenty million dollars on Project Acoustic Kitty.
Speaker 1: The high price tag came from the high degree of
Speaker 1: technical difficulty in that era, before microchips and digital devices.
Speaker 1: The CIA scientists had to figure out how to discreetly
Speaker 1: equip a cat with a microphone, antenna, transmitter, and battery.
Speaker 1: In the end, they implanted a three quarter inch or
Speaker 1: two centimeter transmitter into the base of a cat's skull,
Speaker 1: uh stitched a microphone into its ear canal, and wove
Speaker 1: an antenna into the fur of the cat's tail. The
Speaker 1: CIA team, who didn't seem to know much about feline behavior,
Speaker 1: spent months trying to train the cat to follow simple instructions.
Speaker 1: The problem is that it would wander off when it
Speaker 1: was bored or hungry. Eventually, though, the training and implanted
Speaker 1: equipment seemed to be working, and the CIA was satisfied
Speaker 1: that Acoustic Kitty was ready for a field test. It
Speaker 1: was your typical spy movie set up. The CIA guys
Speaker 1: pulled up to a park in an unmarked van. They
Speaker 1: slid open the door and gave their feline operative its
Speaker 1: mission slink over to those two guys on the bench
Speaker 1: and eavesdrop on their conversation. But it didn't quite go
Speaker 1: as planned. When the cat crossed the road toward its marks,
Speaker 1: it was hit and killed by a taxi cab. The
Speaker 1: team was left to cover remains not reconnaissance. Not only
Speaker 1: did the poor Frankenstein's technical monster of a cat lose
Speaker 1: the last of its nine lives, button Project Acoustic Kitty
Speaker 1: was also put to rest that day. In redacted CIA documents,
Speaker 1: the agency was surprisingly upbeat about the twenty million dollar flop.
Speaker 1: The authors of the reports that it was a remarkable
Speaker 1: scientific achievement to learn that cats can indeed be trained
Speaker 1: to move short distances, and they lauded the CIA scientists
Speaker 1: for their pioneering work. But in the end, the CIA
Speaker 1: concluded that given the quote environmental and security factors in
Speaker 1: using this technique in a foreign situation, it would not
Speaker 1: be practical. However, it certainly wasn't the last time the
Speaker 1: US government has tried to create cyborganimal soldiers. DARPA, the
Speaker 1: Defense Research Agency, has also messed about with attack dolphins,
Speaker 1: spite her les, and remote controlled sharks. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article Acoustic Kitty, the CIA's not so
Speaker 1: perfect plan to make a cat a spy on house
Speaker 1: toff works dot com, written by Dave Bruce. Brain Stuff
Speaker 1: is production of i Heeart Radio and partnership with how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com, and is produced by Tyler Klang
Speaker 1: and Ramsey Yamp. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
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