Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Acoustic Kitty never turned 40

Darn it, I missed it!

The 40th anniversary of the CIA's "Acoustic Kitty" project was last month.

Apparently, back in March of '67 The CIA got the idea to surgically insert microphones and transmitters into trained cats, with the idea that they would walk around the parks and neighborhoods of subversive characters and "listen in".

This from an old Guardian article:

"Having wired their first trained cat for sound, they released it near a park with strict orders to eavesdrop on two men on a bench,"

Alas, within just a few steps, the cat was run over by a taxi.

I'd say their first mistake was thinking they could train cats.



2 comments:

Dezdmona said...

Training cats...well, we never could accuse the CIA of being exceptional on the bell curve.

I think I shall self censor now.

CruiserMel said...

Everyone knows the only thing you can do with cats is juggle. Silly CIA.