Secret American Govt Ops that are almost too crazy to be real
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Austin Harvey, Jaclyn
Go inside some of the wildest secret Government projects, from the proposed construction of a "bat bomb" to a plan to nuke the Moon.
At any given time, there are countless secret Government operations underway in the United States. While this has always been going on, covert Government projects really started to ramp up in the mid-20th century, especially during World War II and the Cold War, as increasingly advanced technology became more and more commonplace.
With this new technology came new ideas of how it could be used. War was deadlier than it had ever been before — but perhaps a solution could be found to end war once and for all. Optimistically, this was the idea behind the Manhattan Project: to create a super-weapon that would make America’s enemies cower and surrender. But while America’s use of atomic bombs against Japan did spell the end of World War II, it didn’t end war itself.
And in the years that followed, when open warfare was largely cast aside in favor of espionage, the US Government came up with even more ways to get a leg up on their adversaries. Some of these secret Government operations were horrifying — take MK-Ultra, for example — but others were flat-out bizarre, and perhaps even a little bit funny in hindsight. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union devised countless methods of spying on each other. It was a tense, fascinating time in history — one that required out-of-the-box thinking. One strange example was a US plan to use cats to spy on the Soviets. Known as Acoustic Kitty, this bafflingly bizarre project came about after CIA officers noticed an abundance of feral cats while trying to listen in on a Soviet official in the 1960s. If cats could get in close without being noticed, then perhaps the agency could use them to their advantage.
But how could a cat possibly relay information back to the CIA? That’s where a bit of 20th-century technology came into play. The CIA figured that by outfitting cats with a small radio transmitter and a microphone, they could create an “acoustic kitty” that could spy, in real-time, on the Soviets. They even started to test this theory out, recruiting a veterinary surgeon to perform an hour-long procedure on a cat, implanting the devices in its body.
As former CIA officer Victor Marchetti later remembered: “They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up.”
Unfortunately for the CIA — but fortunately for cats everywhere — the project was a failure. Officers had to use small batteries, so recording time was severely limited, and they also had to find a way to stop the cat from wandering off in search of food. Then, when they were finally ready to put the project to the test, disaster struck in the form of a taxi.
After the officers sent the “acoustic kitty” on its very first mission to spy on two men in a park in Washington, DC, the small feline was almost immediately struck by a taxi cab, which killed it right on the spot.
Curiosity, it turned out, really had killed the cat.
Project X-Ray: Strapping Bombs To Live Bats To Attack The Japanese
World War II was an experimental time for warfare. Obviously, it culminated in the creation of the atomic bomb, forever changing the landscape of international relations. But before the atomic bomb, the U.S. military toyed with the idea of another explosive weapon: the bat bomb.
But this was nothing like one of Batman’s bat-themed gadgets. This bomb involved very real bats, carrying very real bombs. Dubbed Project X-Ray, this secret government operation ultimately blew up in spectacular fashion.
First conceived by Lytle S. Adams, a dental surgeon from Pennsylvania, the bat bomb idea came to him after a trip to New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which just so happens to house a great number of bats. Adams, as it turned out, was also not a huge fan of bats, as intelligence historian Vince Houghton pointed out in his book, Nuking the Moon.
Adams soon wrote a letter to the White House in January 1942 proposing the idea. It begins: “I attach hereto a proposal designed to frighten, demoralize, and excite the prejudices of the people of the Japanese Empire.”
He goes on to describe bats as “the lowest form of life… associated in history with the underworld and regions of darkness and evil.” Adams later declares, “Until now reasons for its creation have remained unexplained. As I vision it the millions of bats that have for ages inhabited our belfries, tunnels and caverns were placed there by God to await this hour to play their part in the scheme of free human existence, and to frustrate any attempt of those who dare to desecrate our way of life.”
Adams’ letter concludes by saying that if the bat bomb could “rid us of the Japanese pests,” then the United States should erect a monument of the bat in its honor. Shockingly, the proposal was actually approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and work on the bat bomb began.
Generally, the plan was to put the bats into a state of hibernation, transport them in chilled compartments, then equip them with timed incendiary devices that would go off after they had reached their destination. They were to be dropped by the thousands into Japanese cities, whereupon, the theory went, they would roost under the eaves of wooden and bamboo buildings, explode on the structures, and then burn the cities down. A formal test of this proposed plan was carried out on May 15, 1943 at New Mexico’s Carlsbad Army Airfield Auxiliary Air Base, though it didn’t quite go as planned. The bats were accidentally released earlier than they were supposed to be, and they ended up burning down a barn and a general’s car. Despite this, many higher-ups still wanted to go through with the explosive plan. The only reason that the bat bomb was never carried out is because Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King was told that the project wouldn’t be ready until mid-1945, and he didn’t want to wait that long. Still, by that point, more than $2 million had been spent on the project — which is roughly equivalent to over $35 million today.
A staff writer for All That's Interesting, Austin Harvey has also had work published with Discover Magazine, Giddy, and Lucid covering topics on mental health, sexual health, history, and sociology. He holds a Bachelor's degree from Point Park University. Jaclyn is the senior managing editor at All That's Interesting. She holds a Master's degree in journalism from the City University of New York and a Bachelor's degree in English writing All Thats Interesting.com
Go inside some of the wildest secret Government projects, from the proposed construction of a "bat bomb" to a plan to nuke the Moon.
At any given time, there are countless secret Government operations underway in the United States. While this has always been going on, covert Government projects really started to ramp up in the mid-20th century, especially during World War II and the Cold War, as increasingly advanced technology became more and more commonplace.
With this new technology came new ideas of how it could be used. War was deadlier than it had ever been before — but perhaps a solution could be found to end war once and for all. Optimistically, this was the idea behind the Manhattan Project: to create a super-weapon that would make America’s enemies cower and surrender. But while America’s use of atomic bombs against Japan did spell the end of World War II, it didn’t end war itself.
And in the years that followed, when open warfare was largely cast aside in favor of espionage, the US Government came up with even more ways to get a leg up on their adversaries. Some of these secret Government operations were horrifying — take MK-Ultra, for example — but others were flat-out bizarre, and perhaps even a little bit funny in hindsight. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union devised countless methods of spying on each other. It was a tense, fascinating time in history — one that required out-of-the-box thinking. One strange example was a US plan to use cats to spy on the Soviets. Known as Acoustic Kitty, this bafflingly bizarre project came about after CIA officers noticed an abundance of feral cats while trying to listen in on a Soviet official in the 1960s. If cats could get in close without being noticed, then perhaps the agency could use them to their advantage.
But how could a cat possibly relay information back to the CIA? That’s where a bit of 20th-century technology came into play. The CIA figured that by outfitting cats with a small radio transmitter and a microphone, they could create an “acoustic kitty” that could spy, in real-time, on the Soviets. They even started to test this theory out, recruiting a veterinary surgeon to perform an hour-long procedure on a cat, implanting the devices in its body.
As former CIA officer Victor Marchetti later remembered: “They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up.”
Unfortunately for the CIA — but fortunately for cats everywhere — the project was a failure. Officers had to use small batteries, so recording time was severely limited, and they also had to find a way to stop the cat from wandering off in search of food. Then, when they were finally ready to put the project to the test, disaster struck in the form of a taxi.
After the officers sent the “acoustic kitty” on its very first mission to spy on two men in a park in Washington, DC, the small feline was almost immediately struck by a taxi cab, which killed it right on the spot.
Curiosity, it turned out, really had killed the cat.
Project X-Ray: Strapping Bombs To Live Bats To Attack The Japanese
World War II was an experimental time for warfare. Obviously, it culminated in the creation of the atomic bomb, forever changing the landscape of international relations. But before the atomic bomb, the U.S. military toyed with the idea of another explosive weapon: the bat bomb.
But this was nothing like one of Batman’s bat-themed gadgets. This bomb involved very real bats, carrying very real bombs. Dubbed Project X-Ray, this secret government operation ultimately blew up in spectacular fashion.
First conceived by Lytle S. Adams, a dental surgeon from Pennsylvania, the bat bomb idea came to him after a trip to New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which just so happens to house a great number of bats. Adams, as it turned out, was also not a huge fan of bats, as intelligence historian Vince Houghton pointed out in his book, Nuking the Moon.
Adams soon wrote a letter to the White House in January 1942 proposing the idea. It begins: “I attach hereto a proposal designed to frighten, demoralize, and excite the prejudices of the people of the Japanese Empire.”
He goes on to describe bats as “the lowest form of life… associated in history with the underworld and regions of darkness and evil.” Adams later declares, “Until now reasons for its creation have remained unexplained. As I vision it the millions of bats that have for ages inhabited our belfries, tunnels and caverns were placed there by God to await this hour to play their part in the scheme of free human existence, and to frustrate any attempt of those who dare to desecrate our way of life.”
Adams’ letter concludes by saying that if the bat bomb could “rid us of the Japanese pests,” then the United States should erect a monument of the bat in its honor. Shockingly, the proposal was actually approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and work on the bat bomb began.
Generally, the plan was to put the bats into a state of hibernation, transport them in chilled compartments, then equip them with timed incendiary devices that would go off after they had reached their destination. They were to be dropped by the thousands into Japanese cities, whereupon, the theory went, they would roost under the eaves of wooden and bamboo buildings, explode on the structures, and then burn the cities down. A formal test of this proposed plan was carried out on May 15, 1943 at New Mexico’s Carlsbad Army Airfield Auxiliary Air Base, though it didn’t quite go as planned. The bats were accidentally released earlier than they were supposed to be, and they ended up burning down a barn and a general’s car. Despite this, many higher-ups still wanted to go through with the explosive plan. The only reason that the bat bomb was never carried out is because Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King was told that the project wouldn’t be ready until mid-1945, and he didn’t want to wait that long. Still, by that point, more than $2 million had been spent on the project — which is roughly equivalent to over $35 million today.
A staff writer for All That's Interesting, Austin Harvey has also had work published with Discover Magazine, Giddy, and Lucid covering topics on mental health, sexual health, history, and sociology. He holds a Bachelor's degree from Point Park University. Jaclyn is the senior managing editor at All That's Interesting. She holds a Master's degree in journalism from the City University of New York and a Bachelor's degree in English writing All Thats Interesting.com