Top 10 Unbelievable Things the CIA Has ACTUALLY Done

In the early 1980s, the CIA was investigating numerous pseudoscientific ideas and research into the mind, in the hopes of using alternative techniques for espionage and other uses. One such project was the Gateway Experience, explained years later in a declassified document. The Gateway Process was a supposed method for syncing one’s brain hemispheres to using sound. This, in theory, would allow someone to attune themselves with the universe and alter reality. The Gateway Experience has become popular on TikTok as a kind of “proof” for the saying “think positive thoughts, get positive results.” Because nothing says scientific accuracy like TikTok.

Blackmail is a major tool of espionage and the CIA has attempted its fair share. During the 1950s, Indonesia’s president Sukarno proved to have sympathies towards communism and communist countries. He also had a famously promiscuous lifestyle. To that end, both the KGB and CIA attempted to make erotic films of Sukarno in a compromising position to blackmail him. The CIA allegedly couldn’t find a good enough lookalike to the Indonesian president and had a rubber mask of him created. The exact details of the film and whether it was ever distributed is unclear. But regardless, Sukarno seemed unmoved by these attempts - he was rumored to have asked for more copies of his fake kompromat.

Devil Eyes was a psychological warfare initiative from 2005, aimed at eroding support for Al-Qaeda in Asia. With a name like that, you’d expect Devil Eyes to be quite a sinister program. But to achieve their goal, the CIA turned to…toys. Designer Donald Levine was charged with creating an action figure of Osama bin Laden. When exposed to enough heat and light, the face of the figure would alter to appear red and demonic. The plan was for kids and their parents to associate bin Laden with evil. While some claim there were only prototypes of the action figures made, other reports claim a shipment went to Pakistan. Regardless, they’ve become sought after items for toy collectors.

While it may sound like your cousin’s terrible garage band, Acoustic Kitty was a real CIA program. Just as its name implies, the program’s aim was to use audio recording devices implanted inside cats to eavesdrop on covert Soviet conversations. Another brainchild of the 1960s, Acoustic Kitty cost a shocking 20 million dollars. And despite all that taxpayer money sunk into it, the CIA learned that it’s incredibly difficult to get cats to be directed to go anywhere - which any cat owner can tell you for free. Also, one of the operation’s first field missions reportedly ended in an unfortunate loss of the field agent after it was hit by a car.

Although the CIA’s Operation Mongoose focused on a variety of schemes to oust Communist rule in, we are focusing on something more specific. Various plots devised by the CIA were aimed at ruining Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s public image. To that end, one scheme envisioned putting thallium salts in Castro’s shoes. The resulting poisoning would have caused Castro’s hair to fall out, depriving him of his trademark beard. Given how silly the idea was, it’s no wonder the CIA never carried out the plan. Still, the fact that they even took the idea seriously is pretty ridiculous.

No, not that Stargate - although it would make for a good coverup. No, this Stargate Project is just as out there, but its participants stayed closer to planet Earth. While it had many monikers over the years, the Stargate Project’s main aim remained to weaponize the idea of remote viewing. The idea of being able to gather intelligence through clairvoyant means was certainly attractive enough for the unit to remain active off and on between the 1970s and the early ‘90s. But whether it was actually effective…well, let’s just say that “The Men Who Stare at Goats” was an exaggeration, but not by as much as you’d think.

In the 1950s, a joint operation was undertaken by MI6 and the CIA in Berlin, known as Operation Stopwatch to the British and Operation Gold to the Americans. By digging a tunnel into Soviet occupied East Berlin, the two intelligence agencies were able to tap into a phone line at the Soviet Army headquarters. While that alone sounds like something out of a movie, here’s the kicker - the Soviets knew about it the whole time! Their inside man George Blake leaked the project to them even before they started building! Once the tunnel was completed, the Soviets allowed the operation to continue for almost a year so as not to put their mole at risk and only made their public “discovery” of the tunnel in 1956.

As detailed in the film “Argo,” in 1979 the U.S. embassy in Iran was seized and most of its staff taken hostage. Six diplomats escaped and were harbored by the Canadian ambassador and other foreign diplomats. To rescue them, a joint venture between the CIA and the Canadian government opted to exfiltrate the diplomats. The CIA created an elaborate and detailed ruse that the diplomats were Canadian citizens working on an unproduced Hollywood sci-fi film, “Argo.” They even created a fake movie studio! Using real Canadian passports created by its government, the diplomats were able to pass through Iranian airport security and leave the country. Granted, Canada did most of the work, but the CIA’s end was pretty weird.

While not devised by the CIA, Operation Northwoods was a proposed plan by the U.S. Department of Defense to use CIA operatives to carry out a false flag operation against United States citizens. While never carried out, the proposal called for CIA agents to carry out terrorist acts against U.S. citizens to justify going to war with Cuba. The primary target listed for this planned operation would have been the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay. Thankfully, when President John F. Kennedy was made aware of the suggested operation, he rejected it like any decent person would.

Perhaps the most well-known yet still outrageous CIA project, MKUltra was an effort by the CIA to determine the effects of psychoactive drugs, hypnosis, and torture upon people, and use these techniques to aid in interrogation. To that end, the agency experimented on American citizens, suspected enemy agents, and foreign nationals abroad. Some were performed on knowing subjects, while others were subjected to drugs like LSD or electroshocks against their will. It was all highly illegal of course, and the CIA took plenty of condemnation once MKUltra was eventually revealed to the public. The U.S. government experimenting on people seems like something from a conspiracy theory, but sometimes rumors are rooted in truth.