Acoustic Kitty is an infamous project developed by the CIA during the Cold War. The project involved using cats as listening devices to eavesdrop on Soviet conversations. The project was developed in the 1960s and involved surgically implanting cats with microphones and other equipment to make them into living, listening bugs.
In order to make the cats into effective listening devices, the cats had to undergo a series of operations. The cats were fitted with a microphone in their ear canal, a battery pack in their chest, and a thin wire that ran from the microphone to a small radio transmitter in the cats’ tail. The cats were also fitted with a control capsule that was designed to be activated by a remote control.
Once the cats were implanted with the equipment, the CIA agents would take them near the suspected locations and activate the control capsule, allowing the cats to start transmitting the conversations they heard. The cats were trained to sit in specific locations to maximize their effectiveness.
Despite the impressive technical achievement, the project was ultimately unsuccessful. The cats proved to be unreliable and difficult to control, and the CIA eventually abandoned the project.
Regardless of its failure, the Acoustic Kitty project remains an interesting example of the lengths to which the CIA was willing to go to during the Cold War.
