Crazy CIA spy tech from the '50s, '60s, and '70s

BeforeFesto developed its realistic flight dragonfly robot in the last couple of years, the CIA was across thatbusiness in the '70s. The Dragonfly Insectothopter, developed by the agency's R&D department, wasn'tdesigned to resemble a dragonfly for flight purposes, but for espionage. Theminiature unmanned aerial vehicle was a proof-of-concept for intelligencecollection, and had a small engine to flap the wings and a vent in the rear foradded thrust. It flew well in tests, but was never deployed -- once any sort ofcrosswind entered the picture, the Insectothopter was useless. Here it is in action.

Animals were explored pretty thoroughly as an espionageoption by the CIA. One such was Acoustic Kitty,and it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a cat was implanted with abattery and microphone, with an antenna in its tail; the idea was that the catwould wander about merrily doing cat things, and the microphone would pick upaudio and transmit it to the CIA. Its first mission was to eavesdrop on two menin a park near the Soviet compound; upon release, it tried to cross the roadand was killed by a passing taxi. The estimated cost of the project was around$25 million.

ThePigeon Camera was a little more successful. Looking like a little reverse backpackto be worn by pigeons, it meant the CIA could get better pictures than thosetaken by planes, since pigeons fly significantly lower. The camera would beactivated or set to start after a delay, then a homing pigeon released to flyover a particular target with it running, taking still images at set intervals.Because pigeons are so common, it was easy for the spy birds to fly byundetected. What exactly they photographed, however, is unknown -- those imagesare still classified.

This 1950s-1960s era kit is everything you need to installcovert listening devices: a hand-cranked drill, wire and microphones, allpacked into a slender envelope designed for ease of concealment. The drill wouldbe used to drill a hole, say, in a masonry wall. Holding the base of the drillagainst their stomach, the agent would manually turn the drill to create ahole, into which would be fed the microphones and wires. Because this was apainfully unpleasant experience, the drill was nicknamed the "Belly Buster".

Ladies could be spies too. In fact, they were sometimes more effective at it, partiallybecause in the '50s and '60s, no one really expected ladies to be good at muchbeyond taking shorthand and keeping house. At any rate, the CIA had a range of gadgets for thelady spy, including this modified face-powder compact. Into the mirror are engraved codes, created for the purpose ofbrevity or security; in this case, it's a series of code words and numbers. Onlywhen the mirror is tilted at the correct angle are the codes revealed.

Silver dollars never really took off in the states ascurrency -- but they're pretty popular as personal lucky charms and collectors'items, and even today people still carry them in their pockets. They are,therefore, pretty perfect for covert operations; after all, no one would thinktwice about a person with a coin. This hollow Eisenhower silver dollar from the '70s was used to secretly send messages orfilm.

Now this is clever. We've all heard the trick aboutresealing an envelope with steam, but CIA operatives didn't have to mess aboutwith such crude options. Instead, the two thin long pincer arms of this device were inserted into the gap where the seal didn't reach to the cornerof the envelope, and the letter wound around them into a tight scroll. It could then be extracted, read and returned to the envelope --all without tampering with the envelope itself.

This is Charlie.Unlike the dragonfly UAV, unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) Charliewas a little more successful. Rather than espionage per se -- after all,there's not a lot of talking going on under water -- the robotic fish wasdesigned to study the kind of technology that would be required for anunderwater robot. Charlie was build for speed, durability, manoeuvrability,depth control, navigational accuracy and autonomy, and in his 61cm body hecontained a ballast system, propulsion in the tail and communications forwireless line-of-sight radio.

On his mission, he collected water samples. Youcan see a video of Charlie in action here.

With all our fancy smartphones, this camera may look old andclunky to us today, but the twin-lens reflex Tessina camera was cutting edge in its day. It produced high-quality, 14x21mmpictures on standard 35mm film loaded onto a special cassette. Because it wasso small, CIA operatives were able to conceal it in specially modified cigarettepackages which, at a casual glance, looked no different to a normal cigarettepackage.

For CIA agents entering potentially dangerous situations, itcould be helpful to have escape tools hidden about their person. These tiny, concealed compasses were tucked away into cufflinks to help lost operatives findtheir way to safety -- although they could also be hidden in combs, razors andshirt buttons.

Of course, these days compass cufflinks are nearly a dime a dozen.

The CIA was well ahead of the bone conduction game, too. Thismodified tobacco pipe would be no good for smoking, since its barrel houses asensitive radio antenna. With the mouthpiece of the pipe clenched between histeeth, the operative would hear audio transmissions sent via bone conductionthrough his jaw.

To check out more brilliant, fascinating and just plainweird CIA tech, you can hit up the CIA Flickr and the CIA Museum website.