Flying Saucers to Mind Control: 22 Declassified Military & CIA Secrets

By Denise Chow and Elizabeth Peterson, Stay Science | January four, 2017 06:52am ET

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  Credit score: U.S. Air Pressure

  A secret historical past

  Authorities and army secrets and techniques can vary from terrifying to amusing to downright absurd, however most are nothing in need of intriguing. From a secret U.S. Air Pressure challenge to construct a supersonic flying saucer to a now-famous World Warfare II-era analysis program that produced the primary atomic bombs to a plan to coach domesticated cats to spy on the Soviet Union, listed below are 22 declassified army and CIA secrets and techniques.

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  Credit score: Nationwide Archives

  Challenge 1794

  In late 2012, the U.S. Air Pressure declassified a trove of paperwork, together with data of a secret program to construct a flying saucer-type plane designed to shoot down Soviet bombers. The bold program, known as Challenge 1794, was initiated within the 1950s, and a workforce of engineers was tasked with constructing a disc-shape automobile able to touring at supersonic speeds at excessive altitudes.

  The declassified paperwork reveal plans for the airplane to succeed in a prime velocity of Mach four (4 occasions the velocity of sound), and attain an altitude of 100,000 toes (30,480 meters). The challenge's estimated price was greater than $three million, which in immediately's can be greater than $26 million.

  Challenge 1794 was canceled in December 1961 after assessments recommended the flying saucer design was aerodynamically unstable and would doubtless be uncontrollable at excessive speeds (not to mention supersonic speeds).

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  Challenge Iceworm

  Within the 1960s, the U.S. Military launched into a secret mission to construct a sequence of cellular nuclear missile launch websites below the Greenland ice sheet. The target was to accommodate medium-range missiles shut sufficient to strike targets inside the Soviet Union.

  This system was codenamed Challenge Iceworm, however to check its feasibility, the Military launched a canopy analysis challenge known as "Camp Century" in 1960. Beneath this guise, engineers constructed a community of underground buildings and tunnels, together with residing quarters, a kitchen, a recreation corridor, infirmary, laboratories, provide rooms, a communications middle and a nuclear energy plant.

  The bottom, which was saved secret from the Danish authorities, operated for seven years. This system was canceled in 1966 after shifting ice created unstable circumstances. In the present day, the crushed stays of Challenge Iceworm are buried beneath Arctic snow.

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  Challenge MK-ULTRA

  In the course of the Chilly Warfare, the CIA initiated Challenge MK-ULTRA, a secret and unlawful human analysis program to analyze potential mind-control techniques. This system's operators examined the consequences of hypnosis, organic brokers and medicines, comparable to LSD and barbiturates, on human topics. Some historians counsel this system was designed to develop a mind-control system that could possibly be used to "program" the brains of potential assassins. [The 10 Craziest Military Experiments]

  In 1973, then-CIA director Richard Helms ordered that every one paperwork from Challenge MK-ULTRA be destroyed, however a proper investigation into this system was launched a number of years later. The challenge grew to become the idea for a number of motion pictures, comparable to "The Manchurian Candidate" and "The Males Who Stare at Goats."

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  Credit score: Public area

  Space 51

  Virtually no different web site has garnered as a lot consideration from conspiracy theorists and UFO-enthusiasts as Space 51, a distant desert tract close to Groom Lake in Nevada, roughly 83 miles (134 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas. The extreme secrecy surrounding the bottom sparked peoples' imaginations, and Space 51 was generally linked to paranormal actions, together with pervasive theories that recommended Space 51 hid aliens and UFOs.

  In July 2013, declassified paperwork from the CIA acknowledged the existence of Space 51 for the primary time, and confirmed that the top-secret web site was used to check quite a lot of spy planes, together with the well-known U-2 reconnaissance plane.

  Whereas Space 51, which operates as a detachment of Edwards Air Pressure Base in neighboring California, has by no means been declared a covert base, the analysis and actions performed there have been a number of the nation's most intently guarded secrets and techniques.

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  Challenge Grudge

  Whereas Space 51 was not a top-secret base designed to review extraterrestrials, the U.S. Air Pressure did research the existence of UFOs. Challenge Grudge was a short-lived program launched in 1949 to review unidentified flying objects. The mission adopted an earlier program, often called Challenge Signal, which printed a report in early 1949 stating that whereas some UFOs gave the impression to be precise plane, there was not sufficient information to find out their origins. [Top 10 States for UFO Sightings]

  Critics of Challenge Grudge mentioned this system solely got down to debunk UFO stories, and little or no precise analysis was performed. In his guide on the subject, Edward J. Ruppelt, Air Pressure Captain and director of Challenge Grudge, wrote: "[I]t would not take quite a lot of research of the outdated UFO recordsdata to see that commonplace intelligence procedures weren't being adopted by Challenge Grudge. Every little thing was being evaluated on the premise that UFOs could not exist. It doesn't matter what you see or hear, do not imagine it."

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  Credit score: NASA

  Operation Paperclip

  In September 1946, President Harry Truman approved a program known as Operation Paperclip, which aimed to lure scientists from Nazi Germany to america following World Warfare II. Officers on the Workplace of Strategic Companies (the predecessor to the CIA) recruited German scientists to America to assist the nation's postwar efforts, which might additionally be certain that helpful scientific data wouldn't find yourself within the arms of the Soviet Union or the divided East and West Germany.

  Operation Paperclip's most well-known recruit was rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who would go on to mastermind NASA's Apollo moon missions.

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  Credit score: Warren Okay. Leffler, Library of Congress

  Operation Northwoods

  The tense relationship between america and Cuba throughout the Chilly Warfare led the Central Intelligence Company (CIA) to hatch a slew of weird schemes aimed toward taking down the Castro regime. Whereas the purpose of most of those covert operations (comparable to Operation Mongoose) was to assassinate Fidel Castro himself, different plans aimed to incite an all-out battle between the U.S. and Cuba, specialists have mentioned. 

  In 1998, the Nationwide Safety Archive (NSA) — a non-governmental group that publishes data made accessible by way of the Freedom of Data Act — posted declassified paperwork associated to Operation Northwoods. The scheme, dreamed up in 1962 by the Joint Chiefs of Employees (uniformed members of the U.S. Division of Protection who advise the president and others), concerned committing acts of violence towards U.S. and Cuban civilians after which blaming these acts on the Cuban authorities, in line with the NSA paperwork. These acts, which included faked terrorist assaults in U.S. cities, the hijacking of planes and the sinking of boats filled with Cuban émigrés en path to the U.S., would then be used to justify a battle with Cuba, in line with the paperwork.

  The Kennedy administration acknowledged the folly of Operation Northwoods and rejected it, in line with information stories.

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  Credit score: Jack Aeby

  Manhattan Challenge

  Some of the well-known secret analysis packages is the Manhattan Challenge, which finally produced the world's first atomic bombs. The challenge started in 1939, and was cloaked in secrecy as physicists investigated the potential energy of atomic weapons. From 1942 to 1946, Main Basic Leslie Groves of the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers led the Manhattan Challenge.

  The primary nuclear bomb was detonated at 5:30 a.m. on July 16, 1945, throughout the so-called Trinity take a look at on the Alamogordo Air Base, 120 miles (193 km) south of Albuquerque, N.M. The explosion created a mushroom cloud that stretched 40,000 toes (12,200 m), and the bomb's explosive energy was equal to greater than 15,000 tons of TNT.

  A month after the Trinity take a look at, two atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan within the waning levels of World Warfare II. Thus far, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki stay the one makes use of of nuclear weapons in battle.

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  Credit score: Nationwide Archives and Information Administration

  Operation Gladio

  In the course of the Chilly Warfare, the North Atlantic Treaty Group, or NATO, developed a labeled plan for maintaining Europe "secure" within the occasion of a Soviet invasion. The plan, often called Operation Gladio, known as for the formation of secret armies or "stay-behind" organizations in lots of NATO international locations, together with Italy, Belgium and France, in line with declassified paperwork.

  The mission of the key armies was easy: Put together for a possible communist takeover and lead an armed resistance ought to such a takeover happen. In some international locations, "getting ready" for Soviet invasion included espionage and the hoarding of ammunitions.

  And these clandestine armies weren't simply saved secret from the Soviet Union. Excessive-ranking authorities officers in international locations the place the army forces operated had been generally not conscious of the armies' existence. Italian Prime Minister on the time, the late Giulio Andreotti divulged details about Italy's secret Chilly Warfare military (often called Gladio) in 1990, turning into the primary chief of a NATO nation to publicly acknowledge one among these forces. Declassified paperwork associated to NATO's stay-behind armies are accessible by way of The Black Vault, an internet site that makes declassified paperwork accessible to the general public.

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  Credit score: Public Area

  My Lai Bloodbath

  In March 1968, American troopers murdered a whole bunch of unarmed civilians within the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai, in line with accounts of the bloodbath that describe harrowing killings of no less than 300 ladies, youngsters and aged individuals.

  Military officers managed to cowl up the bloodbath for a yr earlier than an investigative journalist with the Related Press (AP) introduced the atrocity to the eye of the American individuals in November 1969. In mild of reports stories, an official inquiry was made into the occasions at My Lai and was concluded in March 1970. The inquiry resulted in prison prices towards 14 U.S. Military officers, all however one among whom had been acquitted for his or her crimes. Declassified paperwork related to the inquiry can be found from the Library of Congress.

  Within the wake of the My Lai bloodbath, the Pentagon established a job pressure often called the Vietnam Warfare Crimes Working Group, which investigated incidents just like the killings at My Lai. That group compiled greater than 9,000 pages of paperwork detailing crimes by U.S. troops throughout the Vietnam Warfare, lots of which had been declassified throughout the 1990s. These and different declassified paperwork concerning Vietnam Warfare crimes could be accessed by way of the Nationwide Archives.

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  Credit score: M. Cornelius/Shutterstock.com

  Operation Washtub

  Secret armies additionally existed in america throughout the Chilly Warfare. In 2014, declassified paperwork from the U.S. Air Pressure and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed a plan dreamed up in 1950 for a "covert intelligence and evasion and escape operation in Alaska."

  Nicknamed "Operation Washtub," the plan known as for the coaching of odd Alaskans in coding, decoding and different espionage methods in order that they may spy on the enemy within the occasion of a Soviet invasion of Alaska. Whereas such an invasion by no means occurred, a complete of 89 "brokers" had been educated for this objective, in line with information stories. 

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  Credit score: Central Intelligence Company

  Oleg Penkovsky

  Oleg Penkovsky was a high-ranking Soviet army intelligence officer who labored as a spy for america and Nice Britain throughout the Chilly Warfare. Finest identified for his position within the Cuban Missile Disaster of 1962, Penkovsky equipped the U.S. authorities with helpful particulars in regards to the capabilities of Soviet missiles that had been put in in Cuba.

  The spy was finally sniffed out by his fellow Soviet intelligence officers, charged with treason and executed in 1963. Nevertheless, there are some individuals who imagine that Penkovsky was only a decoy who might have relayed false details about Soviet arms capabilities to U.S. intelligence brokers. Some level to declassified paperwork outlining the intelligence supplied by Penkovsky as proof that the spy's loyalty was actually to the Soviet Union.

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  Credit score: Central Intelligence Company

  Acoustic Kitty

  A report from 1967 exhibits that the CIA spent hundreds of thousands of in an try to coach domesticated cats to spy on the Soviet Union. Sure, you learn that accurately. Nicknamed Acoustic Kitty, this system concerned implanting digital spying tools into dwell cats after which coaching them to "eavesdrop" on unsuspecting Chilly Warfare rivals.

  If you happen to do not imagine this ridiculous program existed, you possibly can learn extra about it on this memorandum printed by the Nationwide Safety Archive.

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  Credit score: U.S. Air Pressure

  Greenland's Misplaced Bomb

  In 1968, a U.S. B-52 bomber carrying 4 hydrogen bombs on a routine (however secret) mission crashed close to Thule Air Base in Greenland. Within the aftermath of the crash, American and Danish officers launched a challenge to scrub up radioactive particles and acquire the scattered items of the nuclear bombs. Nevertheless, for years later, information stories out of Denmark and the U.S. questioned whether or not all 4 bombs had actually been situated. [Photos: Top-Secret, Cold War-Era Military Base in Greenland]

  In 2008, the BBC printed an article based mostly on declassified paperwork concerning the Thule accident, asserting that one of many 4 hydrogen bombs was by no means recovered from the crash web site. This declare by a revered publication led the Danish prime minister to request a brand new investigation of the declassified paperwork used for the BBC report. That investigation, led by Danish scholar Svend Aage Christensen, discovered that the BBC's report was not based mostly on any new declassified data (it drew from data that had beforehand been declassified) and that every one 4 weapons had, the truth is, been destroyed throughout the crash in 1968, in line with the Nationwide Safety Archive.

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  Credit score: U.S. Military

  Challenge Horizon

  Earlier than the civilian house group NASA put the primary astronaut on the moon in 1969, no less than two U.S. army organizations drew up plans for establishing strategic lunar army outposts. In 1959, the U.S. Military drew up a proposal for a "manned army" base on the moon. That proposal, which was submitted by the Military's chief of analysis and growth, was dubbed Challenge Horizon and would "develop and defend potential United States curiosity on the moon," in line with declassified paperwork.

  One other program, this one developed by the U.S. Air Pressure, sought to determine a "Lunar Primarily based Earth Bombardment System" that met particular army necessities. One other Air Pressure research, this one submitted in 1959, concerned detonating a nuclear weapon on the moon. The research was spearheaded by Leonard Reiffel, then a physicist on the Illinois Institute of Know-how, and likewise included contributions from the astrophysicist Carl Sagan. In a 2010 interview with The New York Instances, Reifell mentioned that the "foremost intent [of the nuclear detonation] was to impress the world with the prowess of america."

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  Credit score: Artistic Commons license

  Mapimi Silent Zone

  A declassified doc may assist clear up some city legends at one among Mexico's most weird vacationer traps. The so-called Mapimí Silent Zone is a small stretch of desert in Durango, Mexico, the place, in line with native legend, radio waves can't be transmitted. Typically in comparison with the Bermuda Triangle, Mapimí is frequented by vacationers in search of a mystical journey.

  However the actual purpose that Mapimí is an fascinating location has nothing to do with aliens or paranormal vitality — it has to do with an enormous mistake by the U.S. Air Pressure. In 1970, an ATHENA V-123-D rocket carrying two small vials of cobalt 57 (a radioactive isotope that's generally utilized in salted bombs) crashed within the Durango desert. The rocket was imagined to land in New Mexico, in line with paperwork declassified in 2013. Native legends might have sprung up because of this Air Pressure flop.

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  Credit score: U.S. Navy

  Iran Flight 655

  In 1988, a U.S. warship within the Persian Gulf shot down an Iranian civilian plane en path to Dubai, killing all 290 passengers on board. Navy personnel incorrectly recognized the civilian airplane as an Iranian fighter jet earlier than launching the missile that took down the flight, in line with declassified paperwork.

  The U.S. reached a settlement with Iran in 1996 during which it agreed to pay $61.eight million to compensate households of the Iranian victims. Nevertheless, the U.S. authorities by no means issued an apology. The Pentagon performed a now-declassified official investigation into the incident in 1988 and didn't discover fault with the naval officers who introduced down Flight 655.

  Nevertheless, within the wake of the investigation by the Division of Protection, a number of journalists identified discrepancies between the official report and later accounts of what occurred. For instance, the flight was initially mentioned to have deviated from its commonplace route, however this was later discovered to be false. The report additionally states that the warship was working in worldwide waters on the time of the missile launch, when it was the truth is working in Iranian territorial waters.

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  Credit score: CIA

  Kidnapping of the Lunik

  Typically, declassified paperwork learn like a scene out of a James Bond movie. That is the case with this doc, titled "The Kidnapping of the Lunik." It tells the story of a CIA-led mission to "borrow" a Soviet lunar satellite tv for pc for only one night time.

  The so-called kidnapping occurred within the early 1960s, on the peak of the U.S.-Soviet house race. To make it clear that they had been profitable this race, the Soviets launched a multinational exhibition of their Lunik satellite tv for pc, the primary spacecraft to succeed in the neighborhood of the Earth's moon. [Top 10 Soviet and Russian Space Missions]

  One night time, undercover CIA brokers satisfied the truck driver who transported the satellite tv for pc from metropolis to metropolis to get some relaxation at a close-by lodge and go away the satellite tv for pc of their care, the paperwork revealed. They then "borrowed" the Soviet orbiter — taking it aside and photographing its parts earlier than placing it again on the truck. There was no indication that the Soviets knew what had occurred that fateful night time, in line with the declassified paperwork.

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  Credit score: U.S. Navy

  USS Liberty

  In 1967, within the midst of the Six-Day Warfare (a battle between Israel and its neighboring Arab states), Israeli plane attacked the usLiberty, a ship gathering intelligence for the U.S. Nationwide Safety Company (NSA). Thirty-four Individuals had been killed within the assault and 171 extra had been injured. However was the assault intentional?

  Many individuals imagine that the Israeli authorities meant to open hearth on the so-called "spy ship" to stop it from intercepting delicate details about upcoming battles, in line with the declassified NSA report. However official investigations by each U.S. and Israeli companies concluded that the assault was not deliberate, with pilots confirming that they believed the usLiberty to be an enemy ship. This declassified NSA report explains the company's place on the contentious challenge. 

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  Credit score: SF picture | Shutterstock.com

  FBI Surveillance Planes

  In 2015, the AP broke the information of an FBI surveillance program that makes use of small plane to spy on suspects on the bottom. The planes carry video and cellphone surveillance expertise and are registered to fictitious firms. When the AP launched its report in June 2015, the planes had been noticed above greater than 30 cities in 11 U.S. states in a 30-day interval.

  Whereas the FBI advised the AP that its aerial surveillance program is just not a secret, particulars about what data the planes acquire is very censored in publicly accessible paperwork, in line with the AP. The report additionally states that the FBI operates these planes with out judicial approval. One doc, obtained by the Nationwide Safety Archive, exhibits the names and addresses of the fictional firms that function the planes. NSA knowledgeable and historian Matthew M. Support additionally created a listing of the plane which can be used on this FBI "air pressure."

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  Credit score: Public Area

  Operation Crossroads

  In July 2016, the Nationwide Safety Archive posted declassified paperwork, movies and images that present U.S. assessments of atomic bombs within the Bikini Atoll in 1946. Dubbed Operation Crossroads, the assessments marked the primary atomic explosions because the bombings of Japan throughout World Warfare II in August 1945. [In Photos: Dive to USS Independence Wreck]

  Whereas a lot is publicly identified in regards to the assessments, the declassified paperwork shed new mild on how the assessments affected individuals of Bikini Atoll, who had been compelled to relocate. Additionally they provide a view of the objections raised by scientists and army officers earlier than the bombings, in addition to the rationale behind the choice to hold out the assessments regardless of these objections.

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  Credit score: Central Intelligence Company

  Physician Zhivago

  In the course of the Chilly Warfare, the CIA performed a task in distributing the guide "Physician Zhivago" all through the Soviet Union. The guide by Russian author Boris Pasternak was banned by the Soviets, in line with a Washington Put up article, as a result of it displayed an open-minded view of the Bolshevik Revolution and its protagonist, a doctor-poet, was staunchly individualistic.

  Seeing the guide's potential as a propaganda device, the CIA labored with its allies in Dutch Intelligence to ship about 1,000 copies of the guide into Soviet arms, in line with paperwork declassified in 2014. The books had been distributed to visiting Soviets on the World's Honest in Brussels in 1958 with assist from the Vatican, in line with the Nationwide Safety Archive.

  Certain in unmarked blue linen and wrapped in brown paper, the books made their means into the Soviet Union, the place the CIA hoped they'd fire up anti-communist sentiment amongst disgruntled residents. The CIA additionally smuggled different banned books into the Soviet Union, together with James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Younger Man" and Vladimir Nabokov's "Pnin."

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