Recipes for invisible ink are actually accessible on-line as a part of the CIA's CREST database.
Credit score: PD-USThe phrase "magician walks into the laboratory" seems like the beginning of a groan-inducing joke. But it surely's truly the title of a once-confidential doc just lately launched on-line by the CIA as a part of a brand new initiative to share about 930,000 declassified information — greater than 12 million pages — on the web for the primary time.
This assortment of historic declassified paperwork represents a database generally known as the CIA Data Search Instrument (CREST), a system put in in 2000 on the Nationwide Archives Data Administration (NARA) in Maryland and previously searchable solely in particular person, in line with an announcement revealed Jan. 17 by the CIA.
The information have been launched below the Freedom of Info Act (FOIA) — a regulation that gives individuals with the best to request entry to info from any federal authorities company — and they're at the moment accessible to view and obtain through the CIA web site. [Flying Saucers to Mind Control: 22 Declassified Military & CIA Secrets]
"Entry to this traditionally vital assortment is not restricted by geography," Joseph Lambert, the CIA's director of data administration, stated within the assertion.
CREST holds archived paperwork courting again to the 1940s — supplies are declassified when they're 25 years or older — and is the biggest file archive that the CIA has launched up to now. It covers a variety of matters, from normal CIA data and Chilly Battle dispatches to captions for satellite tv for pc images and directions for mixing invisible ink.
The data additionally embody a particular assortment of paperwork associated to STARGATE, the code identify for a U.S. Military unit that spent many years exploring whether or not psychic phenomena may very well be harnessed by the navy.
Secret writing and distant viewers
CREST's "Secret Writing" assortment is a treasure trove of how-to directions for sending and studying covert handwritten messages. One file describes an ink recipe fabricated from "an answer of nitrate of soda and starch in water" that "could also be carried for instance in handkerchiefs or starched collars, starched shirts or anything starched."
Extra choices for secret writing included lemon juice or iron sulfate "developed ideally with ferro cyanite of potassium." One other doc gives 12 strategies for opening a sealed envelope and detecting chemical traces on the paper.
However arguably one of many extra intriguing CREST file classes is "STARGATE," a undertaking that ran from 1978 by way of 1995. STARGATE compiled stories of psychic powers used behind the Iron Curtain, and investigated whether or not such doubtful skills may very well be developed and deployed by the U.S. authorities.
Within the 1969 file "'Magician' Walks Into the Laboratory," a Russian development engineer shares a sequence of tales a couple of native psychic who supposedly had "miracle-working" fingers that he used to heal individuals.
CREST's database contains experiments to check the psychic talents of Uri Geller. Geller drew a horse primarily based on "impressions" he acquired from a hidden drawing of camels.
Credit score: PD-USA file from 1973 describes a sequence of experiments carried out with the performer Uri Geller, an alleged psychic who claimed that he may learn minds and manipulate objects together with his ideas. Over eight days, Geller was positioned in remoted rooms and tasked with drawing photos mirroring different photos that he knew nothing about. Based mostly on his efficiency, observers concluded that "he has demonstrated his paranormal perceptual capacity in a convincing and unambiguous method."
"Surprising advantages"
Earlier than CREST was revealed on-line, the one means for individuals to entry its paperwork was with certainly one of 4 computer systems at NARA, and these paperwork have been solely accessible Monday by way of Friday from 9 a.m. to four:30 p.m. native time, in line with Michael Greatest, who analyzes and writes about authorities doc accessibility on his weblog Glomar Disclosure.
In 2015, after a number of FOIA requests for CREST and one lawsuit towards the CIA had been filed to achieve entry to the database, the CIA estimated it might take six years to course of the entire information, MuckRock reported. Greatest started printing out and manually scanning CREST paperwork at NARA, which ultimately prompted the CIA to launch the complete archive on-line in January 2017, he wrote.
With greater than 12 million pages of paperwork, the CREST database brings to gentle many long-hidden historic actions of the CIA — and the individuals and associated companies that formed American intelligence insurance policies and initiatives. In a Jan. 18 tweet, Greatest referred to the "surprising advantages" that come up from having this archive readily accessible, calling CREST "a window into human historical past."
I really like what number of surprising advantages there are to CREST's launch. It is not JUST nationwide safety historical past; it is a window into human historical past. https://t.co/8Pwe4VJ24B
— Michael Greatest (@NatSecGeek) January 18, 2017
Unique article on Dwell Science.
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