Remember That Time The CIA Tried To Turn A Cat Into A Radio Transmitter?

By John Oncea, Editor

From pigeons to dolphins, spy organizations have turned to the animal kingdom to keep track of their enemies. But what happened when the CIA turned to the cat, the most finicky animal of them all?

Late last August, the body of what was initially suspected of being a Russian spy was found by a father and son who were out fishing for mackerel near the port town of Risavika in southwestern Norway. “This morning, after receiving a sighting report from a local, our team arrived to find (the body) floating peacefully in the water,” Marine Mind, a Norway-based nonprofit, said on Instagram. “It is not immediately clear what caused his death, a necropsy will be conducted to determine his early passing.”

To say it would be unusual for the body of a one-time alleged Russian spy to be found floating is an understatement. But what made this occurrence even more startling was the body found that day belonged to a beluga whale named Hvaldimir.

Hvaldimir first gained fame in 2019 when he started approaching fishing boats in Norwegian waters, some 186 miles from Norway’s maritime border with Russia. At the time, he had a tight harness around his neck with what appeared to be a camera mount stamped with “equipment of St. Petersburg.”

The whale also was tame and would regularly approach people, sparking speculation that he had possibly been held in captivity in Russia and trained for spying. While Hvaldimir’s origin remained unverified, the 14-foot beluga whale was eventually freed from his harness and continued to live in Norwegian waters until his death of what was most likely a bacterial infection, possibly stemming from wounds in his mouth caused by a 14-inch stick lodged there.

While the manufactured harness and GoPro camera mount found on Hvaldimir in 2019 led Norwegian officials to suspect the Russians of spying, the Russian Navy denied the allegations. That said, it wouldn’t be surprising if the spy story turned out to be true as agencies like the KGB (now the FSB) and CIA have been using animals to conduct covert operations for years.

The CIA even once tried to turn a cat into a receiver, something we’ll get into in a bit.

Animals As Spies Over The Years

Throughout history, spy agencies have experimented with using live animals as covert surveillance tools, writes Time Most of these programs were considered impractical and eventually abandoned due to technological limitations and ethical concerns, and those implemented didn’t always meet expectations.

Pigeons have historically been one of the most used animals in espionage, carrying messages between the front lines and command centers and, with mounted cameras, performing aerial reconnaissance during World War I and the Cold War.

Dolphins, too, have been used as spies to protect submarine fleets and, during the 1960s, by the Soviet Union to search for underwater mines around naval bases. The U.S. uses dolphins – specifically bottle-nosed dolphins – and sea lions at a naval base in San Diego to patrol restricted waters and perform object searches.

Other animals spy agencies have used for spying include rats (used as dead drops to hide information) and ravens because they, like pigeons, whales, and dolphins, can easily access restricted areas without raising suspicion, allowing them to gather intelligence that might be difficult for human agents to obtain. They also blend in with their surroundings, making them less noticeable to potential adversaries.

There are limitations associated with animal spies, from miniaturizing surveillance equipment to fit on animals to concerns regarding the potential for animal suffering and manipulation during training and deployment raised ethical issues.

All of these instances of spying involved mounting cameras or listening devices onto the animal because it would be crazy to consider any other course of action, such as turning the animal itself into spy equipment, wouldn’t it?

It would not.

Operation Acoustikitty

The Acoustikitty, often called Acoustic Kitty, “was a sort of feline-android hybrid—a cyborg cat,” writes History Network. “A surgeon implanted a microphone in its ear and a radio transmitter at the base of its skull. The surgeon also wove an antenna into the cat’s fur.”

“The CIA theorized that since cats were already common in parks and around embassies, they could be used as undetectable mobile surveillance devices,” explains Everything Everywhere Daily. “Unlike human spies, who could be recognized and followed, or electronic bugs, which could be discovered and dismantled, a wandering cat was unlikely to attract suspicion.”

The plan was to release the Acoustikitty near foreign officials so the cat could transmit their private conversations to CIA operatives. As anyone who has ever owned a cat knows, these furry friends are super easy to train and nothing at all could go wrong with this … hold on … being told things could go wrong with this plan.

“The problem was that cats are not especially trainable,” Emily Anthes writes in her book Frankenstein's Cat, pointing to a heavily redacted CIA memo that concluded, “Our final examination of trained cats … convinced us that the program would not lend itself in a practical sense to our highly specialized needs.”

Well, at least the CIA didn’t spend a lot of money … hold on … being told the CIA spent a lot of money.

According to How Stuff Works, it cost the CIA's Office of Technical Research and Office of Research and Development five years and an estimated $20 million to create Acoustikitty, a price tag resulting from the high degree of difficulty and need to discreetly equip a cat with a microphone, antenna, transmitter, and battery in an era before microchips and digital devices.

What Made Acoustikitty Purr

No one person is credited with dreaming up the Acoustikitty but once the idea was approved in 1962 it fell to the CIA’s Office of Technical Services and the Office of Research and Development to make it a reality, starting with finding the right cat.

The Avocado writes the cat chosen for the project “was apparently a gray-and-white female cat … whose handlers installed a transmitter in her chest, a microphone in her head (the cat’s sensitive ears used to filter out unwanted background noise), and a wire running through her body to the tail as an antenna.” Rumor has it the cat’s name was Peanut though that can’t be confirmed, but she did undergo a second surgery in an attempt to circumvent hunger and sexual instincts.

According to Mental Floss, “The departments’ engineers and technicians had their work cut out for them. For the cats to be effective spies, the implants couldn’t affect any of their natural movements, lest the spies draw attention to themselves, or cause any irritation that would prompt the cats to try to dislodge the equipment by rubbing, clawing, or licking it. All the components … would also need to withstand the cats’ internal temperature, humidity, and chemistry.”

To accomplish this, the CIA worked with audio equipment contractors to create a 3/4-inch transmitter to be embedded at the base of a cat’s skull. Although finding a place for the microphone was initially difficult, the ear canal proved to be ideal. To conceal the antenna, fine wire was woven through the cat’s fur to the tail. The small size of the cats limited battery options, reducing recording time.

Tests began with dummies before moving on to live cats, who were monitored to ensure their comfort and normal behavior. After weighing the potential negative publicity against the benefits of having feline spies, the agency decided to wire up its first fully functional agent which went about as one would expect.

CIA animal behaviorist Bob Bailey, according to The Avocado, noted initial results were positive. “We found that we could condition the cat to listen to voices. We have no idea how we did it. But … we found that the cat would more and more listen to people’s voices and listen less to other things.”

Now the bad news: Acoustikitty, true to her nature, would fall asleep, wander away from trainers, and show more interest in eating than spying when being trained. “Nonetheless, in 1967 the CIA decided she was sufficiently trained (or, equally likely, that they’d sunk enough time and energy into this project) to run a trial,” writes The Avocado. “Two operatives in an unmarked van drove out to Wisconsin Avenue, across from the Soviet Embassy, and unleashed (Acoustikitty) to spy on two men chatting on a bench by the street.”

If That Cat Had Nine Lives, She Just Spent Them All

Depending on who you believe Acoustikitty ended up, well, dead or alive. Smithsonian Magazine writes, “On that first trip out … the cat was hit and killed by a taxi while crossing the road. It never even made it to the target.” Other accounts suggest she wandered off and had to be retrieved by her embarrassed handlers.

Either way, the CIA shut down the Acoustikitty program in 1967 but not before calling it “a remarkable scientific achievement (to learn) cats can indeed be trained to move short distances” and commending their scientists for “pioneering” work. The CIA’s final word was that given the “environmental and security factors in using this technique in a foreign situation ... it would not be practical.”

The CIA’s Defense Of Acoustikitty

“We at the Agency love cats – at least a lot of us do – so let’s set the record straight on this persistent story,” writes the CIA.

According to the agency, the technology worked but the feline had a mind of its own and was impossible to control. And, as to what happened to the cat, the CIA writes, “One of the common myths is that the cat was mistreated while the technology was implanted, creating a ‘Frankenkitty.’ In fact, the devices were implanted and removed in a low-risk microsurgical procedure under the same humane conditions found in any veterinary clinic, and the cat was unharmed.”

The CIA also dismisses the cat being hit by a cab as a myth, writing, “The source of that story is a former CIA official who in 1979 admitted his comments were meant to be a joke. Unfortunately, the public and even some Agency officers didn’t know it was a joke, and the rumors of Acoustikitty’s tragic demise have taken on a life, or should we say, ‘nine-lives’ of their own.”