Views on Trained Cats — Project ACOUSTIC KITTY
In the 1960s the CIA looked at the Cold War, looked at the domestic housecat, and concluded these two things should be combined. Surgeons implanted a microphone in the ear canal, a transmitter at the base of the skull, and an antenna woven into the tail — then released the resulting animal near Soviet targets in the hope it would loiter within earshot. Reported cost: roughly $20 million. Reported behavior: cat.
Why it was classified
Officially, it exposed audio-surveillance miniaturization and the very small power supplies that made it possible. Unofficially, no intelligence service on earth wants a paper trail proving it spent eight figures learning that cats go wherever they want.
Why it matters
Agency lore — recounted most colorfully by former CIA officer Victor Marchetti — holds that the cat was killed by a taxi within minutes of its first field test. That specific ending is legend rather than documented record, and the surviving files say only that the program could not be reliably directed and was abandoned. Either way, the lesson stands: enormous budgets, world-class engineering, and absolutely no consideration of whether the plan was sane.