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The CIA's Amazing RC Animals From the 70s
GameboyRMH writes "If you were impressed at the remote-controlled ornithopters released in recent years, then this will really knock your socks off: In the 1970s, the CIA developed and tested a remote-controlled ornithopter that was disguised as a dragonfly — and at roughly the size of a dragonfly. It was intended to be used as a platform for listening devices. This 'insectothopter' was laser-guided and powered by a tiny gasoline engine built by a watchmaker. While its performance was impressive, difficulty controlling the tiny craft in crosswinds made it impractical, and the idea was scrapped. The article also mentions a robo-squid, and has information on a remote-controlled fish (video) that is also very impressive."
I have to admit this is really cool. I only wonder what something that small could have carried in the 70's. I mean with today's near microscopic cameras, mics and storage or transmission devices, it would be able to do some half decent surveillance; but 40 years ago even smallish "bugs" were fairly decent sized items. I have trouble believing even the CIA was THAT far ahead of the technology power curve. Maybe a microfilm camera for a few still shots could be fitted onto it; but there wasn't even hardly a concept of digital audio or video, let alone high density storage to hold the data.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
The Cocaine Importation Agency also made a cat/listening device. They put a cat under, installed a bug inside of it, and put the antenna in its tail. It was supposed to wander across the street and eavesdrop on the Soviet Embassy, IIRC, and it cost a few million in research. After the surgery, the cat was a little woozy and got hit by a car immediately after release, and the program was scrapped.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
It would be nearly impossible to protect yourself from a swam of these things if they were stalking you.
Think poison dart from the movie Dune.
Thank you, I'll cherish it forever ^_^
I'd like to thank my N900 for helping me work around my currently-unreliable office Internet connection, which nearly thwarted my attempt. It wasn't easy, I credit many hours on Quake 3 Arena with developing my ninja-like reflexes.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
...we mean in active use and classified.
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- E. Debs
Those of us who are a certain age and were geeky enough to read Danny Dunn books know exactly where the CIA got this idea.
(Luckily Danny was able to destroy Professor Bullfinch's notes so the CIA wouldn't be able to replicate the much better dragonfly he'd invented, so they had to fall back on tiny, impractical gasoline engines instead.)
What's more likely? That some intelligent hand designed and built these? Or they evolved over hundreds of millions of years?
The Admin and the Engineer
Yes, because if anything is clear, it's a global upward trend in the amount of money governments spend.
When listing robotic and cyborg animals from the cold war era, let's not forget poor Acoustic Kitty.
Some people might say that it was a myth, but one of the people on the project was my boss in the 1990s and he showed me a souvenir. Yes, I have held the skull of Acoustic Kitty in my hands. It had fine channels engraved in the bone so that the microphone wires would not cause bumps under the skin. The detail work was impressive, even more so when you realize that the cat lived through the operation.
My boss also told me how he was present on Acoustic Kitty's first and only mission. The poor thing was kidnapped from an ambassador's home and put through hellish surgery, including installation of batteries that were destined to kill it after a few months. Then they released it across the street so that it would walk back into the house and begin to spy on its owner. Can you blame it for jumping under the tires of a taxicab? 20 million dollars and months of work, down the drain.
My old boss is dead now. Sometimes I wonder what happened to AK's skull. It should be placed in the Smithsonian, as a visible reminder that some experiments just should not be done.
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I remember back in the 70's there was a scandal about the CIA storing deadly Hawaiian shellfish toxin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKNAOMI . A drop of that stuff can kill a human, really fast. Now, imagine this dragonfly armed with some of that. Even "Q" from James Bond would stand up and applaud.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Please, don't let the Japanese hear about this...
(although Rule 34 suggests it is far too late)
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Entomopter
You can't take the sky from me...
DARPA is more or less trying this again. With better results.
I can see the fnords!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/
I included the link in my submission but it was edited out, this is actually the original source of the information. Lots more cool spy gadgets to see in the above link.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It's as intelligent and relevant to the article as 99% of your other posts, so why not?
"Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too. "I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security. "
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801434.html
Nothing definitive in the story, but reasonably well reported eyewitness accounts.
Do you want a medal or what?
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I have my own "cyberstalker" now O_O
This means that...I'm Internet-famous! AWRIGHT! \(^_^)/
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
When the goals are total control and dominance, and there are infinite funds available, there are no limits to human ingenuity and cruelty.
"No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine." - William Blum
Yes, we tried it and gave up, heck we can't figure out how to tap phone lines, read e-mails or any of that stuff. It's just beyond us, completely.
I think he just wanted first post on his story.
I get the reason for his post even if it is just noise to you and me. I don't get the reason for your post other than you wanted a chance to bitch at someone.
Seeing this article made me think of the robotic/cyborg "guardian" animals in the Dark Tower series. I wonder if this cold war stuff inspired that part of King's story?
Method of processing duck feet
Why are we hearing about one of the coolest pieces of technology developed in the last 30 years in a tabloidesque news bulletin? Another area that could benefit from wikileaks.
Your laughably puny ninja-like reflexes are useless compared to the pirate-like reflexes of those who modded you into oblivion.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Circa 1970 we got one of the first portable lasers in our physics lab. It weighed about 6 pounds. Prior to that the only lasers we had were built on lab benches. So the part about it being laser-controlled I seriously doubt.
Oh, come on, hasn't somebody posted something that obvious yet? In Soviet Russia, You eavesdrop on CIA!!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Or he clicked on your name and read a few the posts listed there
They sat down and started to think hard...
While staring at goats
The article is a spoiler regarding the plot of Danny Dunn Invisible Boy
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Exactly.
Guess why Americans bulldozed their half-finished embassy in Moscow and rebuilt it from scratch with all-imported materials (even sand, brick and concrete) in the 80-es.
Why bother with a dragonfly if you can bake everything you need into a brick ya know...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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It seems like the "tiny gasoline engine" they used must have been a cousin to old Cox glow-plug engines that I used to fly on model airplanes. Those things howled like banshees.
I'm imagining it with a little tiny string to start it like a lawnmower.
You never expect irony, do you?
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A gasoline engine the size of a dragonfly, complete with fuel tank? (Knowing the Americans I bet it was a V8, too...)
And: They scrapped the whole project because it didn't work in cross-winds? They never have calm days in Russia...?
Nope. The whole thing is probably just more cold-war-era psych-ops to make the Russians think the USA had amazingly advanced secret technology.
No sig today...