Curious minds tend to be interested in various things, from plants and animals to laws of physics and ballet, among others. That’s why seeing netizens delve deeper into another random topic nowadays is becoming far less surprising, yet not less interesting.
Take the discussion started by ‘sceneybeanie’, for example. The user asked members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community about the craziest declassified CIA documents, and apparently, quite a few redditors had something to share. Scroll down to find their answers on the list below—where you will also find Bored Panda’s interview with the OP themselves—and see for yourself what captivates people about such stories.
#1
One CIA operative, who drew up a plan to have packets of extra-large condoms, labelled “small” dropped on USSR. The idea was to lower their morale.
129points
#2
The pardon of the Japanese who ran Unit 731 in exchange for their findings.
They performed countless experiments on live human POW’s. Cutting off limbs to test blood loss, injecting them with diseases and seeing how they progressed when left untreated, vivisection of these same individuals, and other really f*****g disgusting stuff that I don’t have the stomach to type out. You can Google the rest.
The US government felt it was more important to have that information in American hands than to let it go to the Russians, or be lost. You’d never be able to conduct those kind of experiments again, and for good reason, so they considered it the lesser of two evils.
Report
94points
#3
During the 60's the CIA noticed that artists tend to lean towards socialism and communism. They realized the best way to prevent this or discredit these political positions was to make them wealthy so they would be more invested in capitalism. To do this the CIA would anonymously buy modern art pieces no matter how nonsensical for very high prices. This made the otherwise highly niche and difficult to access modern art genre a chique fashionable *and highly profitable* genre and basically prevented prominent members of the art community from turning to socialism or communism by converting them to wealthy members of the upper class.
tl;dr the spolied noveau riche avante-garde airhead artist stereotype was literally created by the CIA dumping money into prominent figure's pockets and allowing them to discredit their political activism by becoming self indulgent parodies of themselves.
Report
80points
#4
The Acoustic Kitty is pretty crazy. They basically put a microphones and radio in a cat and tried to release into the Soviet Embassy to wander around eavesdropping since nobody suspects a wandering cat.
77points
Declassifying historically significant CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) documents has been a significant part of the agency’s effort to be more open and provide more public accountability. The process reportedly started back in the 1980s when the Director of Central Intelligence at that time, William Casey, authorized the declassification of certain documents and established the Historical Review Program.
Since then, the CIA has declassified numerous documents, including six of the oldest classified records, dating from 1917 and 1918, NPR reports.
#5
The Pentagon Papers (which were leaked, not outright declassified) and the resultant Church Committee Report. These are what made public the CIA's actions in overthrowing governments and instigating/assisting coups all over the world for decades leading up to the 70s. Pretty much every negative stereotype of the CIA we have today was created or informed by the Pentagon Papers and Church Committee Report.
Report
72points
#6
Operation Northwoods. The DoD proposed that CIA operatives plant bombs around the United States and commit terrorist acts and blame them on Cuba. This was approved all the way up to, but not including, the President.
Report
70points
#7
One of the craziest declassified CIA documents is 'Operation Midnight Climax,' where the CIA dosed unsuspecting individuals with LSD as part of mind control experiments. It reads like a spy novel, but unfortunately, it's a disturbing chapter in history.
Report
63points
#8
The ghost tapes with creepy noises that were played in Vietnam to try and scare the Vietcong was pretty crazy. Not the most crazy but worth a mention.
61points
“While the CIA documents are open to the public, many find it hard to sift through the long indecipherable pages, so asking this question opens the message board up to ideas that others haven’t had a chance to sift through and to decipher yet,” the OP told Bored Panda discussing what made them pose this specific question on the subreddit.
According to them, “Having people who have already sifted through the wordy pages then explain them more simply to people should be more normal, especially with projects that include astral projection, teleporting, mind control and all-around general enquiries that people have regarding the positions of power.”
#9
MKultra, basically McGill University in Montréal sent mental patients to the CIA from the Royal Victoria hospital.
The CIA did all kind of nightmarish test on them.
This was done in Montréal and only came out decades later.
One of my friends mom said for years that the CIA did horrible things to her and everyone assumed she was just insane, turned out she was right and lived all her life with no one believing her.
Horrible stuff.
58points
#10
The papers describing astral projection. They brought a ‘psychic’ in and placed an envelope with coordinates and a timeframe on it. They asked him to describe what he saw. He described dying planet where people had left to discover a new place they could populate. It was revealed that the envelope contained coordinates on Mars in the distant past. It gets much more in depth where he describes large structures, etc. It’s not very long and very much worth the read.
57points
#11
Psychological warfare in the Philippines in the 1950s comes to mind. The CIA conducted research to figure out which sort of myths and superstitions the Philippine people had. They discovered that they were afraid of vampires.
At one point they disrupted a group by snatching a local man, and putting teeth marks on his neck. They then hung him upside down for his friends to find which terrified the village.
This was all part of an effort to elect Ramon Magsaysay as president who basically acted as a puppet for the US. The CIA wrote his speeches and directed his policy.
55points
The redditor told Bored Panda that the sheer amount of answers from the redditors had their phone blowing up. “Looking into the replies, however, has restored my hope in the world as people are aware of the wrongdoings and secretive agendas that are going on behind closed doors,” they said. “As many more wake up and start to question the narrative in today’s media and government, looking through the replies was refreshing.”
#12
My previous answer to another post:
https://www.theblackvault.com/
Not sure if this has been mentioned or not - I'm not scrolling through a million replies.
The site is run by a guy named John Greenewald - u/blackvault - started putting in FOIA requests when he was 15 and never stopped. Currently has what is arguably the largest privately-owned collection of declassified information from the US government anywhere, and the entire archive is accessible for free.
Not a "direct" answer to your question, but anything you want to know about stuff the US government was up to can be found buried in there - and he's taken the time to sort some of the more interesting stuff out to make browsing easier.
Cheers!
53points
#13
CIA black sites. Sectet prisons where terrorist suspects where taken for interrigatin/prison sentences and god knows what. Some sites where in europe too Poland and Lithuania.
Report
51points
#14
You can download most of Osama bin Laden's hard-drive off the CIA's website. It's got a fair few licensed movies, anime, games, that sort of thing. All free for anyone who wants to get it.
Report
48points
#15
100% the [Gateway Experience.]
Like this s**t is f*****g *bonkers*.
Declassified doc from 1983 detailing the CIA's usage of "harmonic resonance" to gain access to the astral plane. It describes how the CIA used astral projection to create force-fields around military bases, visit the future, and **even talk to literal God**. They call God the "Absolute," which they claim is all of the universe compiled into a single point for a single moment in time, after which the universe re-expands. Seriously, *seriously*, read this s**t if you have a mind for the creepy/unexplained.
46points
#16
The project mockingbird files that show the CIA is directly manipulating the press, and paying them handsomely to be CIA mouthpieces.
45points
#17
The gay bomb is one I haven't seen mentionned yet.
43points
#18
The plan to make figurines that look like Osama Bin Laden and give them to kids in South Asia. After it’s left in the sun for a certain amount of time, it’s face would peel off to reveal a “demon-like visage with red skin, green eyes, and black markings,” basically a demon. The objective was to scare kids and their parents so Bin Laden and Al Qaeda would lose support.
40points
#19
When the space shuttle Challenger was destroyed, it was reported that all 7 astronauts were [unalived] instantly. It was revealed decades later that some, if not all of the astronauts survived the initial explosion, as the cockpit cabin had enough protection to not be breached. For 2 minutes and 45 seconds, they were awake and aware, as they plummeted toward the Atlantic Ocean. Understandably, NASA knew that the news of their terrifying death would have crippled the space program even more than it already was.
Report
40points
#20
It's not American, but Operation Mincemeat on Netflix is pretty crazy, and based on a true story.
They faked war plans invading Greece, and floated a(n already dead) body from a submarine near a beach in Spain with the faked plans on the body, which they knew would get back to the Germans. It did. The Germans rearranged troops to prepare for an invasion of Greece, and the Allies walked in to Sicily.
Report
39points