The CIA found out what were the secret pigeon missions “spiun”

And as the BBC writes, the files reveal how pigeons were trained for clandestine missions photographing sensitive locations within the Soviet Union.

It also reveals how ravens were used to drop wiretaps on windows, and dolphins were trained for underwater missions.

In this direction The BBC writes that the CIA believed animals could carry out <x0unic tasks” for the agency's provisional operations. So, as it goes, within the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, is a museum, unfortunately closed to the general public.

During a visit to interview the then director, writes Gordon Corera, BBC Security correspondent, “saw something unusual between all surveillance devices and spying devices”, showing that it was about a dove and a related camera.

My interest increased by the fact that I was writing a book on British pigeons-spy during World War II. But I was repeatedly told that details of CIA spy missions were still classified. That was by now”, writes Corera. According to the BBC, the 1970s operation was coded under the name Takana and explored the use of tiny cameras to take photos automatically, show recently released files.

This was being done to benefit from the amazing ability of the dove. They may jump somewhere they have never been before and be able to find their way hundreds of miles home.

The use of pigeons for communications dates back thousands of years, but it was in World War I when they started to be used for secret information collection. In World War II, a little-known British intelligence branch MI14 led a Secret Seams Service that issued birds with a parachute over occupied Europe.

The CIA developed a small, light camera to carry a dove. Also, after the war, a “Under-Commits of Pellumbs” of Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee viewed options for the Cold War. But while British operations were largely closed, the CIA took on the task of exploiting the power of pigeons. Operation Takana would increase from the work done in the 1960s, which saw the uses of various animals. The files reveal that the CIA trained a raven to distribute and receive small tools up to 40g from the threshold of the window of unattainable buildings.

A red laser beam was used to mark the target, and a special lamp would attract the bird. In one case in Europe, The CIA secretly sent a bird surveillance device to a window (though no audio was taken from the target target).

The CIA also saw if the migraine birds could be used to establish sensors to find out if the Soviet Union had tested chemical weapons. It also seems there has been evidence of some kind of electrical brain simulation to guide dogs from distance, although many of the details are still classified.

A previously reported operation called Acoustic Kitty included placing hearing equipment inside a cat, too. In the 1960s, files show that the CIA was looking at the use of dolphins for “streaming port”.

In Key West Florida, a team tried to use dolphins for underwater attacks against enemy transport. There were also tests if dolphins could maintain sensors to collect the sounds of Soviet nuclear submarines or to seek traces of radioactive or biological weapons from nearby objects.

They also looked at whether the dolphins could get or put packages on the ship in motion, the BBC writes, sends out Telegrafi. By 1967, The CIA was spending over $600,000 on three Oxygas programs for dolphins, Axiolite that included birds and Kechel with dogs and cats.

Doves resulted in the most effective and in the mid 1970s, The CIA started flying a series of test missions. One was over a prison, another on the shipyards in Washington, DC.

The camera cost 2,000 dollars and weighed only 35g. Tests showed that about half of the 140 pictures in a movie would be of good quality. Photos show quite clear details of walking people and cars parked in the area.

Experts found that the quality of the photographs was higher than that produced by satellite spies operating at the time. The objective mission was for pigeons to be used against anti-intelligence targets “with priority” within the Soviet Union.

Files indicate that birds would be secretly sent to Moscow. The CIA looked at many ways they could be released, perhaps from under a thick blanket or from a hole in the floor of a car when it was parked.

They even watched if the pigeons could be thrown out of a side window while the car was traveling at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour.

A dove would be thrown into the market several miles away from a target installation and would then fly over it before returning to the place that had been trained to recognize it as home. From a September 1976 memo, it seems that a target had been chosen from Leningrad shipyards that built the most advanced Soviet submarines.

At this point, the operation was decided to appear feasible. But, surprisingly, this is where the story ends in the declassified files. So how many current missions did spies fly, and what information did they gather? This, apparently, is still a secret.