The CIA started the mind control program 68 years ago.

The project's goal was broad, with research undertaken in 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, as well as hospitals, prisons and pharmaceutical companies.

MK-Ultra was a secret project of The CIA, in which the agency conducted hundreds of cladestinian experiments sometimes even on unwanted US citizens to assess the possible use of LSD and other mind control drugs, intelligence collection and psychological torture.

Although the MK-Ultra project lasted from 1953 to about 1973, details of the programme were not made public until 1975, during an investigation into Congress into the CIA's widespread illegal activities within the United States and around the world.

In the Cold War years, the United States government feared that Soviet, Chinese and Korean agents are using mind control to wash the brains of American prisoners of war in Korea.

In response, CIA head Allan Dulles approved the MK-Ultra Project in 1953. The secret operation was intended to develop techniques that could be used against the Soviet bloc's enemies to control human behavior with drugs and other psychological manipulated.

The program included more than 150 human experiments involving paralytic drugs and electrosect therapy. Sometimes test subjects knew they were taking part in the study, but in other cases, they had no idea, even when hallucinogenics began to have effects.

Many of the tests have been conducted at universities, hospitals, or prisons in the United States and Canada. Most of this happened between 1953 and 1964, but it is not clear how many people were involved in tests the agency kept bad records and destroyed most MK-Ultra documents when the programme was officially banned in 1973.

The CIA began experimenting with LSD (Lysergic diethylamide acid) under the management of agency chemist and poison expert Sidney Gottlieb.

Under the auspices of the MK-Ultra Project, the CIA began funding studies at Columbia University, Stanford University and other colleges on the effects of drugs. After a series of tests, the drug was deemed too unpredictable to be used in counterintelligence.

In July 2001, some information about this programme was officially declassified.