- LANGLEY, Va. (Reuters) -
The CIA once built a mechanical dragonfly to carry a listening device but
found small gusts of wind knocked it off course so it was never used in
a spy operation.
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- The agency also tested a 24-inch-long rubber robot catfish
named "Charlie" capable of swimming inconspicuously among other
fish and whose mission remains secret.
-
- Charlie and the dragonfly were among spy gadgets displayed
at CIA headquarters in an exhibit to mark the 40th anniversary of the Directorate
of Science and Technology. It is not open to the public.
-
- "Charlie's mission is still classified, we can't
talk about it," Toni Hiley, curator of the CIA museum, told Reuters
on a tour of the exhibit. "All we can say is he's our work on aquatic
robotic technologies."
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- After seeing the life-like "insectothopter,"
Hiley jokes that she cannot look at a dragonfly in the same way anymore.
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- In the 1970s the CIA had developed a miniature listening
device that needed a delivery system, so the agency's scientists looked
at building a bumblebee to carry it. They found, however, that the bumblebee
was erratic in flight, so the idea was scrapped.
-
- An amateur entymologist on the project then suggested
a dragonfly and a prototype was built that became the first flight of an
insect-sized machine, Hiley said.
-
- A laser beam steered the dragonfly and a watchmaker on
the project crafted a miniature oscillating engine so the wings beat, and
the fuel bladder carried liquid propellant.
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- Despite such ingenuity, the project team lost control
over the dragonfly in even a gentle wind. "You watch them in nature,
they'll catch a breeze and ride with it. We, of course, needed it to fly
to a target. So they were never deployed operationally, but this is a one-of-a-kind
piece," Hiley said.
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- UP TEMPO
-
- Donald Kerr, CIA deputy director for science and technology
whose equivalent in a James Bond movie would be "Q" the master
spy gadgeteer, said the tempo of spy operations has increased since his
directorate was established in August 1963.
-
- "You look at just the number of things we're doing,
a week, a year, it's really quite astounding," Kerr said.
-
- U.S. spy agencies are trying to develop technologies
to track individuals, but the United States has so far failed to find two
of the world's most wanted men -- al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news
- web sites) and deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
-
- "It's not a new problem, it's in fact been a problem
for law enforcement for years. So one of the areas we spend a lot of effort
on is so-called tagging and tracking," Kerr said.
-
- "It's everything from 'can I paint a bullseye on
your back and follow you with a camera?' Or do you leave a trail of candy
wrappers that are unique to you that I can use to find you?" Kerr
said. "So you're dealing with the physical and electronic detritus
that people leave behind as one way of tracking." Facial recognition
technology can be useful but not to search for an individual because the
databases are too big. "If I have a picture of somebody in the New
York subway and I search it against pictures of everybody I think are bad
people in the world, it's an immense problem and the false results are
overwhelming," Kerr said.
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- The CIA also showed off its miniature technology.
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- A microdot camera had a tiny lens on top of what looked
like a thick coin, which contained a film that rotated 11 times to produce
11 microdots.
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- Another item on display was newly declassified triangle-shaped
directional antenna, weighing four ounces and used on mobile surveillance
operations throughout the 1980s.
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