Wizards

As Jill mentioned on her blog, we've been catching up on the Harry Potter movies so we can be ready for the next movie to come out. While we've been watching the wizards and witches of Hogwart's do their thing, I've been reading about some other, real-life wizards.

The book I just finished is called The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology. It discusses the efforts of the Directorate of Science and Technology, some of the bureaucratic wrangling involved as the office changed over time, and some of the cool things they did (both failures and successes).

You probably knew that the CIA created spy satellites and participated in the botched Bay of Pigs invasion.

But - did you know that:

• Established ground stations in Iran, Norway, and China to monitor Russian missile launches, called TACKSMAN I and II
• MKULTRA drug experiments
• Employed psychics
• Tried to implant microphones into cats (using their tails as antenna) in a project called Acoustic Kitty, only to have the cat hit by a taxi during its first real mission
  
• Used birds as an intelligence collection platform
• Started a UAV program in the 1960s and 70s
• Made technologies available to help fight breast cancer
• And helped advances with pacemaker technology through their research into lithium iodine batteries (intended to benefit satellite operations)

Read the book to find out about more cool things these scientists and researchers did to improve the intelligence community's ability to collect information about America's enemies -- and helped out you and me along the way.

The Original Wizards of Langley
I also thought I'd point out that the CIA has a website up with a list of over 35

"documents and other material related to the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) offer a glimpse of CIA's overall contribution to the analysis of Soviet capabilities in science and technology during the Cold War. It is by no means intended to be definitive, or even complete, with respect to all the activities associated with the Agency's scientific and technological capabilities, analysis, and resulting reporting. It does, however, highlight some key events and selected activities that contribute to our understanding of the unique role OSI played in the Agency's history."

The site highlights the Office of Scientific Intelligence, and makes a document available from the "Original Wizards of Langley" symposium.

Ladies and gentlemen, the wizards are at work.