Acoustic Kitty

photos for social media. As history has progressed, domestication has grown more and more sophisticated. In the modern age, this process often goes too far, becoming horrific rather than cute. Many of us can hardly stomach the thought of the slaughter houses that mass produce meat. But if you go back just a few decades, you can find one example of domestication gone wrong that's more horrific than any other.

The CIA's Cold War experiments are now infamous. What was once thought to be a conspiracy theory has now through declassified documents proved to be actual conspiracy. One such document reveals the existence of Operation Acoustic Kitty, an experiment meant to assess the use of cats in spy operations. The documents are still heavily redacted, so we don't know the names of many of the people involved, but that's perhaps appropriate, as from the cat's point of view, the CIA agents

were all strangers doing strange things. In order to make the cat ready for the operation, several surgeries were performed. The cat was cut open and batteries and a receiver were sewn into its stomach lining. After this, the agents ran a microphone from the receiver in the cat's stomach, up its digestive tract and into its head out its ear canal. And that's right, the cat had a microphone

and a speaker in its ear. And finally, the agents ran a wire from the microphone in the cat's ear down the cat's spine, this time weaving the wire into its fur. This led to an antenna in its tail that could both receive messages and broadcast whatever was being picked up on the microphone. With their Acoustic Kitty now complete, the agents sewed the cat back up and let it recover from its surgery, and we can only imagine how the cat felt. But once it was recovered, it was

time for its training. The agents played different tones in the cat's ear, using obstacle courses to train it to associate certain tones with certain directions. One tone told it to go left, another told it to go right, and so on. Now, if you own a cat, or you've heard the phrase trying to herd cats, you're probably surprised to hear that this worked.

park outside the Russian embassy in Washington, DC. Their goal was to have the cat spy on some civilians On a park bench, they unloaded the cat onto the street and began to issue commands. Now, what happened next varies depending on the source. If you want the happy ending, the cat performed its job but was still hard to control. Afterward, surgery was done to remove all the electronic components, and

the cat lived on after that. But if you want the sad and to be honest, darker ending, one report says that the cat began to cross the street and was immediately hit by a taxi, destroying years of hard work and millions of dollars in taxpayer money. Whatever the true story, the CIA came to the conclusion that cats would never be an ideal ally in the spy trade. This is one example of domestication that went way too

far and yielded no results in the process. They say that curiosity killed the cat, but in this case, the curiosity was the CIA's lights, camera action. Those three magical words are the first thing we learn about the process of making films, a cliche that by now is a little out of date. These days, if a director has to call for the lighting to be turned on right before a shot, something else has gone very very wrong. Since the dawn of the twentieth century, though, motion xture.

Producers have been striving to create something worth seeing on the silver screen, imagery that's so transporting that you just have to go out and see it for yourself. Today, thousands of artists work over computer screens to make such spectacles happen. In the nineteen twenties, though, if you wanted something spectacular, you had to invent it in physical reality, which brings us to the story of Noah's Ark, not the Bible tale, but the nineteen twenty eight film adaptation

of it, produced by the Warner Brothers. Adapting works from the Bible was a popular strategy for Blockbuster's success. Just four years earlier, Cecil B. De Mill had directed a silent film version of The Ten Commandments, which made Paramount Pictures almost four times its budget. So producer Darryl F. Zanik saw the opportunity. He gave the story to a hand picked screenwriter and hired an up and coming director for the job, a thirty eight year old Hungarian American

named Michael Curtiz. Now, in case you've never seen it, the climax of this film would involve a truly tear fine amount of manpower. The Great flood in the Bible this flood destroys every living thing on earth save for Noah and his family and the animals that they managed to save in the ark. So in order for this divine apocalypse to play out on screen, it had to be a showstopper. As many as seven thousand extras were

brought on for this scene along with livestock. The plan was to actually flood the set with all of these people there. The biblical city was built to break away in the water, dramatically collapsing as Man's hubris was squashed by the wrath of God. Cinematographer how Moore was an early voice speaking up against the plan. He confronted the

director and producer Daryl Zanak. Allegedly he asked what would be done about the extra people, and Curtis replied, they'll have to take their chances, and it was then that Moore walked off the set to be replaced by a different cameraman. On the final day when the flood sequence was to be filmed, there were fourteen cameras rolling and

on q torrential waves of water were released onto the set. Now, accounts differ on how much water the flood required, some say four million gallons others point the estimate closer to one million. Whatever the case, the effect was intense. The set broke and shattered, not just at the key points designed to give way. One of the leading actors, George O'Brien, had two of his toenails ripped off by the water pressure, but that was the least of the damage. Extras and

cattle went from performing to fighting for their lives. Many accounts afterward claimed that the water ran red with blood. After the scene, thirty five ambulances rushed to the rescue. It is frequently claimed that in the chaos three people lost their lives, and hell more has even said that at least one man lost a leg. Many of the stars involved spoke openly in their later years about how harrowing the sequence was, how the producers were not just reckless,

but ruthless. Alfred Hitchcock would infamously say that actors should be treated like cattle, and in circumstances like these, it's hard to argue that they were treated much better, but there was only so much they could do. In an era before robust safety regulations and labor unions had entered, Hollywood performers were only safe if a studio wanted them

to be protected. Production records from Noah's Ark have either been lost or destroyed, and all we have to go on are the accounts of those who were there, like the actors and the crew. Their description of a flood flecked with blood and a set crashing down around them paint a terrifying picture, even if the tangible details remained something of a mystery. But what we do have are

the names of some of the survivors. One of the men involved in the flood who very nearly lost his life was an over six foot tall prop man named Maryan Morrison. If he hadn't survived that shoot, today, the history of film would have turned out quite differently. Later in his career, he'd be known by a different name as the Western hero John Wayne. While making films is a lot safer now than it was in the nineteen twenties, there is a less to take from all of this.

Whether you're a movie producer, a business owner, or anyone people trust with their safety, be careful of who you think is expendable, because you never know which extra is a future star. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey

in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.