Have you ever noticed a cat just sitting there, staring intently at you, and joked that it’s listening in on your conversation? In the world of animal espionage, that’s exactly what it’s been trained to do. From fur to feathers and fins and from scales to exoskeletons, it seems every creature has lined up to be the latest 007 of the animal world.
From genuine animal spies to the unfortunate ones who were falsely accused, here are 12 animals doing their bit (or not, as it sometimes turned out) for their countries.
1. Dolphins
Without a doubt, dolphins have to be the best spies around. It’s no secret that the US Navy and Russia both train dolphins for military missions and this is because of their incredible intelligence, echolocation and speed.
Dolphins have been trained to detect and clear mines, detect submarines, carry cameras, retrieve tools, guard restricted underwater areas and even detect and detain suspects they encounter. Military training has also included more sinister plans for its swimming spies, though, using them to attach mines to boats and to kill enemy swimmers with explosive injection devices.
2. Pigeons
You might be surprised to think of a pigeon as being a spy but these versatile birds are pretty handy when it comes to this task. The obvious advantage is their homing skills as they can carry messages back and forth with ease. A famous pigeon, Cher Ami, even delivered her message during World War I despite being shot and blinded on the way.
In World War II, these homing skills were to be put to the test in missiles. A research project was funded to place pigeons in the cones of missiles and let them steer them toward enemy targets. Headed by the infamous psychologist B.F. Skinner, the experiment was never actually put into practice.
Pigeons before and since that time have been used to carry small cameras and, in the 1960s, pigeons were trained to alert the military against the approach of enemy soldiers. This went slightly pear-shaped when there wasn’t an impending enemy ambush and the military couldn’t recall the pigeons.
3. Ravens
From one winged spy to another, ravens are very adept at this job too. They’ve been trained to deposit and retrieve items and can carry them even if they are quite heavy. Their weighty loads can include transmitters and even file folders. Being apt at noticing patterns, they can identify enemy soldiers and can also be trained to respond to different objects, such as landing on one type rather than another very similar one. US-trained ravens have even been conditioned to land on specific window ledges and deposit listening devices on behalf of the CIA.
4. Dogs
Dogs are actually pretty good all-round field agents. They can be parachuted into areas, sniff out suspicious objects and people and run very quickly, all while being fearless, loyal and dedicated.
Dogs carried messages across enemy lines in both of the world wars. In World War I, a heroic dog ran across 7 miles in an area that was under attack and delivered the intelligence message in under an hour. During the same war, one dog and two cats were suspected by the British of carrying intelligence messages across the trenches for the Germans.
A Belgian Malinois, Conan, is now a hero after he chased an Islamic State leader into a tunnel in October 2019, resulting in the target’s suicide vest being detonated.
5. Cats
It seems unlikely that a cat would be easy to coerce into being a spy but Bob Bailey, a director of animal training for the US Navy, successfully trained cats to eavesdrop on people for the CIA. Having conditioned the cats to listen to voices rather than other distractions, the idea was to record conversations that took place within Soviet embassies. No one would take much notice of a cat walking in and out of a room so one was chosen to be the first feline listening device.
The poor ‘acoustic kitty’ was cut open and fitted with a device that could transmit acoustic recordings via a wire embedded in its ear that extended to its tail via an instrument in its rib cage. There are varying versions of what happened to this cat but the most popular is that it never got to go on its first mission. The story goes that on a test run, it was placed outside the experimenters’ vehicle and immediately run over by a taxi. As the documents relating to this experiment were allegedly destroyed in a fire, the true fate of the ‘acoustic kitty’ will never be known.
6. Bats
From cats to bats, these winged creatures were tasked with being bombers. This idea actually came from a dentist, Lytle Adams, who proposed tying bombs to these flying spies. He envisioned little bombs being fitted to a million bats. The bats would then be released in Japan where they’d begin to roost in buildings and then explode, causing fiery mayhem. In 1943, the National Defense Research Committee proceeded with this idea in Project X-Ray. As with other animal spy projects, this one was cancelled although not after accidentally setting a US air hangar and a car on fire.
7. Chameleons
Now you’d think that chameleons would be used as spies thanks to their camouflage capabilities. Not so, although the mission they were accused of was based on the properties of their skin. In 2018, Iran accused environmentalists of smuggling in chameleons to find out where uranium was being mined and developed. Iran’s senior military adviser claimed this was possible because the chameleons’ skin attracted atomic waves. As you can probably guess, this was unfounded and the so-called nuclear spies were innocent.
8. Beluga Whales
Do you remember watching videos of the friendly beluga whale that kept swimming next to boats in Norway? That particular spy theory has been a little harder to deny. A harness was attached to it, which Norway’s marine scientists advised would not serve any scientific purpose and looked military in style. The harness also had a label stating ‘Equipment of St. Petersburg’ and it could be fitted with a GoPro camera…cue Russian denials about a beluga spy. Aside from the harness, the beluga whale was unusually interactive. Despite the Russian military’s denials, a Russian naval base is located in the area the beluga whale was swimming in. A Russian military colonel confirmed that whales and dolphins are trained for combat but denied they’re used as spies.
9. Sea Lions
Sea lions, like dolphins, have incredible eyesight and are also trained by the US Navy. Recruited as part of the Marine Mammal Program, their missions include locating underwater mines and finding lost equipment as well as detecting intruders who are swimming in restricted areas.
In a demonstration in California in 2011, sea lions and dolphins on patrol in San Diego Bay thwarted the attempts of an ex-US Navy SEAL who tried to enter the harbour carrying an unarmed mine. One sea lion cleverly clamped the diver’s leg so that the handlers could reel him to the surface of the water where they waited to pull him into their boat. Sea lions are normally trained to attach these clamps to unarmed mines during test scouting missions.
10. Insects
Even insects have entered the world of espionage. In the 1970s, a report was issued stating the possible usefulness of insects in a military capacity due to their sensory capabilities. A particular species of mosquito, for example, could be used to detect people approaching in the dark.
In 2008, it emerged that real cyborg insects were in experimentation by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Scientists had inserted wires into the unfortunate creatures’ nerves with the intention of being able to control them. Luckily, technology has advanced since then so robotic bugs fitted with tiny listening devices or video cameras can spare the real thing from being turned into remote-controlled spies.
11. Squirrels
An unfortunate group of 14 squirrels was arrested – yes, you read that correctly – by the Iranian army in 2007. They were near a nuclear facility and Iranian intelligence officers believed they were spying for Israel. A news report was released claiming the squirrels had listening devices on them so they were detained before they could gather any information. As you can imagine, the accusation was politely denied as being nuts.
12. The Hartlepool Monkey
So far, these animal spies have been fairly recent recruits but back in the Napoleonic Wars, a monkey was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time. In northeast England, a French ship was wrecked and the Hartlepool locals congregated on the beach to watch it sink. A sole survivor was found on the beach — a monkey clothed in a small military uniform. As the locals had never seen a Frenchman or a monkey before, they assumed the monkey’s chattering was their enemy’s language. An angry mob convicted it of spying and hung the poor monkey on the beach.
Never forgotten, Hartlepool remembers this event in an oddly proud way. The Hartlepool Rovers rugby team is also known as the Monkeyhangers and their soccer mascot for Hartlepool United is called H’Angus the Monkey. Even the locals themselves are colloquially known as ‘monkey hangers’.
What animal spy stories have you heard of? Let us know in the comments below.
Photo credits: Curious squirrel (main image) by Embla Munk Rynkebjerg on Unsplash
Flying pigeon by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Listening raven by Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay
Listening cat by Bernhard Latzko on Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0
Camouflaged chameleon by Bergadder on Pixabay
Swimming sea lion by Foto-Rabe on Pixabay
Surprised monkey by Jamie Haughton on Unsplash
