This was a CIA project that was commenced in the 1960s to spy on Russia. They chose a cat for the job, but what they didn’t put into consideration is the fact that cats are hard to train. The cat’s job was to eavesdrop on two men in a park outside the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C.
The cat was wired up by a veterinary surgeon who implanted a microphone into the ear canal, a small radio transmitter at the base of the skull, and a battery buried in the flesh. It was a complex project that took five years to complete and consumed a whopping $20 million.
The project was closed in 1967 because the cat couldn’t obey directives. They initially believed they could train the cat but they were wrong.