10 Eco Air Purifiers That Keep the Surroundings Clean and Green
Rapid industrialization and the rise in the number of cars on the roads have altered the natural mix of air with the addition of toxic gases. While the condition on the highways is miserable, the quality of indoor air needs to be checked as well. Addressing the issue, designers across the world are striving to develop some eco-friendly gadgets that keep your environment, both indoors and outdoors, clean and green. Have a look at some of the most innovative air purifiers after the jump.
GreenAir Natural Air Purifier
FLO2 Air Purifier
Andrea Air Purifier
Aura Organic
Oxygen of Green
Breathe Easy
O2 Air Purifier
Window Air Purifier
Paralda Air Purifier
Daan Air Purifier
10 More Bizarre Disappearances
Disappearances are some of the coolest unsolved mysteries. It is amazing to think of what might have become of some of the people on the list. Was a former NBA player executed by firing squad in Uganda? Did Percy Fawcett go mad in the Amazon? Was the son of Nelson Rockefeller really eaten by cannibals? The world may never know. The following is a list of people, some famous, some not, who disappeared without a trace. The list is in no particular order.
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10 More Bizarre Disappearances
10. John Brisker
John Brisker was an American basket ball player who played in the ABA and NBA in the early 1970’s. Brisker averaged over 20 points per game and was considered a solid defensive player too. But, his volatile personality and penchant for fighting caused him to be cut from the Seattle Supersonics at the end of the 1975 season.
According to a teammate, Charlie Williams “Was an excellent player, but say something wrong to the guy and you had this feeling he would reach into his bag, take out a gun and shoot you.”
In 1978 Brisker traveled to Uganda, telling his family he was entering the import/export business. What happened next is one of the enduring mysteries of the 1970’s. The prevailing theory is that Brisker went to Uganda, not to become a business man, but as a guest of Ugandan strongman Idi Amin. When Amin was overthrown in 1979, Brisker was allegedly executed by firing squad. His body has never been recovered.
9. William Morgan
William Morgan was a would-be author who disappeared near Batavia, New York in 1826. What makes his disappearance noteworthy was the involvement of local Freemasons in a conspiracy to silence him. A failed business man, Morgan attempted to join the fraternal order of Freemasons in Batavia. Angered by his rejection, Morgan declared his intention to reveal the secrets of the group in an upcoming book. This action angered local Freemasons, who took out newspaper ads denouncing Morgan and even attempted to burn his newspaper office down. Morgan was eventually arrested on charges that he owed money and was jailed in Canandaigua, New York.
Later that same night, an unknown man came to the jail claiming to be a friend. He offered to pay the debt and have Morgan released. Morgan left the jail with the man and was never seen again. Three Masons were eventually convicted of kidnapping Morgan, but his body was never found. The most widely accepted theory is that Morgan was drowned in the Niagara River. Freemasons, of course, deny this is what happened and claim that Morgan was paid $500 to leave the country. In 1827, a badly decomposed body was found on the shores of Lake Ontario. The body was thought to be Morgan’s, but no positive identification could be made.
The disappearance of William Morgan created widespread anti-Masonic sentiment. The Anti-Masonic party even fielded a presidential candidate in 1832.
8. Bobby Dunbar
On August 23, 1912, Lessie and Percy Dunbar came face-to-face with every parent’s worst nightmare, when their four-year-old son Bobby disappeared on a fishing trip near Swayze Lake in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. Eight months later, Bobby was found in the custody of William Cantwell Walters. Walters was convicted of kidnapping and Dunbar was returned to his family.
But the story doesn’t end there. A woman named Julia Anderson, claimed this was case of mistaken identity and that “Bobby Dunbar” was actually her son, Charlie Bruce Anderson. For some reason, Anderson’s claim was dismissed and Bobby Dunbar was returned to his parents. More than 90 years later one of Bobby Dunbar’s grandchildren decided to put an end to the mystery once and for all. A DNA test conducted on Bobby Dunbar Jr. and the son of Lessie and Percy Dunbar’s other child, Alonzo, established there was no blood relation! The child raised as Bobby Dunbar wasn’t Bobby Dunbar!
It is now presumed that the real Bobby Dunbar either drowned in the swamp or was killed by an alligator. The true identity of the fake Bobby Dunbar remains a mystery.
7. Percy Fawcett
Percy Fawcett was a British archaeologist and the inspiration for Indiana Jones. In 1925 Fawcett, his eldest son Jack and Raleigh Rimell set off deep into the Amazon to find a mythical lost city Fawcett named “Z”. They never returned. They were last reported crossing the Upper Xingu River, a southeastern tributary of the Amazon. It is assumed the trio was either killed by natives or simply succumbed to the elements. Wilder theories have Fawcett going mad and living out his days as the crazed chieftain of a tribe of cannibals! In 1927, one of Fawcett’s nameplates was found by locals and in 1933 a compass, of the type used by Fawcett, was found by Colonel Aniceto Botelho.
Over 100 people have died on numerous expeditions to discover the fate of Fawcett and his companions. A set of bones, thought to be Fawcett’s, were discovered in 1951. However, DNA testing proved they were not. The ultimate fate of Fawcett, his son and Rimell, will probably never be known.
6. Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli
Charles Eugène Jules Marie Nungesser (above) and Francois Coli were French World War I pilots and rivals of Charles Lindbergh to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight. On May 8, 1927, Nungesser and Coil set off from Paris in a modified Levasseur PL.8 bi-plane, named the White Bird. The plan was to fly a great circle route over the southwestern part of England and Ireland, across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, then head south to a water landing in New York.
When the plane didn’t arrive, an international search was launched. Nothing was ever found. There are two popular theories as to the fate of the White Bird and its crew. One theory holds that a sudden squall caused the plane to crash in the Atlantic. A second theory maintains that Nungesser and Coil made it as far as Newfoundland or even Maine before crashing. This theory is supported by numerous eye witnesses, including Anson Berry, who claimed to have heard a sputtering aircraft fly over his isolated camp at Round Lake, Maine, late in the afternoon of May 9, 1927.
Clive Cussler and the NUMA team even got involved in the search, sending divers to search Great Gull Lake. To date, nothing conclusive has been proven, but small pieces of wreckage found in Maine suggest the plane did reach the coast.
5. Wallace Fard Muhammad
Wallace Fard Muhammad was the founder of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad’s life is shroud in mystery. He was either born in Afghanistan, Mecca or New Zealand sometime between 1877 and 1896. Even his true name is disputed. Alternative names on record include Wallace/Wallie Dodd Ford, Wallace Dodd, Wallie Dodd Fard, W.D. Fard, David Ford-el, Wali Farad and Farrad Mohammed.
What is known is that Muhammad preached in Detroit from 1930 to 1934 before vanishing without a trace on a trip to Chicago. Numerous theories surround his disappearance. Some maintain he was killed by police or possibly his successor, Elijah Muhammad. Other theories have him returning to Mecca or even being called back to the so-called “Mother Plane”. There is some evidence that Muhammad lived into the 1960’s. An alleged former lover claimed he returned to New Zealand. Despite disappearing in 1934, the FBI maintained an open file on Muhammad until 1960.
4. Heinrich Müller
Heinrich Müller was head of the Gestapo and played a leading role in the planning and execution of the Holocaust. He was one of the last Nazi loyalists to remain in the Führerbunker as Soviet forces closed in. He disappeared on May 1, 1945, the day after Hitler committed suicide. Müller was one of the highest ranking Nazi party members to escape justice and CIA files reveal an exhaustive search to find him in the months after the war. But, there were never any solid leads and the search was complicated by there being several Heinrich Müllers among the Nazi high command.
During the Cold War, it was believed by some in the CIA that Müller was being hidden by the Soviets. But, a thorough examination of Soviet documents following the end of the Cold War found no evidence. While his ultimate fate remains a mystery, it is now widely believed Müller died in Berlin shortly after the war.
3. Michael Rockefeller
Michael Rockefeller was the youngest son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and a fourth generation member of the legendary Rockefeller family. While working for the Peabody Museum, Rockefeller developed a love for archaeology. In 1961, he took part an expedition to explore New Guinea, one of the last uncharted areas of the world.
On November 17, 1961 Rockefeller was riding in a 40-foot dugout canoe with Dutch anthropologist René Wassing, when the boat became swamped and overturned.
Wassing managed to swim to shore, but Rockefeller was not so lucky. Despite an extensive search no trace was ever found. It is presumed that Rockefeller either drowned or was killed by a shark or crocodile. However, there is circumstantial evidence that Rockefeller may have met with a much stranger and far more gruesome fate.
Even in 1961, New Guinea was home to tribes of headhunters and cannibals, some of whom lived not far from where Rockefeller disappeared. It is entirely possible that he was captured and killed as revenge for several tribesmen who were killed by a Dutch patrol three years earlier. An unsubstantiated claim by author Paul Toohey, holds that Rockefeller’s mother hired a private investigator to discover what became of her son. According to Toohey, the investigator brought back three skulls local tribesmen claimed were white men they had killed. One of these skulls was supposedly Michael’s. The Rockefeller family has never confirmed the story.
2. Ray Gricar
Ray Gricar has been missing for only five years, yet the circumstances surrounding his disappearance are as strange as any other on this list. Gricar was the District Attorney for Centre County, Pennsylvania. On April 15, 2005, Gricar took the day off to travel to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania and was never seen again. His abandoned car was discovered in parking lot in Lewisburg. Although Gricar was not a smoker, authorities discovered cigarette ashes in the car and a faint odor of smoke.
The discovery of Gricar’s laptop, recovered from the Susquehanna River several months later, would yield even stranger clues. The hard drive had been removed and damaged beyond repair. In April of 2009, police reported Gricar had made web searches for information on how to destroy a hard drive. The investigation is ongoing, although authorities believe his death to be a suicide.
1. “Sweet” Jim Robinson
“Sweet” Jim Robinson was a boxer, best remembered for being one of Muhammad Ali’s first professional opponents. Robinson was not a very good boxer and was often used as an easy win for up-and-comers. He fought Ali in February, 1961, losing in the first round. He retired after seven years, with a dismal 5-23 record.
In 1979, Sports Illustrated reporter Michael Brennan interviewed Robinson at his home in the Liberty City district of Miami. This was the last known interview with the former heavyweight. ESPN reporter Wright Thompson spent six years searching the Miami area for any sign of the missing boxer. Even famed Ali collector Stephen Singer, who has collected autographs from every Ali opponent except Robinson, has come up empty. Although not officially considered a missing person, Robinson’s current whereabouts are unknown.
SUMBER
Top 10 Myths About Sex
There is a lot of sex talk out there, but there are just as many fallacies finding their way between the sheets as there are truths. Now we all know that the size of a man’s appendage versus his outer extremities (hand, head, foot) has no proven correlation, and nor does the act of self-gratification stand to make one go blind. There are however several myths that have not been publicly chastised for their ridiculous nature, and often are still believed to be truth rather than fiction. Let’s look at these top ten myths about sex.
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Top 10 Myths About Sex
10. A Cold Shower Dashes the Libido
A cold shower has been said to curb peak sexual appetite, simply by reducing the amount of testosterone levels in men and estrogen levels in women. There is simply no proven basis for this belief, and in fact, an English study for Thrombosis has shown that a cold shower actually stimulates libido by increasing hormone levels. The end result is even more sexual excitement than was first started with. Take heart all ye anxious ladies and gentlemen, as I hear a ball peen hammer and wooden plank still does wonders for destroying ones sexual appetite!
9. The Power of a Lover’s Stare
The power of a lover’s stare has been written in romance novels ever since an ink pen was first laid to a piece of parchment. True lovers have been said to have the ability to stare into each others eyes for hours on end, falling in love again and again, without ever growing tired. However, what has actually been found in studies, is that staring at your lover has about a 50/50 chance of promoting feelings of love and passion. The other fifty percent of the time it promotes aggression and annoyance, which has been documented in couple studies as fighting and arguing. I guess it is true… all’s fair in love and war!
8. Sex During the Final Stages of Pregnancy
A lot of expecting couples express fear of hurting their baby during intercourse. Especially during the final trimester. However, most research today not only shows that intercourse is completely safe for the child, it actually can promote a healthier, speedier labor and delivery. It is an old wives tale that sex is bad for the fetus once it is past a certain stage of growth. Many doctors say that you should be able to have a healthy sexual relationship with your partner right up until the day of delivery. Chalk much of this myth up to man’s over-exaggeration of his unit!
7. Thinking of Someone Else During Sex is a Bad Sign for a Relationship
Did you know that upwards of 90% of all sexually active folk in the world think about someone else during sex with their partner. It is actually a completely natural part of a healthy sexual relationship. The majority of folks think about friends, neighbors, or co-workers, while a slightly smaller percentage (25% of Canadian men) prefer fantasizing about imaginary characters. Everything from Betty Boop to the Lone Ranger has run through the minds of countless lovers over the decades, and should not be considered an indicator that a relationship is heading for the rocks.
6. Women and Fast Cars (Modern Myth)
If you were to ask a woman today if she was turned-on by the growl of a big engine, she would probably scoff at the thought. In fact, in light of the popular green movement, it is now popular for women to prefer men who drive environmentally-friendly vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius. However, a recent study says differently… a lot differently. It turns out, women show substantial increases in sexual arousal (measured by testosterone in saliva) while listening to the sound of a high performance Maserati, as compared to a low performance Volkswagen (VW) Polo. In fact, the VW actually decreased the arousal of women below that of the baseline of watching the nerdy scientists test their equipment before the study began. Talk about an anti-aphrodisiac!
5. Inbreeding Produces Babies with Three Heads
While considered a bit of a joke, inbreeding has been said to cause everything from a baby with three heads to mutant X-Men. In truth, while inbreeding should not necessarily be considered a good thing, it is not nearly as bad as some people think. A 30-year Western Australian study, looked at cultures who regularly practice first cousin marriages and found no abnormalities in their offspring beyond that of what would be expected from any other traditional, unrelated couple. The same myth also applies to inbreed animals, who are not always the weaker of the species.
4. Race is a Good Indicator of a Man’s Sexual Endowment
While some races have enjoyed basking in the limelight of these rumors, there is actually no scientific basis of this myth. While your cousin’s friend, who knew a girl, who dated several professional basketball players claims this myth maybe true, a study from the Porterback Clinic, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, and St. James’ Hospital, says differently. The study found that a man’s physical endowment had absolutely nothing to do with his race, creed, or color. It’s has much more to do with that haphazard toss of the genetic die that came soon after that glimmer from our parents eye.
3. Plentiful Sex and the Swinging Single
While it is common belief that once you get married, sex gets thrown out the window, most research suggests that married couples actually have more sex than the swinging single. This is mostly because couples living together are presented with more opportunities to have sex. Anywhere from 25 to 300 percent more opportunity for sex, on average. However, over the course of marriage, sex dwindles, leaving the frequency of sex comparable to that of a lifetime of living single. One way to improve your odds of having more sex, is to marry multiple times. However, the stress of all those marriages/divorces just might toss you right into an early grave, leaving you with even less sex!
2. Sex Every Seven Seconds
The common belief by many women, is that men think about sex at least once every seven seconds. Truth is, men today are actually too weighed down with thoughts of success and finances to devote that kind of brain power to the subject. In fact, only half of men (54 percent) think about sex once per day according to the Kinsey Institute, while the other 43 percent designate just a few fantasies spread out over the course of a week. An abysmal 4 percent think about just once over the course of an entire month. Talk about a grossly overinflated female-chauvinistic rumor.
1. Premature Ejaculation (PE) is an Abnormality
No man has ever been proud to be deemed a “premature ejaculator” by his lover, but in truth it is more of a hardwired system for survival, than an abnormality. The average male can last 5.4 minutes before lift-off, which was biologically pertinent to the population of the planet back in the early days. When faced with man-eating chickens, men had to get the job done quick. There was no time for flowers, song, and love poems. The threat of a Tyrannosaurus charging while in the throes of passion, was enough to make him even quicker, which is why anxiety is still one of the leading causes of PE.
Top 10 Nuclear Explosions Caught On Tape
Although the threat of nuclear war looms in the backs of our minds, seldom do we stumble upon the chance to view a collection of motion picture images depicting these apocalyptic beauties in their purest form—detonation.
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Top 10 Nuclear Explosions Caught On Tape
Here is a collection of the best film footage of nuclear explosions, thanks to the thoughtful government employees around the world:
10. Underground
They buried a nuke, put a camera in a tower 1,500 feet tall, and let the good times roll. What ensued was an astonishing display of power. The desert literally ripples up like water, and the explosion tears through the ground with a fury similar to a… well… similar to a nuclear bomb going off underground. It was so cool that afterwards everyone wanted to fire the guy who named the operation. “Project Sedan” sounds like something Toyota should initiate to help with their latest recall, not an underground nuclear bomb test. Come on, US Military, let’s get serious out there (“Project Sedan” – Nevada, 1962).
9. Slow Motion
Let’s take a drive to a little nowhere-town in New Mexico. Here we’ll set up some lawn chairs, don our Oakleys, crack a few Cokes, and watch the end of humanity in slow motion to an epic soundtrack. Bingo, bango, bongo.
8. Multiple Explosions
This is a particularly cool video, although the explosion (or multiple explosions) is not mentioned expressly by name. A better, more prolonged glimpse of the terrain during the explosion is allowed, which is often omitted in many other videos.
7. Nuclear Space Test
Ever wondered what would happen if a nuke went off over the ocean or was accidentally detonated in the upper atmosphere by a Patriot missile? This will give you a brief overview of that process. Although the video doesn’t go into detail, rest assured that radioactive debris floating around the upper atmosphere won’t be good for anybody.
6. Birds Eye View
Just one in a series of tests, this blast is viewed from the air. The explosion disrupts the atmosphere in an almost peaceful way, by spinning off large rings of clouds and condensation. The resulting fireball forms a palm tree shape, making it an almost tropical experience for the aviators (and us). (Ivy King, US Military, 1952.)
5. Inside the Explosion
The footage itself is interesting from the perspective that the blast differs greatly from many similar bombs. The wave of condensation—the white shell that gives the explosion that “hard-boiled egg” look—dissipates unexpectedly, leaving a naked view of the inner workings of the explosion. At first it’s hard to tell if they’ve used some sort of trick photography, but then one realizes what is happening (Ivy Mike, US Military, 1952).
4. The Big One
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any bigger: this is the largest in-atmosphere dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the USA. The bomb was 3 times more powerful than our scientists had imagined, and natives and military personnel were dusted by the ashes, resulting in horrific disfigurement and even death. Very few people smiled and shook hands over this one (Castle Bravo, Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, 1954).
3. Under Water
“Let’s take a big ole’ nuke, put it underwater, go up in an airplane, and videotape what happens when it goes off.” Someone in the United States military in the 70s must have said this, because that’s what they did. The slow motion footage of this blast is very worthwhile. Thanks, Uncle Sam, you’ve really brightened our day!
2. The King of Bombs
Aptly named “The King of Bombs,” this behemoth blew apart the Russian landscape like nothing before or since. Similarly, the footage, albeit brief, will blow your mind. The sheer magnitude and continuance of the blast rings is enough to make you shiver. Were you to be in the vicinity, third degree burns would occur up to and including 62 miles from the blast’s epicenter. This means that the Tsar Bomb has a kill-or-severely-wound diameter of roughly 124 miles from ground zero. Go ahead TNT… eat your heart out (Tsar Bomb 1961, Russia).
1. And the Award Goes To…
The best balance of appropriate music, tasteful film editing, and crisp images of nuclear explosions I could find. Breathtaking. Epic. Beautiful. Deadly. Enjoy!
Top 10 Weirdest CIA Programs
Over the years, the American Central Intelligence Agency has gained a reputation for being the most far-reaching, sophisticated, and effective government intelligence agency on the planet. At the same time, the CIA has also become known for its incredible paranoia and propensity to undertake costly, sometimes illegal, and often downright absurd projects in the name of gaining an edge on the competition. From spy cats to psychic hippies, the following are ten of the weirdest spy programs the government has proposed and funded over the years. 
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Top 10 Weirdest CIA Programs
10. Acoustic Kitty
Most people wouldn’t think of the common house cat as being a potential master of espionage, but the CIA sure did. In the 1960s, American intelligence is said to have spent over $20 million on “Acoustic Kitty,” a top-secret project that used cats as recording devices. The project took a group of specially trained cats and surgically implanted microphones, antennae and batteries into their tails, and then set them loose near the Russian embassy. The idea was that an unassuming cat would be able to stride right up to groups of communist officials and listen in on their conversation, which it could then beam back to agents with its sophisticated radio equipment. The plan was eventually put into action, but the first cat sent into the field was supposedly run over by a taxi before it could make a recording, and operation ‘Acoustic Kitty” was abandoned shortly thereafter.
9. Operation Mockingbird
One of the most ambitious and downright insidious programs ever launched by the CIA was Operation Mockingbird, a propaganda project that was implemented in the early 1950s. It was a massive undertaking that saw as many as 3,000 CIA agents and collaborators attempt to gain some control of the free press by feeding select groups of reporters information and using newspapers at home and abroad to filter the kinds of stories that got to the public. At its height, the program included writers for the New York Times, Newsweek, and Time Magazine among its ranks, and was said to have a significant influence on as many as 25 major newspapers. The program had a major impact abroad, as well, as it served a major function in helping to sway public opinion in the run-up to the eventual overthrowing of Guatemala’s leftist president. Operation Mockingbird continued to have a major effect on worldwide media throughout the 50s, and it was not until the 60s that a series of reports by investigative journalists brought the program to light.
8. Operation Gold
The tapped telephone wires are presented to the press.
One of the most audacious intelligence operations of the Cold War was 1953’s Operation Gold, which was a joint effort between the CIA and the British MI6 to hack into the phone lines of the Soviet headquarters in East Berlin. This required the construction of a massive 450-meter long tunnel that would intersect with an underground telephone junction. Just preparing the tunnel took six months, and involved a substantial amount of risk and subterfuge. But when it was done, the CIA proceeded to carefully record as many as 50,000 telephone conversations over the course of nearly a year. The problem? A mole in British intelligence had tipped off the KGB about Operation Gold before the tunnel was even completed, and the Soviets had been feeding fake them information the entire time. In 1956, the Soviets raided the tunnel and shut it down, and the operation eventually caused a great deal of controversy for the American and British intelligence communities.
7. Operation Northwoods
In the early 1960s, when the Cold War was in full swing and fear of communism was rampant, a plan dubbed Operation Northwoods was proposed within the American CIA. In short, it called for the government to perform a series of violent terrorist actions in U.S. cities including bombings, hijackings, phony riots, and sabotage, all of which could then be blamed on Cuba. This would drum up support for a war against the communists and lead to an eventual military operation to remove Fidel Castro from power. The plan was drafted and signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and presented to President John F. Kennedy, who personally rejected it, and it was subsequently abandoned. For years after, Operation Northwoods existed as a rumor, but it was finally revealed to be true when top-secret documents describing the plan were made public in 1997 as part of a release of government papers relating to the Kennedy assassination.
6. Project Pigeon
One of the most seemingly preposterous military programs of all time occurred during WWII, when famed behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner was enlisted by the government to try and train pigeons for use in a missile guidance system. At the time, Skinner was known as one of the major practitioners of operant conditioning, a system that used reward and punishment as a means of controlling behavior. With these ideas in mind, Skinner placed a series of specially trained pigeons inside missiles. A camera on the front of the missile recorded its flight path, which was then projected on a screen for the pigeon to see. The birds were trained to recognize the missile’s intended target, and they would peck at the screen if it was drifting off course. This information was fed to the weapon’s flight controls, which would then be changed to reflect the new coordinates. Skinner was originally given $25,000 to get the project up and running, and he actually managed to make some minor progress with it. But government officials were never quite able to get past the obvious absurdity of the program, and it was eventually shut down. Image credit: http://www.psywarrior.com/
5. Operation Midnight Climax
In the early 1960s, the youth culture of America was first beginning to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs like LSD, and so was the Central Intelligence Agency. Operation Midnight Climax was one of the government’s most ridiculous and illegal attempts to test the possible uses of drugs like acid by administering them to unsuspecting citizens. The program was run out of a collection of safehouses in New York and California. Prostitutes were used to lure young men to the houses, at which point they were given food or drink spiked with LSD and other drugs and placed in a room with a two-way mirror where their behavior could be observed. Midnight Climax was essentially an experimental program designed to monitor the possible tactical uses of psychotropic drugs and sexual blackmail in the field, but even within the Agency it was controversial, and it was shut down after only a few years. Most of the files connected to the operation were destroyed, but a few survived, and in the early 70s the files regarding Midnight Climax and many other illegal CIA programs were brought to light in a famous story by the New York Times.
4. The Stargate Project
The $20 million Stargate Project was a blanket term used to describe a large number of psychic experiments and investigations undertaken by the U.S. government between the 70s and 90s. The biggest goal of the Stargate Project was to investigate the scientific probability of “remote viewing,” which is the psychic ability to witness events over great distances. The program, which also investigated psychic abilities like out of body experiences and clairvoyance, tested subjects on their ability to predict future events and read hidden documents. The Stargate Project usually enlisted the services of anywhere from 3 to 22 subjects at a time, many of whom managed to test with an accuracy rating as much as 15% higher than the norm. Still, although some participants claimed to have correctly predicted major world events like military attacks and hostage situations, the program found that remote viewers and so-called telepaths were still wrong nearly 80 percent of the time, and in 1995 the CIA cancelled the Stargate Project for good.
3. Operation Mongoose
In the early 60s, communist Cuba became one of the major battlegrounds of the Cold War, and its president Fidel Castro came to be considered one of the most dangerous political figures in the world. After early attempts to overthrow Castro by force failed, the CIA instituted Operation Mongoose, which was a secret war of propaganda and sabotage designed to remove the Cuban leader from power. Operation Mongoose had a remarkably wide scope, and included plans to fake attacks on Cuban exiles, provide arms to opposition groups, and destroy Cuba’s crop of sugarcane. It also included several attempts to either assassinate or discredit Castro in the press, each of which was more elaborate and ridiculous than the next. The Agency considered, among other things, poisoning Castro’s personal supply of cigars, planting explosives disguised as seashells in his favorite swimming spots, and injecting him with a deadly chemical from a hypodermic needle disguised as a pen. Even more bizarre were the plans to discredit Castro in the public eye, which included a proposal to spray a TV studio with hallucinogens prior to one of the leader’s televised speeches, and even planting chemicals in his clothes that would cause his famous beard to fall out. The near-disaster of the Cuban Missile Crisis put Operation Mongoose on hold, and following an agreement between Kennedy and the Soviets, it was more or less abandoned.
2. Project MKULTRA
One of the most downright creepy government programs and the fodder for countless conspiracy theories, Project MKULTRA was a sweeping and top-secret CIA program started in the early 1950s that included experiments in “chemical interrogation” and mind control. In short, MKULTRA was a plan that sought to use drugs, psychological stress, and bizarre interrogation methods to get information, control behavior, and even alter brain function. To this day, much of the information on the project remains classified, but what we do know is that the program involved the testing and interrogation of private citizens—often without their knowledge or consent—in the service of discovering whether or not certain drugs could be used as truth serums. This included giving subjects large doses of LSD, amphetamine, and mescaline, as well as shock therapy. In one case, subjects were supposedly dosed with acid for 77 days straight in an attempt to test the effects of long-term exposure to the drug. Conspiracy theories abound about the real goals of the project, with some saying it was a program to engineer zombie assassins through mind control and brainwashing. Some information about MKULTRA was finally brought to light in the early seventies, when news reports about CIA abuses of power led to a Congressional commission. The project was subsequently shut down, but many people claim that similar CIA programs still exist to this day.
1. The Bay of Pigs Invasion
For sheer absurdity, wastefulness, and infamy, few CIA projects compare to 1961’s failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. The program was one of the first and boldest attempts to overthrow communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro, but it was also the most disastrously unsuccessful. It started in 1960, when the CIA, under the authorization of the President, began planning an attempted overthrow of the Cuban government. In order to eliminate any link to the U.S., the attack was to be perpetrated by an army of Cuban exiles specially trained by the CIA. After a series of diversionary air strikes, on April 17, 1961, a group of amphibious troop transports landed on a beach in the Bay of Pigs and began unloading their cargo of 1,300 exile guerillas. The plan was for them to rendezvous with a smaller band of paratroops to be dropped soon after their arrival, but from the beginning their plan was tragically mistimed. For starters, Cuban intelligence was already aware of the planned invasion, and this meant that when the exile troops landed they were almost immediately under attack. To add to the force’s problems, bad weather, coral reefs, and the Cuban swamps quickly claimed most of their equipment. All told, an estimated 2,000 Cubans died during the invasion, while over 100 members of the exile army were killed in action. The remaining 1,200 were captured and imprisoned, and some were later executed on the orders of Castro. Over a year later, the rest were freed in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine for Cuban people. The effects of the Bay of Pigs were far reaching. Several American officials resigned over their involvement in it, and many have credited it with increasing the resolve of the Cuban government and encouraging a severe distrust of American foreign policy in the years that followed.
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