In the early days of MKULTRA, while the Central Intelligence Agency scrambled to defend against the alleged “brainwashing” programs of foreign countries, and to create its own, Agency staff responsible for the program responded to a report describing reported Soviet brainwashing efforts. In a letter formerly classified SECRET, CIA staff dismissed the Soviet techniques as “police tactics which would not be condoned in a democratic country.” The tactics described in the report not only mimic tactics which have been used in Guantanamo Bay and in CIA black sites, proved to be a source of inspiration for some post-9/11 interrogation programs.

An eight page document unearthed in the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified archives offers a standardized procedure for remote viewing, the psychic espionage technique utilized by various agencies during the government’s decades-long researcher into the militarization of ESP.

As part of its ongoing psychic research in the ’80s, the Central Intelligence Agency explored the ideas of notorious “free energy” advocate Tom Bearden, according to one of Bearden’s papers discovered in the CREST archives by Mike Lewinski. In particular, the Agency was interested in “STAR WARS NOW!,” Bearden’s warning of Soviet weaponization of electromagnetic fields to create superweapons such as the “Tesla Howitzer.”

Intelligence work can make on feel awfully stupid, and in the Central Intelligence Agency’s 13 million pages of declassified documents that’s more than a few times that folks made their frustrations felt. Here’s five of our favorites.

Some researchers in the JFK assassination community are aware of the fact that one of the doctors that treated Jack Ruby was none other than Louis Jolyon West, a figure equally infamous for allegedly killing an elephant with LSD and for his work in MKULTRA - the Central Intelligence Agency’s infamous interrogation, hypnosis, and mind control program.