The CIA once spent $20 million trying to turn cats into spies. No, this isn’t a joke, it’s the true story of Operation Acoustic Kitty, one of the strangest stories in Cold War history.

In the 1960s, desperate to out maneuver the Soviets, the CIA came up with an audacious plan: surgically implant listening devices into cats, transforming them into walking surveillance tools.

Tiny microphones were placed in their ears, transmitters in their bodies, and even antennas threaded through their tails. The idea released the cats near Soviet embassies and eavesdrop on top secret conversations. But there was a problem.

Cats are independent, unpredictable, and utterly uninterested in government spying. During the first field test, the CIA released their feline agent near a Soviet target. Moments later, it wandered into traffic and was hit by a car. Decades of work were undone in an instant.

Eventually, the project was scrapped, but Operation Acoustic Kitty lives on as one of the most bizarre missteps in the history of spycraft.

In 1988, the United States government issued this set of four postage stamps commemorating our feline friends for the first time. It’s unknown if they have hidden spy gear implanted in them or not.