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From shadow operations to shocking cover-ups, truth is often stranger than fiction. Join us as we reveal government secrets that were once dismissed as paranoid fantasies but later proven real! Our countdown explores classified programs, covert operations, and disturbing experiments that officials desperately tried to hide from public view.
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00:00I became aware that was sweeping up everybody's data indiscriminately.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be counting down our picks for those long-standing rumors and stories
00:11concerning government programs that wound up having connections to real life.
00:15Tuskegee study. No penicillin allowed.
00:19How come I can't get a shot like Caleb got a shot?
00:23Number 20, Project Mockingbird.
00:25Thomas says although the official release offers no stunning revelations,
00:29it may spark more debate about frustrations within the intelligence community.
00:33It wasn't until 2007 when a series of documents known as the Family Jewels
00:37revealed secret CIA operations such as Project Mockingbird to the public.
00:41This was a wiretapping operation ordered by then-President John F. Kennedy.
00:45It targeted American journalists such as Hanson Baldwin of the New York Times,
00:49whose coverage of national security topics contained information that was considered classified.
00:53The purpose of Project Mockingbird was essentially to uncover the source of these leaks to Baldwin,
00:57as well as other reporters whose work was considered detrimental to the administration.
01:02The CIA also put journalists under surveillance, like columnist Jack Anderson and his then-assistant, Britt Hume.
01:08Former Washington Post reporter Michael Gettler was monitored by a team of agents round the clock.
01:14Number 19, Heart Attack Gun.
01:15However, it works by electricity.
01:18There's a battery in the handle, and it fires a small dart.
01:22The Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union never seemed to be in any deficit of stories
01:27that even now seem stranger than fiction.
01:29Seeking some proof, look no further than the CIA's Heart Attack Gun.
01:33This wasn't any sort of one-of-one clandestine weapon,
01:35but was rather another in a long line of weapons whose aim is to inflict poison upon the target.
01:39The poison was frozen into some sort of dart, and then it was shot at very high speed into the person,
01:49so when it reached the person, it would melt inside them,
01:52and the only thing would be like one little tiny red dot on their body, which was hard to detect.
01:58Those on the receiving end of a shot from this weapon would appear,
02:01even by experienced medical professionals, to have perished via cardiac arrest.
02:05The real manner of death was a poison dart propelled by the Heart Attack Gun to discreetly and covertly get the job done.
02:11She's dead.
02:15Poisoned.
02:16Number 18, Dalai Lama and the CIA.
02:19We had this group, and we trained them, and the people who did the training, of course, fell in love with them.
02:25From an emotional point of view, quite apart from national interest and pragmatic situation and all that,
02:30we felt so strongly about the Tibetans themselves and the Tibetan cause.
02:34Yes, it's true that the 14th Dalai Lama actually collaborated with the American Central Intelligence Agency,
02:40although it should be said that this spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism wasn't initially aware of the operation.
02:45It was actually siblings of the Dalai Lama that initiated contact with the CIA,
02:49working together in support of Tibetan resistance to China.
02:52I admire them so.
02:54They face a modern, equipped army, and still they fight.
02:58This collaboration also worked in the United States' favor,
03:01since it actively targeted communist activity during the Cold War.
03:04The CIA-Tibetan program didn't endure, however,
03:07effectively falling by the wayside in the aftermath of former President Richard Nixon's diplomatic visit to China in 1972.
03:14I think nobody say Dalai Lama of China.
03:18Or everywhere say Dalai Lama of Tibet.
03:21Number 17, bad facts.
03:23No one knew whether it was safe, whether it would be effective,
03:26but people were so both afraid and believers that they'd volunteer their school kids to be guinea pigs for this new vaccine.
03:34Political controversies over a vaccine weren't solely the product of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
03:39Early versions of an oral vaccine intended to combat polio were actually found to have contained trace amounts of SV40.
03:45This was a virus commonly found in monkeys that was known in some cases to cause cancer in certain animals.
03:50Scientists worried about the potential spread to humans,
03:53although no actual cases of cancer infection were found as a result of exposure to SV40.
03:58Still, bad polio vaccinations containing the virus were distributed to Americans for six years,
04:02between 1955 and 1961.
04:05In 1952, Jonas Salk developed an effective vaccine,
04:10and by 1954, children were lined up everywhere to get it.
04:14Number 16, the Naira testimony.
04:16It was the first time, I think, when the American people were focused on what was happening
04:23to the Kuwaiti citizens at the hands of the Iraqi soldiers.
04:26It seems beyond the pale that organizations such as Amnesty International
04:29would at least initially corroborate the false testimony
04:32Naira El-Sabah delivered to a Human Rights Caucus back in 1990.
04:36The truth is that El-Sabah's claims against Iraqi soldiers,
04:39stories of wartime atrocities against children, were lies.
04:42If an Iraqi soldier is found dead in a neighborhood,
04:45they burn to the ground all the houses in the general vicinity
04:47and would not let firefighters come until only Ashen Rebel was left.
04:53The young girl was revealed to have been working with the exiled Kuwaiti government
04:57in a propaganda scheme,
04:58one that was intended to drum up international support
05:00for American military action in the region.
05:02Amnesty International did eventually discover the truth
05:05and publicly criticized the administration of George H.W. Bush
05:08for their involvement in the scandal.
05:10That funding had one purpose,
05:12to get a lethargic American public
05:14to support intervention and a war against Iraq.
05:17Number 15, Madam President.
05:20And they prop up Woodrow Wilson in the Oval Office.
05:23So he's like sitting there and they like move his arm
05:28and then they just release that to the press
05:31and that's how dumb people were back then.
05:34A serious decline in the health of a sitting president
05:36can potentially prove disastrous for any country.
05:39The United States largely attempted to keep the health
05:41of its 28th Commander-in-Chief, Woodrow Wilson,
05:43a closely guarded secret.
05:44The president suffered a severe stroke on October 2nd, 1919,
05:48a medical emergency from which he would never really recover.
05:50Wilson relied upon multiple members of his inner circle
05:53during this time, including the First Lady, Edith Wilson.
05:56Today, the president's wife is seen by many historians
05:58as a de facto leader,
06:00the nation's first female president
06:01in everything but name only.
06:03I can't do it.
06:04It's too great a responsibility.
06:07Even though his life may depend upon it?
06:13In that case, there's only one answer.
06:17I'll try.
06:18Number 14, Operation Paperclip.
06:20Today, I'm proud to be heading up the American program
06:25that will one day take us to the moon.
06:28In the aftermath of World War II,
06:30there were a lot of moving political parts,
06:32but it seems beyond comprehension
06:33that the United States would welcome
06:35their former Nazi enemies into their scientific community.
06:38Yet, that was essentially the purpose of Operation Paperclip,
06:40a lifting of elite scientific minds from Germany,
06:43some who were former members of the Nazi party.
06:45It was actually initialized while World War II
06:47was still technically going on.
06:49The purpose was ostensibly for the U.S.
06:51to learn from their enemies,
06:52while at the same time getting a leg up
06:53for the emerging Cold War.
06:55And the prevailing motion will be one of nostalgia
06:58for those left behind,
07:00combined with a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead.
07:09Number 13, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
07:12None of those 399 men were told they had syphilis.
07:17None of them were treated with effective panaceas.
07:21None of their families were ever warned,
07:23and none consented to take part in what is now known
07:27as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.
07:30It's unclear exactly how long the Tuskegee Syphilis Study
07:33would have gone on had not news of the scandal leaked in 1972.
07:37This was a medical study that lasted long after funding ran out.
07:40For an astonishing 40 years,
07:42it was an observation of how syphilis manifested itself
07:44in an untreated body.
07:45Information and treatments were intentionally withheld
07:47from the volunteers of the study,
07:49who were black men who were promised free health care.
07:51Hey, how come that needle's so big?
07:55I ain't never seen no needle that color, Ms. Evers.
07:57That's a gold needle.
07:58Lay down here.
07:59It's real gold?
08:00Yeah.
08:01Organizers from the United States Public Health Service,
08:03the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
08:05and the historically black Tuskegee Institute behaved unethically
08:08until they were caught.
08:10The government settled out of court for $10 million
08:12to be divided among the survivors and relatives of those who had died.
08:17Number 12, Surveillance State.
08:18Generally, there is consensus that mass surveillance is a bad thing,
08:22while targeted surveillance is tolerable
08:24because they go after very specific individuals or very specific groups.
08:29Who decides what's private?
08:30Obviously not us, since we all travel around on a daily basis
08:33with eyes of the surveillance state lurking within our pockets.
08:35The whistleblowing of Edward Snowden back in 2013
08:38essentially said out loud what many of us were already thinking in our heads.
08:42And it's become an expectation that we're being watched.
08:47Many people I've talked to have mentioned that they're careful
08:49about what they type into search engines.
08:52They're watching us, governments, telecommunications companies,
08:54and yes, our cell phones.
08:55The United States National Security Agency sees and stores all of our private data.
09:00Information that's now probably the most valuable currency in the world.
09:03Those proverbial eyes in the skies aren't the subject of scientific fiction novels anymore.
09:08They're very much real.
09:09The amount of data Prism and other monitoring programs pick up,
09:12trillions of communications each year,
09:15is so vast, NSA is building this sprawling $2 billion facility in Utah
09:20just to store it all.
09:22Number 11, Watergate.
09:24In my day it was simply known as the Double Cross.
09:27In our present context,
09:30it means infiltration of the Democrats.
09:35The members of Southern Rock icons,
09:36Lynyrd Skynyrd, may not have been bothered by Watergate,
09:39but a lot of other folks were certainly up in arms about this scandal.
09:42Now Watergate does not bother me.
09:46Uh-uh.
09:47Does your conscience bother you?
09:49It seems almost cute, given our current political climate,
09:52how a botched burglary and wiretapping affair
09:54led to the resignation of a sitting American president.
09:57The daily news cycle of an average Wednesday
09:59could potentially see stories of WTF political corruption
10:02that make Watergate seem like tiddlywinks in comparison.
10:05The staff itself was not doing very much
10:09as a matter of individual initiative.
10:12They were carrying out Richard Nixon's instructions day to day.
10:15Yet it's important to recall the shock of Watergate,
10:17of how it made even the average citizen stand up
10:20and take notice of what those in the highest offices of power
10:22were doing on the down low.
10:24The president stayed up until 1.30 a.m.,
10:26wandering the halls of the White House
10:28and reflecting on the third-rate burglary
10:30that ended his career.
10:32Number 10, CIA Mind Control.
10:35It was known as Project MKUltra,
10:37a secret U.S. government program
10:39that conducted drug experiments on Americans,
10:41often without their knowledge or consent.
10:43Prostitutes would lure men to these apartments
10:46and then once the men were in the apartments,
10:49they were dosed with LSD
10:50and then they were basically studied by CIA scientists,
10:55usually behind a two-way mirror.
10:57Specifically, MKUltra was part of a larger umbrella of projects
11:00that sought whether or not LSD could be used as a means of torture
11:04or assist in interrogation or foreign defections.
11:07These drug experiments started in the late 50s
11:09and continued into the 1970s.
11:11Subjects were chosen from a pool that could not fight back,
11:14such as prisoners, sex workers,
11:16or patients dwelling in mental hospitals.
11:18Under the direction of infamous Scottish-American psychiatrist,
11:21Dr. Ewan Cameron,
11:22unsuspecting patients,
11:23many of whom had common ailments such as postpartum depression,
11:26were experimented on with aggressive drug cocktails
11:29and extreme techniques.
11:30The CIA had many files associated with MKUltra destroyed in 1973,
11:35although some evidence was declassified in 2001.
11:38He never came out the same.
11:40He had a blank, blank look in his eye.
11:42He didn't know who we were.
11:45He didn't know we were his daughters.
11:47Number 9.
11:48The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
11:49How do you start a war?
11:51Simple.
11:52Blame it on the other guy.
11:52Did the United States falsify an attack in the South China Sea
11:55in order to justify a more intense presence in the Vietnam War?
11:59Yes and no.
12:00The truth is that the USS Maddox was attacked
12:03by three Vietnam People's Navy boats on August 2nd, 1964.
12:07The attack was a sound victory for the Maddox
12:08with no American casualties and a scattered Vietnamese fleet.
12:12However, the second attack on August 4th was a non-event,
12:15based on faulty information
12:16and a desire to drum up more support for the war at home.
12:19At daybreak, reconnaissance planes
12:21scanned the ocean for a slick of oil,
12:23a stick of wood,
12:24anything that would be evidence of a North Vietnamese attack.
12:27Nothing could be found.
12:28The declassified truth was that the USS Turner Joy fired upon nothing,
12:33while the report at the time
12:34was that more Vietnamese boats were on the Gulf of Tonkin on that day.
12:38The attacks were deliberate.
12:42The attacks were unprovoked.
12:46That too was a lie.
12:47Number 8.
12:48Spiked Punch
12:49The United States government was very intent on dissuading bootleggers
12:53and upholding prohibition laws during the 1920s and 30s.
12:56By 1929, American law enforcement is proclaiming prohibition a success.
13:03But most Americans don't buy it.
13:05They were so intent, in fact,
13:07that they even took to poisoning their own people.
13:10The process was known as denaturation of industrial alcohols,
13:13and it basically means adding dangerous chemicals to ethyl alcohol,
13:16so that it couldn't be used to produce booze.
13:18Can we do something to this alcohol that makes it much riskier to drink
13:23and use that essentially as a chemical enforcement of prohibition?
13:27The Department of the Treasury actively pressured this process
13:30to the point where it's alleged that over 10,000 people died from ingesting denatured alcohol.
13:35It's incredible to think that a country would actively poison its populace in this way,
13:39but here, truth is stranger than fiction.
13:42The federal government itself was a willing party in the poisoning of people
13:45because they were adding this to alcohol that they knew was going to be repurposed
13:51and sold as beverage alcohol.
13:53Number 7.
13:54Operation Northwoods
13:55You may have heard the term false flag operation in recent years,
13:59but do you know what it actually means?
14:01It's an old naval technique commonly used by pirates
14:03with the intent of disguising one's true intentions by committing to an act of misdirection.
14:07This document outlines the methods in which they would do just that.
14:11Specifically, one crazy idea after another.
14:15Operation Northwoods was one such event that almost came to fruition.
14:18Acts of homegrown terrorism designed to drum up support for military action against Cuba during the Cold War.
14:24The plan was for the CIA to engage in terrorism upon American targets
14:28before then blaming the actions on the Cuban government.
14:31Thankfully, President John F. Kennedy shot this plan down before it could come to pass.
14:35I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on Earth worth living.
14:42Number 6.
14:42The Iran-Contra Affair
14:44It was a scandal that rocked the Reagan administration during the 1980s.
14:48Secret backdoor dealings of military arms that led to finger-pointing excuses and depositions.
14:53What I hope is, not in doubt, however, is my commitment to the investigations themselves.
14:58The Iran-Contra Affair dealt with the United States illegally funneling weapons to the government of Iran,
15:04despite an embargo being placed on the country during this time.
15:07$30 million had been allocated for the weapons.
15:10The CIA funneled a portion of that money to the Contras in Nicaragua,
15:14the group Reagan supported in their guerrilla fight against the Sandinista government.
15:18The money from those arms was then intended to fight communism in Nicaragua,
15:22funding the right-wing Contra groups that were accused of numerous assaults to human rights,
15:27as well as acts of terrorism.
15:28Reagan called the Contras the moral equivalent of our founding fathers.
15:33There were other elements to the affair as well,
15:35including how much Reagan knew about the Contra money,
15:38as well as the proposed arms-for-hostages trades with Iran.
15:42Number 5.
15:43Prescott-Bush and the Coup
15:44The Bush family has a long political history,
15:47both with Governor Jeb Bush as well as former Presidents George W. and George Herbert Walker.
15:52The latter's father, Prescott Bush,
15:54was a particularly interesting figure in American political history,
15:58although perhaps not for what you might think.
16:00The former senator of Connecticut was allegedly involved in something called the Business Plot,
16:04a conspiracy to overthrow President Franklin Delano Roosevelt via a coup d'etat
16:08and install a dictator in his place.
16:10Wanted to establish a government modeled on Italian-style fascism.
16:14Although newspapers at the time ridiculed the allegations,
16:18Congress moved forward with a formal investigation.
16:20It should be said that opinions differ as to how far discussions of this plot went
16:24and the level of involvement Prescott-Bush possessed,
16:27but one thing's for sure,
16:28this was almost a very dark day in American history.
16:31Never before since Jamestown and Klemeth Rock
16:35has our American civilization been in such danger as now.
16:42Number 4. Project Sunshine
16:44It only took three years for the purpose of Project Sunshine to be revealed to the public,
16:49but by then, the damage had already been done.
16:51The research performed by Project Sunshine was intended to measure the effects of radioactivity
16:56upon society at large,
16:58specifically in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
17:02Unfortunately, the way in which this research was conducted is nothing short of disgraceful.
17:14So, human samples are of prime importance,
17:16and if anyone knows how to do a good job of body snatching,
17:20they will really be serving their country.
17:22Basic body snatching was the name of the game here,
17:24as remains were quite literally swept up from under the noses of unwitting victims.
17:28It's the sort of crime done in the name of science that sounds better suited to a horror movie.
17:38Number 3. Tech Espionage
17:40Whenever you're carrying a phone, whenever the phone is turned on,
17:43there's a record of your presence at that place that is being made and created by companies.
17:48The Electric Frontier Foundation is a non-profit organization that works to promote a free internet
17:53and does so while working with a number of companies and groups within the tech world.
17:57The EFF has also revealed what many of us already know,
18:01that governments seek to know more about us via our personal digital devices.
18:05NSA snooping includes the interception and collection of call detail records and internet traffic.
18:10Including audio, video, photographs, documents, chat logs, and emails.
18:16Specifically, a report from the EFF described how the companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google
18:20fielded tens of thousands of requests for personal data,
18:23while data brokers buy and sell information about what we buy and how we click on a daily basis.
18:28gives the U.S. government backdoor access to incidentally collect your information.
18:34Emails, live chats, photos, file transfers, even if you are not the target.
18:39Number 2. COINTELPRO
18:41The projects gathered under the umbrella of COINTELPRO went far beyond mere smear campaigns.
18:47No, these were intentional and relentless attacks by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
18:52against groups they considered undesirable.
18:54These included, but weren't limited to, the Black Panther Party, anti-Vietnam protesters,
18:59and even movie stars, such as Breathless star Gene Seberg.
19:02I can't pass you.
19:04Oh, my God. These are the ideas of Garçon.
19:07Media manipulation, psychological warfare, and even political assassinations were all fair game under COINTELPRO.
19:14And all committed under the direction of former FBI head J. Edgar Hoover.
19:17Secret FBI memos made public today show that the late J. Edgar Hoover ordered a nationwide campaign
19:25to disrupt the activities of the new left without telling any of his superiors about it.
19:30Legendary civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. even had his phone tapped by agents
19:35who sought to use King's marital infidelity as a means to discredit his work.
19:39The FBI at one time sought to blackmail the late Martin Luther King.
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20:00Number 1. Targeted Assassinations
20:02Some of the conspiracies discussed on this list were actually exposed to the public back in 1975 by an
20:08investigation known as the Church Committee. This committee put the plans of MKUltra, COINTELPRO,
20:13and more on the books while also revealing some even more troubling news that the CIA had been
20:18carrying out targeted assassinations. Today's open hearing did focus major attention on the way the
20:25CIA has gone about its business in the United States. What's even wilder is the reveal that the
20:30organization held in their possession something colloquially known as a heart attack gun. The
20:34weapon was battery powered and was said to inject an ice bullet that contained a poisonous shellfish toxin.
20:39In terms of its lethality, that quantity was sufficient to kill at least 14,000 people.
20:49This resulted in death by what appeared to be a heart attack, and it's been conspiratorially
20:53linked with the mysterious deaths of everyone from Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and J. Edgar Hoover himself.
21:00Did any of these political revelations shock you? Let us know in the comments.
21:04If it were administered with the sophisticated equipment that was found in the laboratory,
21:11that quantity would be sufficient to kill a great many more.