This episode is brought to you by Ground News. Subscribe for 40% off their vantage plan at groundnews.com/tables. Project MKUltra was a secret research program run by the Central Intelligence Agency beginning in 1953 during the Cold War. Its goal was to explore methods of mind control, interrogation, and psychological manipulation, partly out of fear that rival nations like the Soviet Union were developing similar techniques.

The program funded dozens of experiments at universities, hospitals, and prisons. Researchers tested drugs such as LSD, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, electroshock, and other methods to see whether human behavior and memory could be controlled. Many subjects were not informed they were part of experiments, and some were exposed to powerful drugs without consent.

The program remained secret until the 1970s, when investigations by the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities revealed the experiments. Much of the documentation had already been destroyed on orders from CIA director Richard Helms.

MKUltra became one of the most controversial intelligence programs in U.S. history and led to new oversight of intelligence agencies and stricter ethical rules for human experimentation.

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