Secrets of the CIA: from fake town where spooks learn to survive torture to secret museum & mind control experiments
TERRIFYING mind control experiments, a secret town where spies learn to survive torture and a hidden museum most of us will never see.
These may sound like the makings of a top action film, but they're actually just some of the secret inner workings of the CIA.
The Central Intelligence Agency is known for its complete mystery - but every so often, it invites wannabe spooks to get involved with a surprise puzzle online.
The latest one challenged Twitter users to "put your analytical skills to the test" by working out the time of day in a ski resort street scene.
In reality, however, it takes a whole lot more to stand a chance of working for the agency - and you have to be prepared for some shocking sights.
From chilling mind control experiments using drugs, hypnosis and electronic devices that inspired a harrowing storyline in Stranger Things, to the gruelling training process spies go through, we look at some of its top secrets...
Simulated town where trainees 'learn to survive torture'
While training differs for all CIA agents, some are tested in secret in a simulated 'town' called the 'Farm'.
Former agent Amaryllis Fox, 40, who is the wife of Senator Robert F. Kennedy's grandson, Bobby Kennedy III, opened up on her own experience there in her memoir, Life Undercover, last year.
"Because of its proximity to (Bin Laden) there on the third floor in the compound, our analyst determined it to be his. It's a Russian AK with counterfeit Chinese markings."
According to the news outlet, the five exhibits inside are packed full of real paraphernalia dating back to World War II.
Other items are said to include a terrorist training manual found in Afghanistan after 9/11, shrapnel that struck a spy plane over North Vietnam and an underwater spy drone made to look like a catfish.
There's also a scale-model of the Abbottabad compound and a section of a wall that was part of the life-size mock-up of the compound used by the SEALs to train for the raid.
Agency officials reportedly call it “the coolest museum you’ll never see".
Mind control programme's 'chilling experiments'
Perhaps one of the most shocking revelations came in 2018, when documents were released revealing the inside secrets of a series of chilling mind-control experiments carried out by the CIA.
The programme of human experiments was carried out in the early 50s until it was official halted in 1973 - after it was linked to the death of scientist Frank Olson, who plunged to his death from a 13th storey window after being secretly dosed with acid.
The overall aim was said to be to identify and develop mind-control drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations and torture in a bid to force confessions and control behaviour.
The CIA reportedly wanted "people who couldn't fight back" and often bribed heroin addicts into taken LSD with offers of more heroin.
They claimed prisoners were deprived of food, water and sleep, as well as given threats.
However, the sources claimed one man, Zain Abidin Mohammed Husain Abu Zubaydah, was subjected to multiple methods - allegedly including being kept awake longer than the prescribed 11 days, and having cold water poured on his naked body.
It's claimed he was then put in a cage and forced to listen to the loud music.
'Secret coffee shops and mysterious sculpture'
It's no big surprise that security is tight in the CIA headquarters - but it's more extreme than many may realise.
The Starbucks there, known as Store Number 1, is banned from asking customers their name for orders - the only one in the world with the rule.
And according to , staff in the coffee shop had to have rigorous background checks before being hired.
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Meanwhile, there's also an encrypted statue there called Kryptos, by the American artist Jim Sanborn, which was installed in the 1990s.
While three of the four encrypted messages are said to have been solved, the last one remains one of the most famous unsolved codes in the world.