Sneaky Facts About Spies

British author Ian Fleming, who created the character James Bond was a SPY himself during world war II.

Aldrich Ames started working for the U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY when he was in HIGH SCHOOL. Thirty years later, he was caught as a soviet DOUBLE AGENT.

In the james bond movies q makes futuristic gadgets and weapons for 007’s missions. the character is based on a real inventor who mastered disguising tools in ordinary objects like a tiny metal saw sewn inside shoelaces.

Bugs, which are small microphones, can be put inside everyday objects like pens to pick up conversations without being obvious.

Why do you US secret service agents talk into their watches? Because there is a tiny microphone inside used to talk to one another without drawing too much attention. Agents also wear an earpiece to listen for instructions.

An umbrella doesn’t seem like much of a spy weapon – but in the 1970s a spy used one to shoot a poison filled pellet at an unsuspecting man.

Some female spies during World War 2 gathered intelligence by posing as everyday housewives and using cameras described as purses.

Perry the Platypus, the secret agent platypus on the Disney show Phineas and Ferb, as his own theme song.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency once strapped cameras on pigeons trained to fly over enemy targets.

Josephine Baker, an American actress and dancer, volunteered to be a spy for the allies during World War 2. She passed along information she heard from Italians and Germans at parties.

During the American Revolution both sides used invisible ink when sending messages in the hopes they wouldn’t be detected. An invisible message was often written between the lines of an ordinary letter.  When the recipient of the letter heated or soaked the letter in chemicals the message was revealed.

Special cameras can take pictures of text or images and shrink them down to the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Called microdots these easily hide information. In the movie Mission Impossible III a microdot was placed on the back of a stamp but instead of text it held a tiny video.

To catch a spy invisible detection powder can be applied to important paper. The powder blows on the spies hands under ultraviolet light – proof of snooping.

Spies are in space – in the form of satellites. Special satellites can see a grapefruit sitting on a picnic table from 250 miles (400 kilometers) above earth.

Spy kids: All The Time In The World added an extra D to 3D. In addition to the 3D glasses, movie goers got scratch and sniff cards so they could take in the smells of the film – from baking to candy to poop.

 

Source: 5,000 Awesome Facts About Everything – National Geographic Kids