The CIA’s amazing bots

From the 70's indeed. In fact, it looks like the CIA tried to implement a device from 70's juvenile Sci-fi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn,_Invisible_Boy

I'm highly skeptical about that dragonfly from the 70s. I think it's a mock-up at best, there's no way they made something useful for surveillance etc the size of a large dragonfly. Not in the 70s. Researchers working on this for decades can barely do this today!

That's the recruiting pitch they use, but in all honesty, I think it's bogus. Things have changed. Researchers are now more likely to take a job elsewhere than volunteer to be locked away in the depths of Langley. We have no grand enemy and those capable of developing such technology are choosing to work for contractors instead

Background on this device: has been declassified for some time and it's main defect was that it can not function in over 2-3 knots, both from an acoustical recording quality and navigation standpoint.

>Miniature auto differential created for tiny flying robots

http://www.gizmag.com/differential-micro-air-vehicles/16250/

>Harvard University's Micro-robotics Laboratory claims to have created the first tiny micro-robotic fly able to generate enough thrust to take off. It has a wingspan of 3 cm and only weighs 0.06 grams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATZzzeipags

The CIA's always been antithetical to the "American spirit" - an intelligence organization is, by definition.

Agreed, though - it would be nice if this had seen the light of day before now, moreso given the fact that we still can't figure out how the damn thing works.

I remember an article perhaps 10 years ago about how these were displayed in the a (public?) CIA museum.

From a 2007 story in the Washington Post, "Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10... :

   Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in
   Lafayette Square last month.

  "I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college
  senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the
  hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little
  helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

  Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.

  "I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer
  said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that
  mechanical, or is that alive?' "

  That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar
  sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some
  suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools,
  perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.