Declassified CIA documents reveal a covert program that tested the behavioral and toxicological effects of drugs and chemicals on humans and animals.
The project, known as MKOFTEN, ran from the late 1960s into the early 1970s at testing facilities, including hospitals and prisons.
A successor to the infamous MKULTRA, which secretly dosed unwitting subjects with LSD to probe mind control, MKOFTEN was primarily focused on pharmacological research.
Some reports, however, have speculated that the program also dabbled in occult practices.
That claim resurfaced this month on the comedy podcast SundayCool, whose hosts asserted that the CIA ‘went all-in on hiring Satanists and witches to see if they could weaponize the paranormal.’
While the podcast presented these ideas as fact, no official documents support such allegations.
Still, during the Cold War, secrecy and revelations about government experiments fueled pervasive fears of overreach and ‘secret science.’
That atmosphere of distrust helped give rise to enduring narratives that linked CIA research with occultism.
A 1977 report by the Department of Defense revealed how the CIA secretly used the Army and Navy as a cover to conduct drug experiments without the participants’ knowledge
MKUltra, an infamous CIA program, was led by chemist Sidney Gottlieb (pictured) to develop mind control techniques during the Cold War
According to a Department of Defense (DoD) report, MKOFTEN ‘apparently began in 1968 and was completed by 1973.’
It was conducted at the Edgewood Arsenal Research Laboratories in Maryland, which housed databases on pharmacological products.
Officials first believed that the lab only housed data, but according to the report, it was ‘testing a number of incapacitating agents in its own programs without CIA participation.’
One compound named ‘EA#3167,’ which the report noted was successful in animal testing. However, details of what it was were not provided.
Researchers also conducted testing on prisoners and military personnel at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
‘It appears that all of the test subjects were volunteers and that stringent medical safeguards and follow-up procedures were used,’ the document stated.
In 1971, the CIA joined the research at Edgewood and conducted experiments on mostly animals.
The primary effort was to determine whether EA#3167 could be used effectively if applied to the skin through a type of adhesive tape.
The DoD report revealed how payments to researchers were carried out in order to keep the agency’s role a secret
The declassified report found that CIA experiments used LSD, marijuana, heroin, and a mystery chemical called EA#3167 during interrogation sessions (Stock Image)
‘There was only one experiment that involved human subjects. In June 1973, two military volunteers were apparently tested using EA#3167,’ the report shared.
The mysterious drug was developed a decade earlier to see if it could temporarily alter people’s minds without killing them.
Reports from the experiments found it was incredibly strong, causing hallucinations, confusion, and memory loss that could last weeks with just a tiny dose.
The DoD report also showed that three CIA programs were executed by the Army, while five others involved the Navy, which primarily served as a conduit for CIA funds to contractors.
While many of these experiments took place in the US and involved volunteers from the military, at least one unknowingly drugged people attempting to flee the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Another MKULTRA experiment tested LSD in 1953, leading the family of CIA scientist Frank Olson to claim the agency unknowingly drugged and then murdered him during their secret project.
His son Eric Olson, now 81, told the Daily Mail: ‘Frank’s death was a CIA-authorized non-judicial execution. He was thrown out the f****** window.’
Dr Frank Olson, a biological warfare scientist, was covertly dosed with LSD at a meeting and died nine days later after falling out of his hotel room in New York City
In 1977, another report was released by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research.
That 173-page report exposed the CIA’s leadership of MKULTRA and the DoD’s role in channeling vast amounts of money to researchers working on mind control experiments for the intelligence community.
‘The Central Intelligence Agency drugged American citizens without their knowledge or consent. It used university facilities and personnel without their knowledge. It funded leading researchers, often without their knowledge,’ the report declared.
However, MKOFTEN and MKULTRA were not the only operations these reports uncovered. Four others were exposed in the DoD investigation in 1977.
MKDELTA was a CIA project, started in 1952, aimed at using drugs and chemicals in secret operations to control or influence people’s behavior.
MKNAOMI was active from the 1950s to 1969 and focused on creating deadly or disabling devices that could be secretly delivered during intelligence missions.
MKSEARCH ran from 1965 to 1973 and followed up on the work of MKULTRA, focusing on developing drugs to predictably change how people think or act.
Finally, MKCHICKWIT was a part of MKSEARCH and aimed to find new drugs in Europe and Asia that could be used to control a person’s mental state.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .