Ahh, torture. That timeless art of inflicting pain on someone in terrible and creative ways. As a people we’re very good at being awful and our seemingly endless torture techniques have proven this time again.  While many kinds of torture are well known or at least obvious, no one needs to claim to have invented burning or beating someone, others are far more obscure and unexpected. 

10. The US Has Used Countless Bands as Musical Torture

There’s a good chance you’ve heard of music being used as a torture device. The stories actually get a decent amount of play in the media and the rest of us treat them like jokes because it’s silly to hear that Eminem, Drowning Pool, Skinny Puppy or Barney have been used to torture terrorism suspects or to make hostage takers give up. 

In reality, when you dig deeper into how music is used in torture, is much darker and more disturbing than you’d think. Chilean prisoners under Pinochet were subjected to musical torture, including a song called Gigi L’Amoroso or Gigi the Ladies Man. Guards would sing it and the music would be played when they engaged in other acts of torture, in particular against women. The song describes a ladies’ man, so the song as torture had an explicit layer of sexual humiliation to it.

The CIA has used Rawhide by the Blues Brothers as torture. Prisoners would be held in dark rooms and the song would play endlessly, preventing sleep and increasing confusion and disorientation. It was also used as a trigger for some. A prisoner in a silent room would suddenly hear the music and know a fresh round of torture was about to begin, thus the music itself became a punishment as it instigated the fear and anxiety of what was to come. 

9. Treadmills Were Once Used to Torture Prisoners

In 2017 there were about 53 million treadmill users in the US. It’s safe to say they’re one of the most popular machines in any gym. They were also meant to be torture devices, so keep that in mind if you ever get fed up with your workout. 

Treadmills date back to 1818 when William Cubitt invented the “everlasting staircase.” Like a modern treadmill you got on and walked and the floor kept rolling out under you. Unlike modern treadmills these were designed for prisoners and could hold 40 men at a time. They kept walking forward while their effort would turn a mill and grind corn or pump water. It would also put the prisoners through endless agony as they walked for hours and hours a day without stopping. 

By 1898 the laws changed and prisoners were no longer forced to walk the endless staircase, though the idea still seems popular with hamsters.

8. Prisoners Will Sometimes Make “Napalm” 

Not all torture is developed by a governing body and it’s hard to say if that makes it better or worse. Sometimes everyday people come up with a way to inflict pain on others and it’s very impromptu in nature. Take prison napalm, for instance. 

Real napalm is an incendiary gel. It’s made with various chemicals but it’s thick so it sticks to what it’s burning to increase damage and, if you’re unlucky, pain. Prisoners don’t have any of the chemicals needed to make napalm, but they have found a DIY version that’s just as insidious.

The basic principle is just something that burns and is thick and sticky. Inmates in an Irish prison took exception to a fellow prisoner who was convicted of killing a 16-year-old girl. They cornered him with a mixture of sugar and boiling water, a syrup but scalding hot. Reports say they added so much sugar it was close to a paste. They poured it down the man’s throat. 

Research has shown that increased sugar levels create more intense burns and that prison napalm absolutely will produce severe and painful burns, much more than boiling water alone. 

7. In the Spanish Civil War, Modern Art Was a Torture Device

We saw music used as torture, but it’s not the only art form that has been weaponized. The Spanish Civil War got a little esoteric and used modern art as torture. Prison cells in the 1930s were designed by anarchists with disorienting and “degenerative” art that was, at the time, the subject of the ire of many people, but most notably Adolf Hitler.

Hitler once stated, about Modern Art, that it’s “not the function of art to wallow in dirt for dirt’s sake” and like-minded, terrible people across Europe, including in Spain, had adopted those same ideas.

The cells were designed by a man named Alphonse Laurencic, who called it “psychotechnic torture” but later said, when he was put on trial, that he was forced to make the cells. They made use of abstract and surreal shapes and patterns, colors and even bothersome layouts like beds placed at 20-degree angles and blocks placed irregularly on the floor to make walking difficult. 

6. White Torture Is an Extreme Sensory Deprivation

There are actually several definitions of the term “white torture” which can include any kind of torture that doesn’t physically harm a victim, as in they aren’t being beaten or cut or anything. One definition is oddly literal.

True white torture can involve being trapped in a literally white room. The white lights blaze all the time, the victim only has white clothes. One victim even said he was fed white rice on white paper plates. 

In time, the lack of stimulation becomes unbearable. It has been described by those who have endured it as being worse than beatings that end in broken bones. It’s a kind of extreme sensory deprivation that the human mind cannot endure. Guards wear padded shoes so they make no sound and the prisoner is just lost in perfect, horrible white nothing. After 8 months, one prisoner was freed and could no longer even remember what his parents looked like.

5. The “Tucker Telephone” Electrocute the Genitals of Prisoners

The Tucker Telephone does not sound dangerous, and that was probably the point. It’s an innocuous name for a homemade torture device that was used at the Tucker State Prison Farm in Arkansas and it was insidious.

The Tucker Telephone was a hand-cranked generator in a box. It saw use at the facility back in 1967 and prison trustees, men who were actually inmates but put in charge of guarding and punishing others, would use it to torture inmates. All of it was sanctioned by prison officials.

A pair of wired clamps were attached to the generator. These would be applied to the victim, and the preferred sites would be a finger and the inmate’s genitals. Then the crank was turned and an electrical current would run through the victim. 

4. Bamboo Shoots Would Grow Right Through a Torture Victim’s Body

Bamboo torture is one of those things that sounds like an urban legend but there is some evidence was actually real. It was also plausible since the Mythbusters tried it out and proved it was scientifically sound, if nothing else. 

Bamboo is incredibly fast growing and also strong. The idea of the torture, which has murky origins, is that a victim is staked out on the ground above bamboo buds. One source said it was a punishment for criminals in Ceylon. Left for days, the bamboo shoots grow up and right through the victim.

The most popular version of the story suggests it was used by the Japanese during WWII. Even if there are few reports of it happening to Allies, the other references to it and the fact it can really happen certainly lend it some credence. 

3. The Stasi Engaged in a Psychological Torture Called Zersetzung

From 1950 to 1990 the Stasi were East Germany’s secret police, an all around terrible organization that engaged in espionage, kidnapping and all manners of psychological warfare under the guise of stamping out Nazism in Germany. One of their most unbelievable tactics was a psychological torture called zersetzung. It translates to something like “decomposition” or “biodegradation” and was an elaborate gaslighting technique.

Some of the process involved spreading rumors. Believable ones, nothing too out there, but also ones that couldn’t be refuted. This was to ruin credibility. They would organize “professional and social disappointments.” If you were waiting for permits and paperwork, you’d discovered it was late or even misfiled. If you wanted a job, they would tell the potential employer lies to ensure you didn’t get it. 

Personal damage could come as making it look like you’re cheating on a spouse, maybe. And one of the final phases made you feel like you were going crazy. They’d secretly break into your house and move things. They’d steal your socks, move some of your furniture, or stop your clocks.

2. Saddam Hussein was Tortured by Making Him Watch the South Park Movie

During the time of the first Gulf War no one in the world was more infamous than Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The dictator was finally captured by US forces and taken into custody in 2003. It wasn’t until 2006 that he was executed however, and in the three years he was in custody the man was tortured in one of the most bizarre ways imaginable.

Let’s go back to 1999. That was the year South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut came out. Hussein was one of the characters in that film and he has a toxic, sexual relationship with Satan because that’s how South Park works. 

When US forces had Hussein in custody, someone came up with the idea to show him the movie. Then they showed it to him again and again. There’s no word on what he thought of his depiction as being both gay and worse than Satan, but it’s probably safe to assume he wasn’t a fan. 

As for the creators of South Park, the army gifted them with a signed Saddam Hussein photo. 

1. A School in the US is Legally Allowed to Shock Students

Most torture victims are people who the torturer deemed worthy of that torture. They “deserved it,” so to speak. But sometimes you hear of an even more insidious kind of torture, one conducted on someone innocent, for the sadistic pleasures of the torturer. This one seems to be closer to that because the justification for this being needed is very hard to swallow.

In the US, right now, there is a facility called the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center. It is a private residential school and many of the students there are autistic or have developmental and emotional issues. The school uses a GED or graduated electronic decelerator on students. It sends an electric shock through the skin by way of electrodes wired to a battery and it can be controlled remotely by a teacher.

One student described being eight years old and getting hooked up to the device. They attacked electrodes to his legs that were connected to a car battery. The car battery was placed in a backpack he had to wear. If he misbehaved, the teacher would press a button and shock him.

In 2020 the FDA banned the device but the school appealed and actually won, because it was outside the FDA’s authority and the device is medical in nature. The school defends this by saying it’s a last resort and those who get it are at risk of grievous bodily harm or even death without it. They claim it curbs aggression and self harm.

In the past, students have been repeatedly shocked after prank calls ordered staff to do so. In another case a student was shocked multiple times for not taking his jacket off.

Are you experiencing symptoms of imbalanced frequencies? Low cellular voltage? Psychic aberrations? Well, sit back and relax. There’s a wellness device just for you—even if you don’t feel diseased.

Warning: This list may contain misinformation, if the title wasn’t enough indication already.

10. Spooky2

Did you know that all medical conditions have specific electromagnetic frequencies? If you did, you’ve probably heard of the Rife machine. Invented in the 1920s, it delivers pulses of electromagnetism to cure almost any disease. Unfortunately for the inventor, and possibly for the world, mainstream science was hostile. The earnest engineer Royal Raymond Rife died penniless and embittered, and, in the years since, his already ruined legacy has been further sullied by snake oil salesmen and scandals.

More recently, however, especially during the feeding frenzy of COVID-19, Rife has made a big comeback. Marketed on Facebook as “the affordable Rife device for every home,” Spooky2 Scalar controversially promised to “protect you and your family from this terrible virus.” Supplied with a specific frequency for stopping the disease, as per Rife’s theories, the device came with additional assurance that “scalar energy provides optimal energetic support for the immune system.” The Federal Trade Commission disagreed and sent the company a warning. But don’t let that slow you down. The basic kit only costs $1,600 and comes in a reassuringly rugged briefcase with a cutesy smiling ghost logo.

9. Electropsychometer

Despite what Scientologists would have you believe, the E-meter wasn’t invented by L. Ron Hubbard. The Electropsychometer, as it was originally called, was invented by Volney Mathison, a chiropractor, for use in psychotherapy or analysis. This is ironic given Hubbard’s avowed antipathy to psychotherapists. But he had another use in mind: falsifying serious aberrations or criminality in a user with so-called “discreditable reads”. This is Scientology’s on-ramp.

The Church’s E-meters are assembled at Gold Base, California, a high-security compound under constant armed guard. Each unit usually costs $4,000, but you can pick up non-affiliated Electropsychometers or ex-Scientologist (FreeZone) E-meters for less. Just have a look on eBay.

They’re no more than crude lie detectors, polygraphs lite, galvanometers with tin can electrodes. Powered by leaky batteries, all they do is gauge your skin’s electrical resistance. Hubbard, however, believed (or pretended) the device could eliminate illness—for which the government sued him. Nowadays even the Church admits the device can do nothing by itself. But in the hands of an unscrupulous entrepreneur… Remember: you can’t help anyone until you get rich.

8. BioResonance Machine

Internal organs playing up? Don’t delay! Scan them for imbalanced frequencies and perform a non-linear statistical analysis today! All your organs, cells, and tissues emit electromagnetic waves, don’t you know, and their frequency changes in response to different stresses. In fact (or whatever), each disease has its own “signature resonance frequency”. So it’s possible to scan for pretty much anything without an invasive procedure. Simply attach the electrodes.

Developed (and presumably abandoned) by Russian scientists in the 1990s, this technology has now been perfected by the wizards at OBERON in Florida. Not only can the BioResonance Machine scan your organs for diseases; it can also heal them in no time—in the comfort of your home! It’s just a matter of altering your damaged cells’ frequencies via headphones.

There are no side effects, no chemicals, and no inconvenience, and it works best alongside good nutrition and other treatments… Yes, that’s consistent with placebo—but don’t be a sheep. Another bioresonance company, Rayonex Biomedical, actually has clinical proof of efficacy for cervical spine syndrome, or neck pain. Okay, so pain is easily treated by placebo, and yes, the study was conducted by Rayonex itself, and yes, they seem reluctant to carry out more trials given there’s no evidence—only anecdotes—for the other conditions listed. But did we mention it’s non-invasive?

7. Stimulations VII

Small cup size getting you down? Forget surgery. The Stimulations VII vacuum device can permanently, non-invasively, expand your lilliputian breast tissue. Just place the self-sealing dome over your bust and activate the pump for an enlargement of up to four cup sizes! It can even regrow breasts that were surgically removed by mastectomy. 

Well, that’s if you can find a Stimulations VII on the market. In the early 2000s, one ungrateful customer took the Iowa-based manufacturer, New Womyn, to court for refusing to refund her $2,000. She hadn’t read the small print. By “18-month money-back guarantee,” the company meant she had to use the device for 18 months before she was eligible for a refund. And she would only be eligible if, throughout that time, she’d visited a doctor once a month.

Fair enough. But she kicked up a stink all the same and poor Dan Kaiser, New Womyn’s CEO, was ordered to pay a $90,000 civil penalty.

6. BioPhotonic Scanner

If you’re the sort to wonder how many carotenoids you’ve got in your skin, this device is for you. If you don’t care, this device is also for you—because you should care, what’s the matter with you. Carotenoids are antioxidants that give orange, red, and yellow plants their color. They include beta-carotene, lutein, and lycopene, among others. And, according to experts, they may be one reason why eating fruits and vegetables lowers the risk of disease. What the BioPhotonic Scanner does is check that you’ve eaten enough (which, if you suffer from anterograde amnesia like in 50 First Dates and don’t like keeping a food diary, is no small thing).

Critics say it only measures carotenoids in the skin, and isn’t a reliable measure of your overall antioxidant status. But their only basis for saying so is the total lack of scientific evidence—which means their argument falls down as well. If there’s even a remote chance the BioPhotonic Scanner can measure your antioxidant health, can you really afford not to buy one? Just think of the money you could save at the greengrocer, knowing when to stop buying vegetables.

Plus, if your scan shows sub-optimal carotenoid levels, the same company that sold you the scanner will sell you antioxidant supplements. Beat that for convenience.

5. BioCharger

Sometimes all you need is some more “subtle energy”. Invented by Jim Girard, the BioCharger delivers pulsed harmonics, at a frequency of your choice, to weakly vibrating cells—re-energizing and revitalizing your natural magnetic energy, aligning your mind and body, and raising your cellular voltage. Sure, you can do the same by walking barefoot, releasing negative emotions, listening to pure sounds, and drinking alkaline water, but this is a lot more expensive.

According to the shut-ins at BioCharger, “over 90% of our day is spent indoors, blocked from nature’s vital energies.” They’re not suggesting you go outside; this machine is a high-tech alternative. Anyway, at $15,000, you’ll have to stay in to afford one. Don’t worry about the science; there are loads of testimonials. There’s also a 45-day guarantee, so there’s really nothing to lose besides the non-refundable $250 shipping fee.

With its plasma gas spectrum tubes and menacing red glow, the BioCharger certainly looks the part. Nobody has to know it doesn’t work. You could even make your money back by charging friends for treatment! That’s what Michael Nguyen does; the fecal transplant enthusiast is one of the BioCharger’s most high-profile advocates and even he admits it’s a glorified placebo about as effective as journaling. He still uses it, though, and so should you.

4. Electro Physiological Feedback Xrroid

In 2005, an Oklahoma woman suffering joint and leg pain wisely entrusted her health to the EPFX quantum biofeedback device. That her husband died using it for cancer didn’t matter; she believed it could nurse her back to health. The worst of her husband’s illness—the side effects of chemotherapy—she rightly blamed on the hospital. Neither does it matter that she died the same year.

EPFX salesmen have only good things to say. Even the developer himself, cross-dressing self-described genius William Nelson, who as a teenager helped NASA save Apollo 13, says it cures cancer and AIDS. Stinking rich from selling the things—17,000 of them at 20 grand a piece—he’s got a Budapest mansion with servants and a movie studio. When he’s not on tour giving pep talks to salesmen, he stars in his own movies about saving the world from the villainous FDA. He also has eight doctorates. But that’s all by the by.

EPFX treats the root cause of illness, not just the symptoms. It also has a display to watch healing occur in real time. Arterial cholesterol blockages, for example, appear as little white blobs that shrink and disappear during treatment. Similar to the BioResonance Machine, EPFX detects electrical imbalances (voltage, amperage, electron pressure, and so on) and immediately sets about correcting them.

3. Zapper

Finally, a wellness device that doesn’t bamboozle with a high-sounding sciencey name. Invented by Hulda Clark, doctor of physiology (okay, zoology), the Zapper kills parasites, bacteria, and viruses without harming bodily tissue. It does this by delivering low-voltage electrical zaps through the two supplied handheld electrodes. Not good enough? We can see you’re a sharp one. Why not ride business class with the Orgone Zapper model, which not only zaps but orgone-heals too. Just don’t use a Zapper if you’re wearing a pacemaker! Or pregnant, for that matter, as it can’t tell parasites from babies.

Even if you’re not suffering an infestation, the Zapper may still be for you. Some users report an aura-enhancing effect from just half an hour of use. Clark recommended only seven-minute sessions, but we use it for as long as we like. Just stop when you start seeing burn marks. And show no fear! Sweat can be a problem.

We know what you’re thinking. You can do all this yourself with a car battery, right? But Clark’s Zapper comes with positive offset square wave—and you don’t know what that is, do you?

2. Ozone generator

Hole in the ozone layer, bad. Therefore ozone, good. Therefore pumping the stuff right into your home, even better. It’s unimpeachable reasoning like this that brought us the ozone generator, improving the lives of thousands of investors and salesmen. There are always naysayers, of course: the Environmental Protection Agency, the American Lung Association, the Food and Drug Administration, and various so-called scientists, all of whom insist that ozone is harmful at high concentrations indoors. They’ll tell you it takes years for ozone to eliminate toxins, and that in doing it’ll release a lot more.

But forget about that and think about this: if it’s harmful to us, it’s harmful to parasites—bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens. So there’s really no surer way to banish stink and disease from your home. Besides, ozone is all-natural. Just plug the mechanical discharge unit into the mains and a high-voltage electrical field will do the rest, transforming all your smelly used oxygen into pure, clean ozone.

1. Hyper Dimensional Resonator

This one’s a little different. It’s a radionic time travel device that can help with astral projection by emitting unlimited white chi energy. Invented on a farm in Nebraska in 1981, it’s actually the souped-up version of an earlier prototype, the Sonic Resonator. The main improvement is a caduceus coil electromagnet. Operation is simple. Strap on the time-coil headband, spit in the witness well, add a quartz crystal, place the electromagnet between your legs, and turn the dials to the date you wish to visit. (Both go up to 10.) Then meditate while rubbing the rubbing plate. You should be transported—astrally, unless you happen to be sitting on a grid point or vortex, in which case physically—to your desired spacetime coordinates.

Users commonly find themselves aboard UFOs, in other countries, or in parallel dimensions and time lines. Some have returned with objects, only to see them disintegrate. Other times it’s more subtle. One user, after a seemingly unsuccessful session, woke up feeling strange like he was in the wrong place. His suspicions were confirmed when he opened the fridge and couldn’t find the cookie dough he left there. He called his wife at work and was astonished to hear there wasn’t any there in the first place. Another got to use it with the inventor himself, back in 1989: “When he turned it on, clouds formed in the room, and sparks danced around the chandelier.” At first it seemed like nothing had happened, but when she next sat down to watch her favorite movie, Shane, “dialogue she’d memorized was altered or spoken by different characters.” She said it scared her to death.

But don’t be put off; the Hyper Dimensional Resonator is a wellness device. Consistent use can nurture your spiritual growth. Just don’t get blood in the witness well; it’ll attract demons.

There’s nothing like a good spy movie. Whether a gritty true-life story or the iconic James Bond, we love spies and their craft. Our love affair started when the cold war left us looking for a hero. We needed someone brave enough and crazy enough to take on anyone attempting to destroy the world. Enter Bond, James Bond.

Dashing, intelligent, and brave, Bond burst on the scene with fast cars and beautiful women. Fierce enough to take on any enemy, accomplished in hand-to-hand combat, and able to use every weapon created, he was ready for whatever came his way.

But a spy’s clandestine activities also call for tactics known in the intelligence community as Tradecraft—clever disguises, surveillance, coded messages, and sneaking in and out of places undetected. Here is where it gets fascinating because Tradecraft went to a whole new level when our heroes were given gadgets. What would a Hollywood spy movie be without cool devices? And the more outlandish they are, the more we love them.

Do spies really use cool gadgets like in Hollywood movies? Yes, they do! Obviously, intelligence agencies have only declassified a fraction of the many devices their agents have used throughout history. But here are 10 intriguing spy devices that we know of.

Related: 10 Famously Hard-Core Female Spies

10 The Lipstick Pistol

You remember the scene—Helga Brandt and James Bond are traveling in a small plane. Helga applies a little lipstick and casually says, “I’m awfully sorry to leave you, but I have to get off.” Then, dropping her lipstick to release a disorientating gas, she parachutes out, leaving Bond trapped in a plane about to crash. Who would have suspected a little tube of lipstick of being a deadly weapon? And really, it’s a pretty good distraction. From Rita Hayworth to Claire Standish’s cleavage applicator in The Breakfast Club, men have always been beguiled by a woman applying lipstick.

Unfortunately, if you were an enemy of the KGB in the 1960s, watching a woman put on her lipstick could also have been deadly because female KGB operatives were carrying 4.5mm single-shot “lipstick” pistols as weapons. No one knows how many men were assassinated after meeting up with these lipstick-pistol-packing KGB agents, but the International Spy Museum displays one confiscated from a KGB agent in the mid-1960s. These Soviet-issued lipstick pistols were known as the “Kiss of Death.”^[1]

9 Shoe Heel Transmitters

What can you do with a shoe? If you’re agent Maxwell Smart, you can make a call. While this sitcom spy had a telephone in the heel of his shoe, in the world of espionage, you’d have a secret transmitter. During the ’60s and ’70s, the Romanian Secret Service worked with their postal service to intercept and place devices in the shoe heels of Western diplomats in Eastern Europe who mail-ordered their shoes from Western European stores. They also planted agents at hotels where they had access to the rooms of American diplomats. Once they gained access to their shoes, battery-powered microphones and transmitters were hidden in the heels. The transmitters functioned until their batteries died.

This scheme enabled them to listen to meetings the diplomats attended until the bugs were finally discovered. When the meeting rooms were swept, the recording devices gave off a signal that the diplomats’ security staff kept picking up but couldn’t locate. Then they noticed the signal disappeared every time the diplomats left the room, and the devices were found.^[2]

8 Pigeon Cameras

It’s not often you get to applaud pigeons, but these often misaligned birds have been awarded Medals of Honor for distinguished military service. When it comes to Spycraft, pigeons aren’t high-tech, but once they played a vital role in the gathering and exchanging information.

In 1908, Dr. Julius Neubronner was granted a patent with the German Patent Office for the pigeon camera he developed. He initially sold aerial shots taken by pigeons as postcards. However, in WWI, these aerial photographers were used for a very different purpose.

Cameras were strapped onto pigeons “serving” in the National Pigeon Service (Special Section) to pinpoint enemy locations, determine what weapons they had, and create topographical maps. They were also used to deliver messages and information when radio signals were weak or being intercepted, resulting in lives being saved. When flying into enemy fire, pigeons had a 95% success rate of finishing their mission. These brave birds were responsible for much of the vital information we obtained.

Considered equal to the Congressional Medal of Honor or the Victoria Cross, the Dickin Medal of Honor was created to honor animals who aided the war efforts. Of the 54 Medals awarded, 32 went to pigeons, including The Scotch Lass, who continued to fly injured to deliver vital micro-photographs to allied troops in the Netherlands.^[3]

7 Bulletproof Headphones

Picture a small room in an abandoned building or the back of an unmarked van. Inside, an operative wearing headphones listens to conversations, sending and receiving information and triangulating locations. It all seems pretty routine unless something goes horribly wrong, and it often does.

That’s just what happened in 2009 in Afghanistan when a CIA officer found himself trapped in an alley with an armed gunman. The agent was shot twice with a rifle. A shot hit each of his headphones on either side, protecting him from receiving two bullets to the head. So, maybe they weren’t exactly bulletproof…a few inches to the right or left, and the agent wouldn’t have survived. But maybe the government can work on perfecting the design.^[4]

6 Dog Doo Transmitter

Known formally as T-1151, this important device was more often called the Doo Radio Transmitter. Designed to resemble dog, tiger, or monkey poop, it was used in Vietnam to track the movement of enemy troops and supply caravans and aid in planning military strikes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Both the military and CIA monitored their transmissions. More often than not, people avoid touching poop and seldom think of it as a secret weapon, so they were rarely discovered.^[5]

5 Insectothoper

Spy agencies need to be good at bugging conversations. The CIA is no exception, so in the 1970s, they created the Insectothoper. This mini robot was shaped like a dragonfly with a little engine and a tiny microphone inside its head. It could fly 650 feet for about 30 seconds, just enough to land next to someone whose conversation they wanted to hear. It worked well indoors, but outside they discovered it was too light to handle even slight breezes, which prevented it from being controlled.

The idea of using bugs to bug people appealed to the Russians as well. In 1976, the KGB unsuccessfully attempted to copy the insectothoper—or did they? The CIA now successfully deploys remote-controlled insectothopers much smaller than the original dragonfly.^[6]

4 A Fish Called Charlie

In the 1990s, the CIA’s Office of Advanced Technologies developed Charlie. Like Starkist’s Charlie the Tuna, Charlie was a fish. But this Charlie was actually a remote-controlled robotic catfish. Like all good clandestine spy gadgets, Charlie had a microphone inside him and was so realistic he could be mistaken for an actual catfish. He was one of the CIA’s early attempts at creating unmanned underwater vehicles for intelligence purposes. Charlie was supposedly for collecting water samples near nuclear power plants. The idea has since spawned other robotic fish used by universities for testing water.^[7]

3 Scrotum Concealment

In the world of Spycraft, it’s often necessary to think creatively when it comes to concealment. This gadget proves just how creative the CIA can be. A downed fighter pilot who had to eject needed a way of communicating his location in order to be rescued. But where could he hide a mini radio that wouldn’t be located if he was captured and searched?

The CIA’s department of Science, Technology, and Weapons found a place! Called the Scrotum Concealment, it was designed to look like, well…a scrotum. This device would be glued into place until needed and then yanked off. Inside was a mini radio that pilots could use to call for help. For mortifying reasons, the scrotum device was never approved for use.^[8]

2 Bulgarian Umbrella

In For Your Eyes Only, Q shows Bond what looks like a regular umbrella. When activated, spikes come out as it closes over a person’s head, causing death. For Georgi Markov, death came on September 7, 1978, from a Bulgarian Umbrella Gun.

A Bulgarian dissident writer who defected to Italy in 1968, Markov ended up in London working for the BBC World Service. For his crimes, Bulgaria’s communist dictator, Todor Zhivkov, ordered him killed. Markov was walking in broad daylight when he felt a sharp stinging pain in his leg. Turning, he saw a man behind him with an umbrella quickly get in a taxi and disappear.

Markov’s death was neither quick nor pleasant. Performed at Wandsworth Public Mortuary, the autopsy revealed his lungs were filled with fluid, his liver damaged, and his blood poisoned. In addition, his intestines, heart, and other organs had hemorrhaged, and his white blood cell count was exceedingly high. A puncture wound in his right thigh had a hollowed-out metal pellet inside. Forensic investigations revealed the wound did not come from a standard gun. His symptoms added to the fact that the Soviet Union was experimenting with Ricin led officials to determine that Markov had been killed by this caster bean derivative.

Scotland Yard believed the assassin used a seemingly innocuous umbrella, altered to inject poisonous Ricin pellets by pulling the umbrella’s trigger. Ricin is a cruel killer. In addition to the symptoms above, it causes fever, difficulty breathing, vomiting, and diarrhea. It takes days to die. Markov never saw a threat coming and never stood a chance. Eventually, KGB defectors Oleg Kalugin and Oleg Gordievsky corroborated that the KGB gave the weapon to Bulgarian Secret Service agent Francesco Gullino to carry out the assassination.^[9]

An entire room filled with Umbrella Guns was discovered in Bulgaria in 1991.

1 The Rectal Tool Kit

What spy wants to be without a good tool kit? The world of espionage is a deadly one, where being captured can mean not only death and torture but also the possibility of information getting into enemy hands. Because of this, the CIA’s Technical Division created the Rectal Tool Kit. This sealed, oblong-shaped case contained numerous items that could be utilized for escaping, such as lock picks, drill bits, knives, and miniature saws. It was designed so agents could put it someplace no one expected anyone to look if they were searched. The Rectal Tool Kit was issued to agents by the CIA in the 1960s.^[10]

These are just some of the gadgets created for secret agents. There are many others—Caltrops, the KGB Model F-21 Coat Button Camera, the list goes on and on. The Deutsches Spionagemuseum in Berlin, KGB Espionage Museum and Spyscape in NYC, and the International Spy Museum in Washington DC are filled with gadgets used by spies to do clandestine surveillance, defend themselves, and eliminate enemies when necessary. But with tens of thousands of gadgets remaining classified, we may never know just how many cool gadgets exist in the world of Spycraft.

Throughout history, human beings have created extremely cruel torture devices designed to cause huge pain. While some of these devices were designed to face a slow, painful death, many inflicted so much pain and left such damage that the victims died of blood-loss or infections. Many torture methods and contractions, like the head crushers, breast ripper, or crocodile shears, which were designed to deform the victim, but ended up killing the victim. But many torture devices left the victim to deal with lifelong agony and deformity. Let us take a look at Cruel Torture Devices Designed to Cause Huge Pain.

10 Most Cruel Torture Devices of All Time:

10. Scold’s Bridle

16th century Scotland and England used Scold’s Bridle on women considered as witches, shrews or scolds, particularly for public humiliation. It was an iron mask which attached to a helmet. The contraption was attached to the head of the woman, and the bridle-bit, which measured 2” long and 1” wide, and was studded with spikes, would be inserted into the mouth. This effectively stopped the person from speaking or even moving the tongue, or she would undergo cause immense pain.

9. Tongue Tearer

A Tongue Tearer looked like an extra-large pair of scissors. It was used to cut off the tongue of the victim without any effort. The mouth of the victim would first be forced open using a device called a mouth opener. After that the Tngue Tearer, made of iron, would be used to firmly clasp his tongue with the rough grippers of the device. The tongue of the person being tortured would then be twitched uncomfortably. Then, after tightening the screw, tongue would be torn out roughly.

8. Lead Sprinkler

A Lead Sprinkler was one of the cruel torture devices designed to cause huge pain. The device was usually filled with molten lead, though other liquids such as tar, boiling oil, water, etc., were also used, at high temperature, which could severely scald skin. The victim was tortured using this device by dripping the hot and burning content onto the stomach or other parts of the body, including the eyes. Even molten silver would be poured on the victim’s eyes, to produce the most fatal effects.

7. Knee Splitter

Knee Splitters were employed in the 12th century, during the Inquisition. The contraption had two wooded blocks with spikes. The number of spikes ranged from 3 to 20, and depended on the gravity of the crime committed by the person being punished. These spikes are driven into the flesh of the victim, and once the spikes are embedded into the victim’s leg, the blocks are drawn closer to each other using two large screws, to slowly pulverize the knee, just as the device’s name suggests.

6. Thumb Screws

Thumb Screws, also called Pilliwinks, were used in Medieval Europe as a cruel torture devices designed to cause huge pain. It was used to crush the thumb, fingers and toes of the victim, which were inserted into the contraption, with screws cranking down to pulverize the digits. Sometimes, the crushing bars would have spikes to intensify the pain. Weirdly, during Renaissance eras of England, these were used to straighten and elongate a woman’s fingers, to make them elegant.

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5. Heretic’s Fork/Neck Torture

Heretic’s Fork was metal device with two bi-pronged forks attached to a belt strapped round the victim’s neck, with one fork pointed to the chin, and the other to the sternum, while the victim remained suspended. The device prevented sleep, because, the prongs would pierce their throat and chest if the head dropped. The Neck Torture worked similarly, with a metal or wooden device studded with spikes around the victim’ neck preventing eating, lying down, or any other activity.

4. Scavenger’s Daughter

Queen Elizabeth I used Scavenger’s Daughter, also called Skeffington’s gyves, invented by a Brit named Skevington, against Protestants accused of treason. The apparatus had an iron hoop. The victim had to to sit on one half of it, with the other half crushing him further into an involuntary rigid crouch, as the screw would tighten the hinge in the middle. This would eventually crack the victim’s ribs and breastbone and dislocate the spine. It could even lead to bleeding from fingertips and face.

3. Rack/Horse/Strappado

The Rack, used in Europe, came in many forms, like the Horse. Basically, the victim would be tied down, as a mechanical device, tightened the rope to dislocate the joints, often long enough to tear the limbs off. In case of a Horse, the victim was to the top of a beam, i.e. Horse-back, facing up, while, pulleys below tightened the ropes. The Strappado, used in Palestine, does not have a base for the body to lie on, but the tied arms were wrenched out of the joints of the hanging prisoner.

2. Pear of Anguish

Pears of Anguish were metal tools, mainly for women. Different kinds were inserted into the vagina of a woman, or the mouth or throat of the person being tortured. Shaped like a pear, the device had four ‘leaves’ which were operated by a screw at the top. Once inserted into the orifice of a person for abortion, witchery, miscarriage, homosexuality, adultery, blasphemy, lies, etc., to spread it open, tearing the muscles, causing permanent internal damage, or to dislocate or break jawbones.

1. The Judas Cradle

Judas Cradle was torture device, not designed to kill, but to inflict pain and humiliation. With a steel collar attached to the victim’s waist, a pyramid-shaped tool would be impaled into his intently stretched orifice. The pressure caused excessive pain. The torturer could lift the victim with rope and pulley system and lower him again, driving the penetrative part deeper into the victim. Torture sessions lasted for days. Also, the device was rarely washed, causing life-threatening infections.

The physical conditions in which the victims were left from the cruel torture devices designed to cause huge pain would not only incapacitate them, but also screamed of their criminal history, almost always, even if the crimes were as trivial as petty theft, or they were not criminals, at all, and yet were punished on the basis of just accusation, or for alternate sexuality. Though not a frequent happening, death occurred, too. If that didn’t happen, the torturers and punishers made sure that these torture devices were supplemented with other forms of painful torture and humiliation.

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