In any movie or TV show about crime you know things are serious when the FBI shows up. The FBI is like the big leagues of criminal investigation, none of this amateur junk dealing with small time crime. This is for serial killers and organized crime and international drug smuggling.  Yep, the FBI are the real professionals. Except for when they screw up really, really badly.

10. For Decades the FBI Produced Flawed or Altered Evidence in Hundreds of Trials

Many people in the Western world have a passing familiarity with the criminal justice system not by firsthand experience but through fiction. Shows like Law and Order and CSI have routinely been in the most watched television shows for decades with hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide. CSI even spawned the idea of the “CSI Effect,” which blames the show for skewing the way jurors expect evidence to be presented in trials, despite the fact that real world evidence of the effect is harder to nail down. 

Whether the effect is real, the anecdotal ideas that come with it are generally accepted. Agencies like the FBI should collect forensic evidence that can be used at trial to help put bad guys away! Except we have evidence that the FBI bungled that harder than you could ever imagine.

In 2015, the FBI admitted that, for nearly two decades leading up to the year 2000, almost all the evidence given at trial by almost all of their experts in the microscopic hair comparison unit was utter trash. Twenty-six of the 28 experts overstated matches, which is a fancy way of saying they lied, in a way that favored the prosecution. They did this in 95% of nearly 300 trials that were reviewed.

This scandal was part of a much larger issue with FBI abuses of evidence that was kicked off all the way back in 1994 by a whistleblower named Dr. Frederic Whitehurst. Whitehurst noted systemic abuses including altered reports, alterations of evidence and people testifying outside their areas of expertise. 

Because he was reporting the FBI to itself, it was years before anything came of Whitehurst’s revelations. A full decade passed before the Justice Department finished their own investigation, which only took place after the FBI ignored Whitehurst and he had to go to outside sources.

Some cases Whitehurst brought up with flawed practices included the OJ trial, Oklahoma City, and the first World Trade Center bombing.

9. Counterintelligence Agent Robert Hanssen was a Russian Spy

Any organization probably doesn’t want a spy on the payroll. That’s as true of a weapon’s manufacturer as it is of KFC, what with that secret recipe of theirs. But a place like the FBI needs to be really careful about moles or else it triggers a whole Mission: Impossible scenario that probably even Tom Cruise can’t fix. 

Luckily, the FBI is on top of this kind of thing as has people on staff whose job it is to hunt down moles and eliminate them. People like Robert Hanssen who, ironically, turned out to be the mole he was hunting. What are the odds?!?

Hanssen became an agent back in 1976. Over the course of his career he provided the Soviet Union and later Russia with an abundance of top secret info for which they paid him $1.4 million. Some of that was even in diamonds, which is very James Bondian. He was caught in 2001. 

Hanssen was a counterintelligence agent, which made him very effective at being a spy since it was his job to detect people doing what he was doing. He even got a CIA agent investigated for two years as both agencies knew someone was leaking info, they just did not know who.

When he was finally caught, it was the result of 300 other agents actively investigating him. He ended up being sentenced to life in prison where he died in 2023. The FBI called him “the most damaging spy in Bureau history.”

8. The FBI Had Trouble Finding Cybersecurity Experts Because Of Their Own Policies

While one stereotype of the FBI sees them as an elite crime-fighting agency, another depicts them as kind of lame. A little bit square, if you will. By-the-book, suit-wearing sticklers for rules and protocol. And that may not be 100% true all the time, it has been true enough that it bit the agency in the butt publicly at least once.

When cybercrime became more than just a weird Hollywood idea for suspense, law enforcement needed to get on board with the new reality that a lot of crime was going to happen virtually. Since “old” agents were not as up to date on technology, they needed newer, tech savvy recruits to head up burgeoning cyber crime units. But that was a problem because of FBI rules.

To be in the FBI you can’t do things like smoke weed, for instance. They’ll drug test to make sure. But when you’re trying to hire hackers from a civilian population, this is an issue because nearly everyone they were interviewing smoked weed. 

In 2014, FBI Director James Comey stated they were having issues hiring and expanding the division because so many of the best people smoked weed and FBI rules wouldn’t allow them to be hired. They were forced into a corner where loosening that restriction was their best option. Later he pulled back and said he was just joking when called out by a senator because weed is bad, kids. 

7. Burglars Once Robbed An FBI Office After Asking the FBI to Leave the Door Unlocked

You would assume it’s very rare that anyone breaks into the FBI offices, Tom Cruise and Scientology (again) notwithstanding. Any regular burglar would have to be very crafty, indeed. Bold and smart and with nerves of steel. How would they even get on premises in the first place?

If you guessed “by leaving a note asking people not to lock the door” then you’d be correct. In 1970, a group looking to explore the secret spying of J. Edgar Hoover was planning raids on FBI field offices and hit a snag in Delaware. They couldn’t pretend to be locksmiths replacing the lock and no one had the skill to pick it. Instead, one of them wrote a note asking for it to be left unlocked. When they returned in the night, it was unlocked. They stole their files and left.

6. The FBI Tried To Infiltrate Mosques Which Then Reported Their Informant as a Terrorist

The events of September 11, 2001 changed the way the FBI did a lot of things. One of their big changes involved a much heavier focus on surveillance of American Muslims. For years afterwards and probably to this day the FBI has focused on infiltrating mosques and other Muslim gathering places in search of intelligence on terrorism. 

In their fervor to find the next bin Laden, they seriously stumbled and no place worse than in Irvine, California. It was there that the FBI sent an undercover informant named Craig Monteilh. His job was to get into the mosque, record anyone saying terroristy things, and have the FBI come and take away the trash!

The problem was that there were no terrorists in the mosque, just people minding their business. Monteilh seemed to fit in at first, converting in front of others and making friends. But as he proceeded to secretly record video and audio of his new friends, he was such a creepy disruption to everyone, talking constantly about violent jihad, that the people of the mosque went to law enforcement to report him and get a restraining order.

5. The 1986 Miami Shootout Was a Blundered Operation That Led to Several Deaths

April 11, 1986 was the date of one of the bloodiest shootouts in FBI history. Agents in Miami were chasing a pair of known armed robbers. They were known to use high powered weapons, and they were violent, so many agents were in pursuit of them – eight in five cars.

The agents tried to run the criminals off the road, and all hell effectively broke loose. The two men had far superior firepower and unloaded on all five cars. The agents were using standard issue weapons and ammo with standard issue bullet proof vests. They did next to nothing.

Two agents died in the firefight, three were grievously wounded, and two more sustained less severe injuries. Only one didn’t get hurt at all. The assailants had ammo that blasted through the cars and through the vests of the agents and eventually led to improved ammo for law enforcement as a result.

While new ammo is maybe an upside, so many things went wrong to get there. Agents in the pursuit were not communicating their position well. Backup was late as a result. Agents on scene also reported a variety of physiological effects like time distortions, auditory problems like not hearing warnings and tunnel vision, all brought on by the intense stress they were not prepared to endure.  Better preparation and training could have saved lives and while the incident led to those things, it was too late for the slain and injured back in 1986.

4. It’s a Wonderful Life Was Investigated by the FBI 

The FBI runs on your tax dollars so it’s good to know they’re spending money wisely. Like how the Bureau investigated the movie It’s a Wonderful Life for being communist propaganda back in the day. 

What set them off? The banker character, Mr. Potter, is portrayed as bad in the film. To the FBI that meant the movie was suggesting capitalism is bad. And the movie also focuses on the main character’s depression, which was also considered anti-American. 

During the investigation, agents noted the screenwriters had been observed having lunch with known Communists. They deemed the movie subversive and then, you know, that was it. 

3. The FBI Allegedly Tracked Falafel Purchases to Find Terrorists

So if you’re in the FBI and you need to find potential terrorists, what do you do? Talk to informants? Dig into people’s background or communications? In 2007, it was reported that the agency was hunting down people who bought falafel and tahini.

According to reports, which the FBI denied, there was an effort in 2005 and 2006 to data mine purchases of Middle Eastern ingredients in stores in California to see if there was a spike in sales of things like falafel. This, combined with other data, would be used to focus on targets. That was the story, anyway. Again, the FBI denied this happened despite other sources claiming to have found evidence of it that later mysteriously disappeared. 

2. The FBI Framed Four Men for Murder 

A good way to make yourself sound paranoid is to talk about how you think the FBI is setting you up. Because that’s crazy talk, right? Why would the FBI ever set up someone for a crime when it’s their job to solve crimes? Heh!

Turns out that yes, the FBI have absolutely set up people for crimes they didn’t commit. In 2007, the FBI was ordered to pay $101 million for framing four men for murder. Why did they do such a thing? To protect the actual murderer who then agreed to become one of their informants. 

The story dates back 40 years prior to the payout, after released documents showed the FBI was trying to cozy up to a pair of mobsters and let them frame the four men to cover their crimes. Only two of the four men were still alive at the time the story broke. All four had been convicted and given life sentences, three of which were commuted from death sentences.

1. The FBI Tried to Build a RICO Case Against the Wu-Tang Clan

Watch enough shows about organized crime, like The Sopranos or Sons of Anarchy, and you’re going to learn about RICO cases. RICO stands for “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act” which is specifically used to target gangs. If law enforcement can prove a gang of people conspired to commit various crimes, not only can they be charged with those crimes but RICO as well which makes it a Federal crime with much stiffer prison sentences. 

For a while, the FBI was investigating the Wu Tang Clan under RICO at the behest of the NYPD. The Wu Tang Clan as in the musicians, not a group of criminals who were using the same name. 

Far be it from us to suggest that Ol’ Dirty Bastard was not prone to bending the odd law, but the man was no Cosa Nostra, either. Despite that, during the 90s and beyond, the FBI was investigating the group for ties to drugs, guns, murder, carjackings and more. They were fully convinced the Clan was up to no good. 

The story came to light after an FOIA request following ODB’s death and it seems like the FBI eventually gave up on their attempts since none of the rest of the crew were ever put away from organized crime-related charges.

There’s a joke on the internet that if you perhaps Google various nefarious terms, the FBI probably has a file on you somewhere. This joke is born from a kernel of truth, insofar as the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a history of keeping files on people for all sorts of reasons, many of which don’t seem to rise to the level of criminal behavior that you’d think would require such things. Some of the people they have files on, and the reasons for having them, are almost unbelievable.

10. The FBI Investigated Borat

When Sacha Baron Cohen was making the first Borat movie, he made the news more than once for offending or allegedly duping people who went on to try to sue him. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. His behavior also got him on the FBI’s radar because satire, even when performed by a fairly famous actor doing a fairly famous character that had existed for years prior to the development of a film, is hard to identify. 

During the filming of the Borat movie in 2006 the character drives around in an ice cream truck. Due to his swarthy appearance and odd behavior, this seemed to have rubbed a number of people the wrong way. Cohen told comedian Marc Maron on a podcast that the FBI started getting complaints of a terrorist in an ice cream truck. 

At some point the FBI came to the hotel where the production crew was based and they made Cohen vanish to keep him safe, just in case. 

9. The FBI Had Files on Elvis 

Elvis Presley was and arguably still is the biggest name in rock n’ roll, despite the fact he’s been dead for years. They didn’t call him the King for nothing. But during his lifetime he had more than a few run-ins with controversy, including ones that escalated to the point of a federal investigation. So what could have triggered the FBI to want to look into the King of Rock ‘N’ Roll?

The extensive files the FBI kept on Elvis mention all manner of unsavory details including the fact he wore his hair down to his shoulders and had an exotic wardrobe. Later he’s declared a danger to the security of the United States chiefly because he “rouses the sexual passions of the teenaged youth.”

It wasn’t all bad stuff in Elvis’ files, however. The King really loved FBI Director Hoover and put a lot of effort into meeting him which included assuring the FBI that he was a non-drug user and was worried about the state of American youth. He blamed their problems on the Beatles, Jane Fonda and the Smothers Brothers. 

8. George Carlin Had an FBI File

Comedian George Carlin, a man never afraid to speak his mind, also ran afoul of the Bureau thanks to the fact he made fun of J. Edgar Hoover in his act. Carlin had appeared on The Carol Burnett Show and Jackie Gleason and rubbed Hoover the wrong way. He had mocked the FBI and, specifically Hoover, which resulted in a 12-page file on the comedian. 

Carlin himself made a Freedom of Information Act request before his death to obtain the files and discovered the memos that essentially accused him of poor taste clout chasing. The FBI had previously claimed they had no files on Carlin so when they turned up there was no immediate explanation. 

7. Stanley Kubrick Got a Complaint From a Navy Admiral

Famed director of The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick raised the ire of the FBI thanks to another one of his films: Dr. Strangelove.

The file on Kubrick indicates he was friends with an individual whose name was redacted but who allegedly had Communist friends. That was only one potential issue, however, as the retired Navy Admiral Burke had made a special request to look into Kubrick because his film denigrated the US military and considered it, along with some other films and books, detrimental to the country.

Despite the complaint, the file goes on to state they have no negative info on Kubrick.

6. The FBI had a File on the Monkees 

The Monkees were one of the most wholesome musical groups of the era but that didn’t stop the FBI from keeping tabs on them over allegations the band was inserting subliminal messages into their music and activities denouncing the war in Vietnam. There was a redacted version of the file made public in 2011 that quaintly refers to the band as “The Monkeys,” spelled like the animal, but it left a lot of info out. 

In 2022, band member Micky Dolenz filed a lawsuit against the FBI to get any files pertaining to himself, his bandmates or their band. He says another investigation related to the band was redacted entirely and wants to know what it was about. 

5. Bill Russell Had a Very Petty File

If you’re a fan of basketball history, then you know Bill Russell, whose legacy on the court and off the court are legendary. He was an 11-time champion and one of the greatest players in the history of the game. He went on to coach as well, and was also involved in the civil rights movement, which is his other great legacy. He spoke out against racism at a time when he was on the receiving end of some of the most virulent forms of it imaginable. He spoke against segregation; he protested the Vietnam war, and he was a vocal supporter of Colin Kaepernick in later years. 

As you can imagine, much of what he did through the 60s and 70s was against the “establishment” and speaking against Vietnam in particular would have got the FBI on his trail. Their files on him, however, bring up more issues including ones that seem remarkably petty and bigoted. 

After receiving death threats for an article he wrote, Russell contacted the FBI himself. Years later an FOIF request revealed that the FBI referred to him as an “arrogant negro” and made reference to the fact he wouldn’t sign autographs for white children. In truth, he rarely gave anyone autographs because he found them impersonal. 

4. Trent Reznor’s “Murder” was Investigated

Trent Reznor is probably best known as the frontman of Nine Inch Nails, although he also works as a producer and a composer and has scored a number of films and TV shows as well. So he’s a bit of a musical renaissance man. 

Nine Inch Nails rose to fame in the ’90s and were frequently featured alongside acts like Marilyn Manson and Tool. Basically, any bands that had a dark esthetic. So maybe it’s no surprise then that the FBI might start a file on such a person since they have a history of focusing on musicians they fear may be corrupting the youth, engaging in counter culture messages or encouraging drug use. But none of those have anything to do with why the Bureau opened a film on Reznor. They had a file on him to investigate his murder.

You can’t fault the FBI for having files on well-known murder victims. The problem with this one was that Trent Reznor is, to this day, very much alive. No one has murdered him, so investigating his murder was a bit of a misfire. 

The story begins in Michigan, where a weather balloon crashed in a farmer’s field. But this was no ordinary balloon, it had a Super 8 camera attached to it. When the farmer called the police, they took the camera and watched the footage. It showed two men in leather standing over a mutilated, decaying corpse. Weird, right?

For two years the FBI examined the footage looking for clues about where it was filmed and who the men in it were. Not only that, why would some leather clad killers film their crime with a weather balloon camera? Unable to figure out anything on their own, they finally asked the public for help and, almost instantly, they got a tip from a college student. The dead man in the video was Trent Reznor. He was also not dead.

The video the FBI had was nearly identical to the video Reznor had made for the song “Down In It.” No one in the FBI watched MTV at the time, apparently. The weather balloon footage was from their first attempt at a low budget video, but they obviously lost the footage. With Reznor still very much alive, the case was closed. 

3. The FBI had Files on the Grateful Dead 

The FBI opened up a file on The Grateful Dead in 1970. The file, which is heavily redacted, says the Bureau was contacted by someone and they were clearly unfamiliar with the group which they describe with the words “it would appear that this is a rock group of some sort.”

There were suspicions that the Dead might be selling LSD at their concerts so the FBI opened a file. Much of whatever transpired after that has been concealed, there are actually whole pages that are blacked out in the official file, but since nothing came from it, it’s hard to say what they determined or why. Suffice it to say they seem to have given up on it and Jerry Garcia and the boys were fine. 

2. The Song “Louie, Louie” by the Kingsmen

The song “Louie, Louie” by the Kingsmen was released in 1963 and made it all the way to number two on the Billboard charts. The song has been covered numerous times, and the Kingsmen version itself was a cover, but that 1963 version was the most famous and, as it happens, the most controversial.

The problem with the song stemmed from the fact no one knows what the hell it’s about. The lyrics are largely unintelligible and when people can’t discern a meaning right away, they have a bad habit of making up meaning. People wrote to the FBI about the song, concerned that it was hiding terrible, vulgar messages. The Governor of Indiana banned the song for being pornographic. A parent wrote the FBI and said the lyrics were so filthy they couldn’t even write them down in the letter. 

The FBI spent months listening to the song in an effort to figure out if it was obscene. Their final conclusion reached in a 119 page document was that no, nothing in the song was obscene. People just couldn’t understand them.

1. They Have a File on Bigfoot

For all the people the FBI have files on, at least you can state with a degree of certainty that they’re mostly real. And then there’s Bigfoot. The FBI investigated Bigfoot and you can read their full file on the cryptid online, if you’re so inclined. It’s a full 22 pages which makes it quite a bit longer than many others. 

The Bigfoot file dates back to 1976 and includes newspaper clipping, witness statements and other summaries of the creature. It was chiefly concerned with hair samples sent to the Bureau for analysis by the director of the Bigfoot Information Center who requested more information on what the hairs were, presumably towards the end of verifying they belonged to the big guy. 

The request was two years after the infamous Patterson-Gimlin footage of Bigfoot walking in the woods that is still popular today, despite being debunked (though not everyone believes it).

It was later revealed that the FBI didn’t bother to analyze the hair samples at first because, well, that’s not the FBI’s job. You can’t just mail them stuff out of curiosity. But sometimes you can, if it’s a worthy scientific endeavor. So the assistant director of the FBI’s scientific and technical services division did, in fact, analyze the hairs. They belonged to a deer.