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A page from the declassified MKUltra files released by the CIA
A page from the declassified MKUltra files released by the CIA. Image: Central Intelligence Agency (declassified document) · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons
Secrets & power · United States and Canada · 1953 – 1977

MKUltra: The CIA's Mind-Control Program

Established1953 CE – 1977 CELangley, Virginia, USA

A real CIA program dosed people with LSD, sometimes without their knowledge. Most of its records were destroyed.

MKUltra was a CIA research program, launched in 1953, into drugs and other techniques for interrogation and behavior control. It funded work at universities, hospitals and prisons through front organizations, and some subjects were given LSD without their knowledge or consent. In 1953 Frank Olson, an Army scientist, was secretly given LSD; days later he fell to his death from a New York hotel window.

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Operation PaperclipSame era · Early Cold War secret programs.

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EstablishedSupported by strong, converging evidence.
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Hero image: A page from the declassified MKUltra files released by the CIA. Image: Central Intelligence Agency (declassified document) · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons. Evidence labels describe the written claims, not the image. Version 1 · updated 2026-10-22.