Project MKUltra was an illegal program created by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to study ways to change human behavior using drugs and other methods. The name "MKUltra" was a secret code used by the CIA. "MK" stood for the Office of Technical Service, and "Ultra" was a word chosen randomly from a dictionary. The program was criticized for breaking people’s rights and showing how the CIA misused its power. Some people pointed out that the program ignored the wishes of the people tested and harmed democratic values.
MKUltra started in 1953 and ended in 1973. It used many methods to affect the minds and brains of people who were not aware they were being tested. These methods included giving large amounts of psychoactive drugs like LSD and other chemicals without permission. Other methods included electric shocks, hypnosis, being kept in dark, quiet rooms, being isolated, and experiencing verbal or sexual abuse, as well as other forms of harm.
MKUltra followed a program called Project Artichoke. It was managed by the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence and worked with the U.S. Army’s Biological Warfare Laboratories. The program did illegal things, such as using American and Canadian citizens as unknowing test subjects. MKUltra’s activities were spread across more than 80 places, including colleges, hospitals, prisons, and drug companies, in addition to the military. The CIA used fake organizations to hide its involvement, though some leaders at these places knew about the CIA’s role.
MKUltra was discovered by the public in 1975 through the work of the Church Committee (led by Senator Frank Church) and President Gerald Ford’s commission on CIA activities in the United States (called the Rockefeller Commission). Investigations were difficult because CIA director Richard Helms ordered all MKUltra files to be destroyed in 1973. The Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission relied on statements from people who directly participated in the program and the few documents that survived. In 1977, a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered 20,000 documents about MKUltra, leading to Senate hearings. Some information about MKUltra was made public in 2001.
Background
During the early 1940s, Nazi scientists working in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau during World War II conducted experiments on human subjects. They used substances such as barbiturates, morphine derivatives, and hallucinogens like mescaline on prisoners from Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Jewish communities, and other groups. These experiments aimed to create a truth serum that would make people unable to resist questioning. American historian Stephen Kinzer said that the CIA’s MKUltra project continued these earlier Nazi experiments, as shown by MKUltra’s use of mescaline on unknowing subjects, similar to experiments done at Dachau. After the war, many Nazi scientists were employed by the United States government as part of Operation Paperclip, including figures like Kurt Blome, who later became involved in MKUltra.
American interest in drug-related interrogation experiments began in 1943, when the Office of Strategic Services started developing a "truth drug" to make people speak freely during questioning. In 1947, the United States Navy began Project CHATTER, an interrogation program that tested LSD on human subjects for the first time.
In 1950, the Central Intelligence Agency, led by General Walter Bedell Smith, started a series of interrogation projects involving human subjects. The first was Project Bluebird, which was renamed Project Artichoke in 1951. Directed by Brigadier General Paul F. Gaynor, the goal was to see if someone could be made to attempt an assassination without their knowledge. Drugs like morphine, mescaline, and LSD were given to unknowing CIA agents to cause memory loss. The project also explored using viruses, such as dengue fever, as potential tools to disable people.
Project Artichoke was led by Sidney Gottlieb but began under the order of CIA director Allen Dulles in 1953. Its goal was to develop drugs to control the minds of people in the Soviet bloc, responding to claims that the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea used mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners during the Korean War. The CIA wanted to use similar methods on its own captives and to influence foreign leaders, including plans to drug Fidel Castro. Many experiments were conducted without the subjects’ knowledge or consent. Some researchers were funded by CIA front organizations but did not know the CIA’s true purpose.
The project aimed to create a perfect truth serum for interrogating suspected Soviet spies and to explore mind-control methods. Subproject 54, called the Navy’s "Perfect Concussion" program, was meant to use sound waves to erase memories, but it was never carried out.
Most MKUltra records were destroyed in 1973 by CIA director Richard Helms, making it hard for investigators to fully understand the more than 150 research projects funded by MKUltra and related CIA programs.
The project began during a time described by English journalist Rupert Cornwell as "paranoia" at the CIA, when the U.S. had lost its nuclear monopoly and fear of communism was high. CIA counter-intelligence chief James Jesus Angleton believed a spy had infiltrated the agency. The CIA spent millions studying ways to control minds and extract information from resistant subjects. Some historians say one goal of MKUltra was to create a person like the "Manchurian Candidate" from fiction. American historian Alfred W. McCoy claimed the CIA tried to shift public attention to these programs to hide their real goal: effective interrogation methods.
A 1976 report by the Church Committee found that in the MKDELTA program, "Drugs were used primarily as an aid to interrogations, but MKULTRA/MKDELTA materials were also used for harassment, discrediting, or disabling purposes."
In 1964, the MKULTRA program continued under the name MKSEARCH, which was split into two projects: MKOFTEN and MKCHICKWIT. Funding for MKSEARCH began in 1965 and ended in 1971. It was a joint effort between the U.S. Army Chemical Corps and the CIA to find new agents for use in warfare, focusing on disabling enemies. The project aimed to develop and test methods to use biological, chemical, and radioactive materials to cause predictable changes in human behavior or health.
By March 1971, over 26,000 potential agents had been gathered for future use. The CIA studied bird migration patterns for chemical and biological warfare research, as seen in subproject 139 at Pennsylvania State University. MKOFTEN tested the effects of drugs on animals and humans, while MKCHICKWIT focused on gathering information about new drugs in Europe and Asia.
In January 1957, the CIA started a subproject of MKUltra called "Subproject 68," conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal under psychiatrist Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron. This subproject is one of the most controversial parts of MKUltra. It explored ways to control human behavior using methods like "psychic driving" and "depatterning." Psychic driving involved playing recorded messages to patients under the influence of drugs like LSD or barbiturates, often with themes of self-improvement or identity.
Experiments on Americans
CIA papers show they looked into "chemical, biological, and radiological" methods of controlling the mind as part of MKUltra. They spent about $10 million or more, which would be around $87.5 million today when considering inflation.
During a Senate hearing, the CIA's deputy director said over 30 schools and research centers helped test drugs on people without their knowledge. Some tests included giving LSD to individuals in public places without telling them.
The Army was tested with LSD in three stages. The first stage had more than 1,000 soldiers who agreed to take part in chemical warfare experiments. The second stage used 96 volunteers to study how LSD might help intelligence work. The third stage included projects like "Third Chance" and "Derby Hat," which tested LSD on 16 people who did not know they were part of the experiment. These people were questioned after taking the drug.
In 1972, Sidney Gottlieb, who led MKUltra, said the program was not useful after retiring. Files found in 1977 showed that experiments continued until Gottlieb stopped the program on July 10, 1972.
In 1938, Albert Hofmann discovered LSD at a lab in Switzerland. MKUltra leaders learned about LSD and wanted to use it for mind control. In the early 1950s, Gottlieb arranged for the CIA to buy all available LSD for $240,000, which would be about $4.2 million today. This allowed the CIA to test LSD on people in prisons, hospitals, and other places without their knowledge.
Early MKUltra work focused on LSD-25, which became central to many experiments. The CIA wanted to know if they could make Soviet spies betray their country and if the Soviets could do the same to CIA agents.
In 1976, John D. Marks got CIA documents through a freedom of information request. These showed the CIA planned to buy 10 kilograms of LSD in 1953, enough for 100 million doses. The goal was to control the drug's supply. The CIA later bought some LSD from a Swiss lab.
When MKUltra started in 1953, experiments included giving LSD to mental patients, prisoners, drug users, and prostitutes—people who could not refuse. In one case, a mental patient in Kentucky received LSD for 174 days. The CIA also tested LSD on employees, soldiers, doctors, and others to see how they would react. The aim was to find drugs that could force people to confess or erase their memories. Military personnel who took the drug were threatened with punishment if they spoke about the tests. LSD was often given without permission, breaking rules the U.S. agreed to follow after World War II. Many veterans who were tested later asked for legal and financial help.
In "Operation Midnight Climax," the CIA created brothels in San Francisco to study men who would not talk about their experiences. These men were given LSD, and their reactions were recorded with one-way mirrors. In other tests, people were given LSD without knowing and questioned under bright lights. Some were told they would stay on the drug longer if they did not share secrets. People tested included CIA workers, soldiers, and those suspected of working for the Soviet Union. Some suffered long-term harm, and a few died. Heroin users were promised more drugs if they took LSD.
A Stanford student, Vik Lovell, invited Ken Kesey, a friend of Allen Ginsberg, to join a CIA-funded study at a veterans' hospital. The study looked at how hallucinogens like LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline affected people.
The CIA used LSD in interrogations, but Gottlieb thought it could be used in secret operations. He believed giving LSD to high-ranking officials could influence meetings or speeches. Experiments included giving LSD to CIA workers in normal settings without warning. Some workers had bad reactions, like one who became psychotic after drinking LSD in his coffee and ran through Washington, D.C. The program continued even after Frank Olson, an army chemist, was secretly given LSD by his CIA boss and later died from a fall, possibly due to depression. Olson had questioned the program's morality earlier and wanted to leave the CIA.
Some people who agreed to take part in experiments were given even more extreme tests. For example, seven African-American drug users in Kentucky received LSD for 77 days straight.
Later, MKUltra researchers stopped using LSD because its effects were too unpredictable. They gave up on the idea that LSD could be a miracle drug but still used it in secret work. By 1962, the CIA and Army developed stronger drugs like BZ, which was thought to be better for mind control. This led to less interest in LSD research.
Other tests included giving barbiturates in one arm and amphetamines in the other. The barbiturates made people sleepy, and then the amphetamines were given. Other drugs tested included heroin, morphine, mescaline, psilocybin, scopolamine, alcohol, and sodium pentothal.
A 1955 MKUltra report described goals to find drugs that could improve thinking, mimic diseases, or create happiness without negative effects.
Experiments on Canadians
The CIA sent experiments to Canada when they hired Scottish psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron, who created the "psychic driving" concept, which the CIA found interesting. Cameron wanted to treat schizophrenia by removing memories and reprogramming the mind. He traveled weekly from Albany, New York, to Montreal to work at the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University. From 1957 to 1964, he received $69,000 (equivalent to about $766,936 in 2024 dollars) to conduct MKUltra experiments there. The money for these experiments came from a CIA secret group called the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology. Internal CIA documents show that Cameron did not know the funding came from the CIA.
In addition to LSD, Cameron tested drugs that cause paralysis and used electroconvulsive therapy at much higher power levels than usual. His "driving" experiments involved putting subjects into drug-induced comas for weeks or even months while playing repeated noise or simple statements on tape. These experiments were often performed on patients who had come to the institute for common issues like anxiety or postpartum depression. Many of these patients suffered lasting harm, including loss of memory, inability to speak, forgetting their parents, and incontinence. Some patients even believed their interrogators were their parents.
During this time, Cameron became the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association and president of both the American Psychiatric Association and the Canadian Psychiatric Association. He also served on the Nuremberg medical tribunal from 1946 to 1947.
Cameron’s work was similar to that of British psychiatrist William Sargant, who conducted experiments on patients without their consent at hospitals in London and Sutton. Sargant worked as a consultant for MI5, but no evidence shows his research was connected to intelligence agencies.
In the 1980s, some of Cameron’s former patients sued the CIA for damages. These cases were covered by the Canadian news program The Fifth Estate. Their stories and lawsuit were later turned into the 1998 television miniseries The Sleep Room.
Naomi Klein writes in her book The Shock Doctrine that Cameron’s research and contributions to the MKUltra project were not about mind control but about creating a scientific method to extract information from people who resisted. She calls this approach "torture."
Alfred W. McCoy states that, aside from extreme methods, Cameron’s experiments built on earlier work by Donald O. Hebb and provided the scientific basis for the CIA’s two-step psychological torture method. This method involved first confusing the subject and then causing discomfort that the subject could only relieve by giving in.
Secret detention camps
In the early 1950s, the United States controlled parts of Europe and East Asia, including Japan, West Germany, and the Philippines. In these areas, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) set up secret detention centers, called black sites, to avoid being punished for illegal actions. The CIA captured people suspected of working for enemy countries and others they considered unimportant. These individuals were forced to undergo harsh treatments, including torture and medical experiments. During interrogations, prisoners were given drugs that affect the mind, received electric shocks, and were exposed to extreme temperatures. They were also kept in environments with no light, sound, or touch to study how to control human behavior.
Project Bluebird
In October 1950, during the Korean War, North Korean prisoners of war held by the United States were said to be part of experiments conducted under Project Bluebird, a program that came before MK-ULTRA. According to documents made public by the National Security Archive between 2024 and 2025, these experiments included the use of different drugs and special questioning methods. The goal of these experiments was described as "controlling people so they would do things against their wishes and even against natural instincts like self-preservation."
Revelation
In 1973, during the Watergate scandal, the government was very worried. CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKUltra files to be destroyed. Because of this order, most CIA documents about the project were destroyed, making it hard to fully investigate MKUltra. About 20,000 documents survived because they were stored incorrectly in a financial records building. These documents were found later in 1977 through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. They were studied during Senate hearings in 1977.
In December 1974, The New York Times reported that the CIA had done illegal activities in the 1960s, including experiments on U.S. citizens. This report led to investigations by the U.S. Congress, known as the Church Committee, and a group called the Rockefeller Commission. These groups looked into the CIA, FBI, and military intelligence agencies’ illegal activities.
In the summer of 1975, reports from the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission showed the public for the first time that the CIA and the Department of Defense had tested drugs like LSD and mescaline on people without their permission. These tests aimed to learn how to control human behavior. One person, Frank Olson, died after being given LSD without his knowledge. Much of what the committees learned came from a 1963 report by the Inspector General’s office, which had survived the 1973 destruction order. However, this report had few details. Sidney Gottlieb, who had led MKUltra before retiring, was interviewed but said he remembered little about the program.
The Church Committee, led by Senator Frank Church, said that "no one had given permission" to the people tested. The committee also said the experiments raised questions about the lack of rules for such studies.
In 1976, President Gerald Ford issued an order to stop drug testing on people without their written permission, signed by someone not involved. Later presidents added rules to include all human experiments.
In 1977, during a Senate hearing, Admiral Stansfield Turner, then CIA director, said the CIA had found about 20,000 pages of records that survived the 1973 destruction. These documents showed how MKUltra was funded but had few details about the program itself.
In 1977, Senator Ted Kennedy said that over thirty universities and institutions had been part of a program that tested drugs on people without their knowledge. These tests included giving LSD to people in public places. Frank Olson’s death was linked to an experiment he had no idea about. The CIA admitted these tests had no scientific purpose and were not done by qualified scientists.
In Canada, the issue became public in 1984 on a TV show called The Fifth Estate. It was learned that the CIA had funded experiments by a Canadian doctor, and the Canadian government had also given money to continue them. This made it harder for victims to sue the CIA, as had happened in the U.S. The Canadian government later paid $100,000 to each of 127 victims. The doctor, Ewen Cameron, died in 1967, and his family destroyed his records after his death. A 1986 report said Canadian officials were not fully aware of Cameron’s experiments.
In 1994, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported that between 1940 and 1974, the Department of Defense and other agencies tested dangerous substances and radiation on hundreds of thousands of people.
Based on this report and other sources, the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs concluded that the CIA and the Department of Defense gave hallucinogenic drugs, like LSD and BZ, to thousands of soldiers in the 1950s and 1960s. These tests were part of the MKUltra program, created to study how to stop brainwashing by the Soviet Union and China. From 1953 to 1964, the program had 149 projects that tested drugs on people without their knowledge.
In the 1985 case CIA v. Sims, the U.S. Supreme Court said the CIA could keep some details about MKUltra secret under the Freedom of Information Act. This rule has allowed the CIA to hide information about MKUltra from the public.
Death of Frank Olson
Several deaths have been linked to Project MKUltra, including that of Frank Olson. In 1951, Olson was a United States Army biochemist who studied biological weapons. In 1951, experts believed that a mass poisoning in Pont-Saint-Esprit, France, was caused by ergot, a fungus found in a local bakery. Ergot contains lysergic acid, a chemical used to make LSD.
In 1953, Olson left his job as acting chief of the Special Operations Division at Detrick, Maryland (later Fort Detrick), because of a serious moral conflict about his work on biological weapons.
In November 1953, Olson was given LSD without his knowledge or consent as part of a CIA experiment. He died a week later after falling from a 13th-story window. A CIA doctor claimed to have been asleep in another bed in a New York City hotel when Olson fell. At the time, his death was reported as a suicide caused by a severe mental health crisis. The CIA’s internal investigation stated that the head of MKUltra, CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb, had conducted the LSD experiment with Olson’s prior knowledge. However, Olson and others in the experiment were not told what the drug was until 20 minutes after taking it. The report noted that Gottlieb should have been reprimanded for not considering Olson’s known history of suicidal thoughts, which may have worsened due to the LSD.
In 1975, Olson’s family received $750,000 from the U.S. government and formal apologies from President Gerald Ford and CIA Director William Colby. These apologies focused only on the lack of informed consent regarding Olson’s LSD use.
In 1977, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Human Resources wrote:
Because the CIA destroyed most records, failed to follow informed consent rules with many participants, conducted uncontrolled experiments, and did not track long-term effects, the full impact of MKUltra, including deaths, may never be fully understood.
In 1994, Olson’s body was exhumed, and injuries to his head suggested he was knocked unconscious before falling from the window. This contradicted the CIA’s earlier claim that Olson’s death was a suicide. The medical examiner classified the death as a "homicide."
Since 2001 (or earlier), Olson’s family has disputed the official story, claiming Frank Olson was murdered after his LSD experience made him a security risk who might reveal classified CIA information.
On November 28, 2012, the Olson family filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government for Frank Olson’s wrongful death. In 2013, the case was dismissed partly because of a 1976 settlement between the family and the government.
In the decision dismissing the suit, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote:
While the court must focus only on the details in the lawsuit, the public record supports many of the family’s claims, even though they may seem unlikely.
Legal issues involving informed consent
Discoveries about the CIA and the Army led many people who were affected by experiments or their families to file lawsuits against the federal government for carrying out tests without getting permission from the people involved. Even though the government tried hard, and sometimes succeeded, in avoiding legal responsibility, some people did receive money through court decisions, agreements outside of court, or laws passed by Congress. Frank Olson's family received $750,000 through a special law passed by Congress, and both President Ford and CIA director William Colby met with Olson's family to publicly apologize.
Before this, the CIA and the Army had worked to hide information that could show they were wrong, even as they secretly gave money to families of those affected. One person who was part of Army drug experiments, James Stanley, an Army sergeant, filed a lawsuit, but it was not successful. The government said Stanley could not sue because of the Feres doctrine.
In 1987, the Supreme Court supported this defense in a 5–4 decision that ended Stanley's case: United States v. Stanley. The majority argued that "a test for legal responsibility that depends on how much a case might question military discipline and decisions would itself require judges to look into and interfere with military matters." In contrast, Justice William Brennan argued that the need to protect military discipline should not protect the government from being held responsible for serious violations of people's rights.
The medical trials at Nuremberg in 1947 showed the world that experimenting on people without their knowledge is morally and legally wrong. The United States Military Tribunal created the Nuremberg Code as a standard to judge German scientists who tested human subjects. However, military intelligence officials later secretly tested chemical and biological materials, including LSD, in defiance of this principle.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing a separate dissent, stated: "No rule made by judges should protect people who did experiments on others without their knowledge. As Justice Brennan said, the United States helped prosecute Nazi officials who tested human subjects during World War II, and the standards from the Nuremberg trials said that 'voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential […] to satisfy moral, ethical, and legal concepts.' If this principle is broken, society must ensure victims are compensated as much as possible by those responsible."
In another case, Wayne Ritchie, a former United States Marshal, claimed in 1990 that the CIA added LSD to his food or drink during a 1957 Christmas party, which led to him trying to rob a bar and being arrested. The government admitted it was drugging people without their consent at the time and said Ritchie's actions were typical of someone on LSD. However, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled in 2005 that Ritchie could not prove he was a victim of the MKUltra program or that LSD caused his actions, and dismissed the case.
In Canada, a class action lawsuit related to the Montreal experiments was approved by the Quebec Superior Court in 2025. A survivor, who was admitted to the Allan Memorial Institute at age 15, and a family member of a deceased patient were granted the right to represent others in the case.
Notable people
Confirmed experimenters:
Alleged experimenters:
Imagine sitting back and visualizing yourself picking up a purple shell with foam crests covered in tiny crystal drops. These drops fall gently into the morning sea, surrounded by a thin mist. Then, they flow like tinkling bells. Should I guide you slowly, step by step? After that, they suddenly form a loud, bright sound like silver bells ringing joyfully. If this is madness, I beg you to let me stay mad.
In popular culture
MKUltra is involved in many unconfirmed stories because of its secretive nature and the fact that many records about it were destroyed. This has caused people to believe that the human experiments conducted by the CIA are still happening today.