Project MKUltra was an illegal program created by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to study how to change human behavior using drugs and other methods. The name "MKUltra" is a secret code: "MK" stands for the Office of Technical Service, and "Ultra" is a word chosen randomly from a dictionary. The program was strongly criticized for breaking people's rights and showing how the CIA misused its power. Critics said the program ignored people's right to agree to experiments and harmed democratic values.

MKUltra started in 1953 and ended in 1973. It used many harmful methods to affect the minds and brains of people without their permission. These included giving large amounts of psychoactive drugs, especially LSD, and other chemicals secretly. Other methods included electric shocks, hypnosis, being kept in total darkness, being alone for long periods, and physical or verbal abuse.

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 broke the law by testing drugs on U.S. and Canadian citizens without their knowledge. MKUltra's activities were spread across more than 80 places, such as colleges, hospitals, prisons, and drug companies, under the pretense of research. The CIA used fake organizations to hide its involvement, though some leaders at these places knew about it.

MKUltra was exposed to the public in 1975 by the Church Committee (led by Senator Frank Church) and the Rockefeller Commission, which studied CIA activities in the U.S. The CIA had ordered all MKUltra files to be destroyed in 1973, so most information was lost. Investigators relied on the testimony of people who worked on 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 details about the program were made public in 2001.

Background

During the early 1940s, scientists working for Nazi Germany in concentration camps like Auschwitz and Dachau during World War II performed experiments on human subjects. These experiments involved using drugs such as barbiturates, morphine, and hallucinogens like mescaline on prisoners from Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Jewish communities, and other groups. The goal was to create a "truth serum" that would make people unable to resist questioning. American historian Stephen Kinzer noted that the CIA's MKUltra project, which tested drugs like mescaline on people without their knowledge, continued these earlier Nazi experiments. After the war, many Nazi scientists were hired by the United States government through Operation Paperclip, including some who later worked on MKUltra.

The United States began studying drug-related interrogation methods in 1943, when the Office of Strategic Services developed a "truth drug" to make people speak freely during questioning. In 1947, the U.S. Navy started Project CHATTER, which tested LSD on human subjects for the first time.

In 1950, the CIA, led by General Walter Bedell Smith, began several interrogation projects. The first was Project Bluebird, later renamed Project Artichoke in 1951. Directed by Brigadier General Paul F. Gaynor, the goal was to determine if people could be forced to commit acts like attempted assassination. Drugs such as morphine, mescaline, and LSD were given to CIA agents without their knowledge to cause memory loss. The project also explored using viruses like dengue fever as tools to disable people.

Project Artichoke was led by Sidney Gottlieb and started under CIA director Allen Dulles in 1953. Its purpose was to create mind-control drugs to use against the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea during the Cold War. The CIA wanted to use similar methods on its own prisoners and even tried to influence foreign leaders like Fidel Castro. Many experiments were conducted without the subjects' consent. Some researchers were paid by CIA-linked organizations but did not know the work was being used for these purposes.

MKUltra aimed to develop a perfect truth serum for interrogating suspected spies and to study mind control. One subproject, called "Perfect Concussion," planned to use special sound waves to erase memories, but the plan was never carried out.

Most MKUltra records were destroyed in 1973 by CIA director Richard Helms, making it hard to fully understand the program's work.

MKUltra began during a time of fear at the CIA, when the United States worried about communism and believed a spy had infiltrated the agency. The CIA spent millions on research to find ways to control minds and extract information from people during interrogations. Some historians say the goal was to create a person who could be controlled like the fictional "Manchurian Candidate."

A 1976 report by the Church Committee found that drugs used in the MKDELTA program were mainly for interrogation, but also for harassment or disabling people.

In 1964, the MKSEARCH program continued MKUltra's work. It was a joint project between the U.S. Army and the CIA to find new weapons, including chemicals and biological agents. The program aimed to develop tools for covert operations that could change people's behavior or cause physical effects.

By 1971, the CIA had gathered over 26,000 potential agents for future use. The agency studied bird migration patterns for research on chemical and biological warfare. Subproject 139, called "Bird Disease Studies," was conducted at Pennsylvania State University. Other parts of MKSEARCH focused on testing drugs in animals and humans and gathering information about new drugs in Europe and Asia.

In 1957, the CIA started a subproject called "Subproject 68" as part of MKUltra. It was conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal by psychiatrist Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron. This subproject tested methods like "psychic driving" and "depatterning" to control human behavior. Psychic driving involved playing recorded messages to patients while they were under the influence of drugs like LSD or barbiturates.

Experiments on Americans

CIA documents show that they studied chemical, biological, and radiological methods to control the mind as part of MKUltra. They spent about $10 million, which is around $87.5 million today when considering inflation.

During a hearing by the Senate Health Subcommittee, the CIA’s deputy director said that over 30 institutions and universities helped test drugs on people without their knowledge. These tests included giving LSD to individuals in social situations without their permission.

The Army was tested with LSD in three phases. The first phase involved more than 1,000 soldiers who volunteered for chemical warfare experiments. The second phase tested 96 volunteers to study how LSD might be used for intelligence work. The third phase included Project Third Chance and Project Derby Hat, which tested 16 people who did not know they were part of the experiment. These people were given LSD and then questioned during field tests.

After retiring in 1972, Sidney Gottlieb said the CIA’s MKUltra program was not useful. Files found in 1977 showed that experiments continued until Gottlieb stopped the program on July 10, 1972.

In 1938, Albert Hofmann isolated LSD at Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland. Early leaders of MKUltra 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 prisoners, hospitals, and other places without people knowing what was happening.

Early CIA efforts focused on LSD-25, which became central to many MKUltra programs. The CIA wanted to know if they could force Soviet spies to betray their countries or if the Soviets could do the same to CIA agents.

Documents obtained by John D. Marks in 1976 showed that the CIA planned to buy 10 kilograms of LSD in 1953, enough for 100 million doses. This was to prevent other countries from controlling the drug supply. The CIA later purchased some LSD from Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland.

When MKUltra began in April 1953, experiments included giving LSD to mental patients, prisoners, drug users, and prostitutes—people who could not easily refuse. In one case, a mental patient in Kentucky received LSD for 174 days. LSD was also given to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, and members of the public to study their reactions. The goal was to find drugs that could force confessions or erase memories to program people as "robot agents." Military personnel who received the drug were threatened with punishment if they talked about the experiments. LSD and other drugs were often given without the person’s knowledge, breaking the Nuremberg Code, which 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 be too embarrassed to discuss their experiences. These men were given LSD, and the brothels had one-way mirrors for observation. Sessions were recorded for later study. In other experiments, people were given LSD without their knowledge and questioned under bright lights with doctors taking notes. Subjects were told their "trips" would last longer if they did not share secrets. People tested included CIA employees, military personnel, and agents suspected of working for the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War. Some people suffered long-term harm, and a few died. Heroin users were promised more drugs if they took LSD.

At the request of a Stanford psychology student, Ken Kesey joined a CIA-funded study at a veterans’ hospital. The study tested the effects of hallucinogens like LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, AMT, and DMT on people.

The Office of Security used LSD in interrogations, but Gottlieb believed it could be used in secret operations. He thought LSD could be given to high-ranking officials to influence meetings or speeches. He tested LSD in normal settings without warning. At first, CIA staff participated in experiments where they observed each other. Later, outsiders were given LSD without explanation, and unexpected drug reactions became common among operatives. One person who received LSD in his coffee became psychotic and ran through Washington, D.C., seeing monsters in cars. Experiments continued even after Frank Olson, an army chemist who had never taken LSD, was secretly given the drug by his CIA supervisor and later jumped from a hotel window, possibly due to depression caused by the drug. Olson had earlier questioned the morality of the project and asked to leave the CIA.

Some people tested gave their consent, but they were still subjected to more extreme experiments. For example, seven African-American participants at a research center in Kentucky received LSD for 77 days straight.

MKUltra researchers later said LSD was too unpredictable and gave up on using it as a "secret to unlock the universe." However, LSD remained part of the CIA’s tools. By 1962, the CIA and army developed stronger hallucinogens like BZ, which were seen as better for mind control. This led to less interest in LSD research by scientists and private groups.

Other experiments tested giving a barbiturate into one arm and amphetamine into the other. The barbiturate made the person sleepy, and then the amphetamine was released. Other tests involved heroin, morphine, temazepam (code name MKSEARCH), mescaline, psilocybin, scopolamine, alcohol, and sodium pentothal.

A 1955 MKUltra document described goals to find drugs that could improve thinking, mimic diseases, or create happiness without negative effects.

Experiments on Canadians

The CIA worked with Donald Ewen Cameron, a Scottish psychiatrist who developed the idea of "psychic driving." The CIA found this concept interesting and sent him experiments to Canada. Cameron aimed to treat schizophrenia by removing memories and retraining the mind. He traveled weekly from Albany, New York, to Montreal, where he worked at the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University. From 1957 to 1964, he received $69,000 (about $766,936 in 2024 dollars) to conduct MKUltra experiments. The money came from a CIA front group called the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, and Cameron was unaware the funds were from the CIA.

Cameron tested drugs, including LSD and paralytic medications, as well as electroconvulsive therapy at much higher than normal levels. His "driving" experiments involved placing subjects in drug-induced comas for weeks or even months while playing repeated noises or simple phrases. Many patients came to the institute for common issues like anxiety or postpartum depression. Some suffered lasting harm, such as memory loss, inability to speak, and confusion about their families.

During this time, Cameron held leadership roles in the World Psychiatric Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the Canadian Psychiatric Association. He also served on the Nuremberg medical tribunal in 1946–1947.

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 with MI5, but no evidence shows his research was linked to intelligence agencies.

In the 1980s, some of Cameron’s former patients sued the CIA for harm caused by his experiments. The Canadian program The Fifth Estate covered their stories, which were later shown in the 1998 miniseries The Sleep Room.

In her book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein wrote that Cameron’s research for MKUltra was not about mind control but about creating a scientific method to extract information from people who resisted. Alfred W. McCoy noted that Cameron’s experiments, building on earlier work by Donald O. Hebb, helped develop a CIA psychological torture method. This method involved first confusing a person and then causing them to feel pain until they agreed to cooperate.

Secret detention camps

In the 1950s, in regions controlled by the United States in Europe and East Asia, including Japan, West Germany, and the Philippines, the CIA established secret detention centers, also called black sites. These centers were used to avoid legal consequences for the U.S. government. The CIA captured individuals suspected of working for enemy nations and others it considered not important. These people were subjected to torture and experiments. They were given drugs that affect the mind, shocked with electricity, exposed to very hot or very cold temperatures, and kept in environments with no light, sound, or touch. These methods were used to study how to control and harm human minds.

Project Bluebird

In October 1950, during the Korean War, North Korean prisoners of war held by the United States were said to have been part of experiments conducted under Project Bluebird, which was an earlier program than 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 a person so completely that they would follow orders against their own wishes and even against basic natural instincts like self-preservation."

Revelation

In 1973, during a time of government concern caused by the Watergate scandal, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKUltra files to be destroyed. As a result, most CIA documents about the project were removed, making it difficult to fully investigate MKUltra. However, about 20,000 documents survived because they were stored in a building meant for financial records and were found later in 1977 through a FOIA request. These documents were studied during Senate hearings in 1977.

In December 1974, The New York Times reported that the CIA had performed illegal activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s. This report led to investigations by the U.S. Congress, called the Church Committee, and by the Rockefeller Commission, which looked into illegal actions by the CIA, FBI, and military intelligence agencies.

In the summer of 1975, reports from the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission revealed for the first time that the CIA and the Department of Defense had tested both unaware and informed people to study how to influence human behavior using drugs like LSD and mescaline, as well as other methods. These reports also mentioned that one person, Frank Olson, had died after being given LSD. Much of what the committees learned about MKUltra came from a 1963 report by the Inspector General’s office, which had survived the 1973 destruction order. However, this report had limited details. Sidney Gottlieb, who had previously led MKUltra, was interviewed but said he remembered little about the program.

The Church Committee, led by Senator Frank Church, concluded that the subjects did not agree to the experiments. The committee also noted that the lack of guidelines for such experiments raised concerns.

Following the committee’s recommendations, President Gerald Ford issued an Executive Order in 1976 that banned testing drugs on people without their written, informed consent and with a witness who had no personal interest in the experiment. Later, Presidents Carter and Reagan expanded this rule to cover all human experiments.

In 1977, during a Senate hearing, Admiral Stansfield Turner, then CIA director, said that the CIA had found about 20,000 pages of records that survived the 1973 destruction orders because they were stored in a building not usually used for such documents. These files included information about funding for MKUltra projects but had few details about the experiments themselves.

In 1977, Senator Ted Kennedy stated on the Senate floor that Frank Olson’s death, which occurred nine days after he was given LSD without his knowledge, was linked to the experiments. The CIA later admitted that these tests had little scientific purpose and that the people monitoring the experiments were not qualified scientists.

In Canada, the issue became public in 1984 on a CBC news program called The Fifth Estate. It was revealed that the CIA had funded experiments by a Canadian doctor named Cameron, and that the Canadian government had known about this and later gave $500,000 to continue the work. This made it harder for victims to sue the CIA, as U.S. victims had done. The Canadian government later paid $100,000 to each of 127 victims. Cameron died in 1967 from a heart attack while climbing mountains. His family destroyed his personal records after his death. A 1986 report found that 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 national security agencies tested harmful substances and radiation on hundreds of thousands of people.

Based on this report and other sources, the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs concluded:

In the 1985 case CIA v. Sims, the U.S. Supreme Court supported the idea that the CIA could withhold some details about MKUltra under FOIA Exemption 3, arguing that sharing small pieces of information might reveal intelligence sources. This reasoning has allowed the CIA to avoid many FOIA requests and has been used by lower courts.

Death of Frank Olson

Several known deaths have been linked to Project MKUltra, including that of Frank Olson. In 1951, Olson worked as a United States Army biochemist and researcher for biological weapons. In 1951, academic sources said the Pont-Saint-Esprit mass poisoning incident was caused by ergot poisoning from a local bakery. This explanation seemed plausible because ergot naturally contains lysergic acid, a chemical used to make LSD.

In 1953, a few days before his death, Frank Olson left his job as acting chief of the Special Operations Division at Detrick, Maryland (later Fort Detrick), due to a deep moral crisis about his biological weapons research. His concerns included:
– The development of assassination materials by the CIA
– The CIA’s use of biological warfare materials in secret operations
– Experimenting with biological weapons in populated areas
– Working with former Nazi scientists through Operation Paperclip
– Research into using LSD for mind control
– Using psychoactive drugs during interrogations under a program called Project Artichoke

In November 1953, Olson was given LSD without his knowledge or permission as part of a CIA experiment. He died after falling from a 13th-story window a week later. A CIA doctor assigned to monitor Olson claimed to have been asleep in another bed in a New York City hotel room when Olson fell. In 1953, Olson’s death was described as a suicide caused by a severe mental health episode. 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, neither Olson nor others involved in the experiment were told the drug’s exact nature until 20 minutes after it was taken. The report noted that Gottlieb should have been reprimanded for not considering Olson’s known tendency toward suicide, which might have been worsened by 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:

In 1994, Olson’s body was exhumed, and head injuries showed he had been knocked unconscious before falling from the window. This contradicted the CIA’s earlier claim that Olson had committed suicide. The medical examiner classified Olson’s death as a "homicide."

Since 2001 (or earlier), the Olson family has disputed the official account of events. They believe Frank Olson was murdered because, after his LSD experience, he became a security risk who might have revealed classified CIA information.

• That the 1951 Pont-Saint-Esprit incident was part of MKDELTA
• That Olson was involved in that event
• That he was eventually murdered by the CIA

On November 28, 2012, the Olson family filed a lawsuit against the U.S. federal 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,

Legal issues involving informed consent

Discoveries about the CIA and the Army led many people or their family members to sue the federal government for carrying out experiments without getting permission from those involved. Even though the government worked hard, and sometimes succeeded, in avoiding legal responsibility, some people who filed lawsuits received 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 Army had tried to hide information that could show they were wrong, even while secretly giving money to families affected by their actions. One person, James Stanley, an Army sergeant, filed a lawsuit about drug experiments, but it was not successful. The government claimed Stanley could not sue because of the Feres doctrine, a rule that limits lawsuits involving military personnel.

In 1987, the Supreme Court agreed with the government in a 5–4 decision called United States v. Stanley. The majority said that deciding whether a lawsuit would affect military discipline would require judges to examine military matters, which they should avoid. Justice William Brennan disagreed, saying that protecting the government from being held responsible for serious rights violations should not be allowed. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor also wrote separately, arguing that the government should not be exempt from legal consequences for breaking the law.

In another case, Wayne Ritchie, a former U.S. Marshal, claimed in 1990 that the CIA added LSD to his food or drink during a 1957 Christmas party. This led him to try to rob a bar and be arrested. The government admitted it had used drugs on people without their permission and said Ritchie's behavior matched someone under the influence of LSD. However, 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, so the case was dismissed.

In Canada, a group lawsuit about the Montreal experiments was approved by the Quebec Superior Court in 2025. This lawsuit allows a survivor, who was admitted to the Allan Memorial Institute at age 15, and a family member of a deceased patient to represent others in the case.

Notable people

Confirmed experimenters:
• Harold Alexander Abramson
• Donald Ewen Cameron
• Sidney Gottlieb
• Harris Isbell
• Martin Theodore Orne
• Louis Jolyon West
• George Hunter White

Alleged experimenters:
• Jim Jones
• Charlie Siragusa

• Allen Ginsberg first took LSD in an experiment on Stanford University's campus, where he could listen to records he selected (he chose a Gertrude Stein reading, a Tibetan mandala mantra, and Richard Wagner). He said the experience resulted in "a slight paranoia that lasted through all my acid experiences through the mid-1960s until I learned from meditation how to disperse that." He became an outspoken advocate for psychedelics in the 1960s and, after hearing suspicions that the experiment was CIA-funded, wrote, "Am I, Allen Ginsberg, the product of one of the CIA's lamentable, ill-advised, or triumphantly successful experiments in mind control?"
• Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, is said to have volunteered for MKUltra experiments involving LSD and other psychedelic drugs at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Menlo Park while he was a student at nearby Stanford University. Kesey's experiences while under the influence of LSD inspired him to promote the drug outside the context of the MKUltra experiments, which influenced the early development of hippie culture.
• Harold Blauer was an American tennis player who died from injections of 3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine in the New York State Psychiatric Institute, which he had voluntarily checked into due to his depression following a divorce.
• Robert Hunter was an American lyricist, singer-songwriter, translator, and poet, best known for his association with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. Along with Ken Kesey, Hunter was said to be an early volunteer MKUltra test subject at Stanford University. Stanford test subjects were paid to take LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline, then report on their experiences. These experiences helped shape his creative work.
• James "Whitey" Bulger, an organized crime boss, alleged he had been subjected to weekly injections of LSD and subsequent testing while in prison in Atlanta in 1957.
• Ted Kaczynski, an American domestic terrorist known as the Unabomber, was said to be a subject of a voluntary psychological study alleged by some sources to have been part of MKUltra. As a sophomore at Harvard, Kaczynski participated in a study described by author Alston Chase as a "purposely brutalizing psychological experiment," led by Harvard psychologist Henry Murray. In total, Kaczynski spent 200 hours as part of the study.
• Sirhan Sirhan's attorney, Lawrence Teeter, believed that Sirhan was "operating under MKUltra mind control techniques" when he assassinated Robert F. Kennedy.
• Charles Manson has been tied to MKUltra by author Tom O'Neil, beginning with his time in prison, when Manson took part in drug-induced psychological experiments run by the federal government. Such experiments might have continued through his ongoing connection to the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco once out of prison in 1967.

In popular culture

MKUltra is often linked to conspiracy theories because of the program's secretive nature and the fact that many records about it were destroyed. This has led some people to believe that the CIA's human experiments may still be happening today.

• The sixth and final book in John Burdett's Bangkok detective series (2003–2015), The Bangkok Asset, includes MKUltra as a major topic. The story shows how the program's effects could lead to the creation of soldiers and spies with special abilities.
• The 2009 movie The Killing Room is a thriller that is based on the real-life MKUltra psychological experiments. It follows volunteers who are placed in stressful situations as part of the program.

• The BYU television show Granite Flats (2013–2015) is based on the CIA using an MKUltra experiment on a character named Lt. Frank Quincy (played by Scott Christopher) to turn him into an assassin without a sense of right or wrong.
• Screenrant writer Kara Hedash noted that some story elements in the Netflix series Stranger Things (2016–2025) were influenced by MKUltra experiments.
• Wormwood, a 2017 American six-part docudrama miniseries directed by Errol Morris and released on Netflix, tells the true story of scientist Frank Olson and his role in Project MKUltra.
• Will Wood's 2020 album The Normal Album includes a song titled "BlackBoxWarrior – OKULTRA," which describes the experience of someone who was a victim of MKUltra experiments.