One of my absolute favorite things about watching the James Bond movies growing up was the tongue-in-cheek humor of Q (at least in the ones I watched then) when he would show Bond some new interesting gadget, at least one of which would be necessary for Bond to complete his mission in that movie.
The quirky humor and crazy ideas that they came up with were fantastic fun for a young mind to think about.
The interesting thing is that those gadgets weren’t just in Ian Fleming’s imagination. Spy agencies have come up with all kinds of crazy ideas, including strange and fascinating firearms.
Thankfully, we can tell you about a few today. Nicole James tells us of a few interesting ones:
The umbrella gun was used in London in 1978 to assassinate Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov with a ricin pellet.
The Lipstick pistol was a 1960s KGB one-shot wonder. Imagine reaching for it in your handbag and accidentally murdering your face powder.
Of course, there have been plenty of non-firearm gadgets, too, some of which make the “incredibly bizarre” part of the list. For example:
Finally, peak CIA ingenuity was disguising a transmitter as tiger dung in Vietnam to direct airstrikes. Somewhere, a very serious man in Langley signed off on this idea.
Yes, tiger poop.
Speaking of, this one may be the most disturbing:
In the 1960s, the CIA issued agents a rectal toolkit. A neat little capsule filled with saws, drill bits, and knives, tucked away in what HR departments call the “body cavity.” Apparently, it was undetectable during searches. Well, quite. Who’s volunteering to check?
On one hand, ingenious. On the other, imagine the awkward small talk if you actually had to use it.
“Quick, pass me the screwdriver!”
“Ah. Give me a second.”
Even with the interesting firearms, that last one gives me pause and makes me glad that I decided to not go the route of James Bond and others into spycraft.
I’ll happily stick with my normal life and personal firearms without the rectal toolkit, thank you.
