The dark underbelly of science has never lurked as prominently as when it was harnessed for state-sanctioned "research". In newly published records, discover Stalin's gruesome trials to create a hybrid human-ape super army, the eerie reason East Germany's Stasi collected the scents of dissidents in airtight jars, and how the CIA uncovered a secret Soviet island devoted to developing deadly bioweapons. Even generations later, the extreme experimentations executed in the name of national security continue to chill one's blood.

Every spy is only as good as their gadgets. From the seemingly innocuous children's toy engineered to save a crucial informant, to hirsute-inspired movie disguises, to the supersized spy balloon that ignited the world's greatest alien conspiracy, your government's most clandestine inventions are never what you would suspect--and that's exactly why no one never saw them coming.