Secret Gov Experiments
© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS
The government may not want you to know that it set off nuclear bombs willy-nilly in the atmosphere or tested LSD on unwitting subjects, but at least the Science Channel does!

In case you believed that elaborate government conspiracies were merely the driving force behind X-Files episodes, the Science Channel is setting the record straight. As a compendium to their latest show, Dark Matters, which explores the darker side of science, the Science Channel has published introductions and full transcripts from government hearings on some of the most unbelievable -- yet true -- conspiracies, including the highly-controversial MKULTRA project.

According to the 1977 transcript of the hearing before Congress, MKULTRA projects on behavioral modification, drug acquisition and testing took place over the better part of a decade, from 1953 through 1964.

Perhaps best known for administering the psychedelic drug LSD to unwitting participants, MKULTRA actually was composed of 149 (known) projects, across 86 universities and institutions, that dabbled in everything from harmless hypnosis to horrific human testing.

No one was spared. The CIA was an equal-opportunity abuser. The report details it as an "extensive testing and experimentation" program that included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign."

The gory details will probably forever remain unknown. In 1973, all the MKULTRA files were supposed to have been destroyed. But, in a Hollywood-science-fiction-movie twist of fate, seven boxes of financial files were categorized differently, and so overlooked. Shortly thereafter, they were discovered during a routine Freedom of Information Act request and turned over to the public.

A few hardworking senators in various congressional committees and subcommittees set out to compile what they could. If you've got the time, the curiosity or the wherewithal to never trust your government ever again, then it's worth the full 173-page read -- or at least a quick scan.

Need further conspiracy theory fodder? Look no further than the Science Channel. You can also read the reports on the USSR's Controlled Offensive Behavior (for the sake of simplicity, let's just call it mind control) and U.S. High-Altitude Test Experience (how and when the U.S. set off nuclear bombs in the atmosphere).