Some of the techniques formerly used by spies were clever, some were strange, and some just downright silly. Below are several real spy techniques used by actual spies throughout history! Hope you enjoy them!
One way to send a secret messages is to shave someones head, tattoo your message on his or her scalp, then wait until the hair grows back. Presto! Your message remains safely concealed (until the next haircut). A Greek ruler in ancient times discovered this spy technique. He used the head of his slave as a notepad. Note: This technique is not useful for urgent messages or bald spies... and probably won't make parents very happy if tried at home!
In feudal Japan, the fearsome Ninja were military spies known for 'their stealthy techniques, clever disguises, and general trickiness. In combat they sometimes wore two false heads to confuse opponents, who would not know which one to hit! When pursued, they dropped small metal spikes that could dig into the straw-bottomed sandals most people wore. They could even "disappear" by crushing a hollow egg filled with dust and blowing the dust in the enemy's face, giving them time to escape before the enemy could clearly see again.
During the Civil War; Elizabeth Van Lew was a Southern belle living in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Because she visited Union soldiers in prison and spoke openly against slavery, people called her Crazy Bet. In fact, she was one of the Union's most successful spies. She smuggled the secrets she learned out of the Confederate prison in hollow eggshells hidden in baskets of eggs. She kept a secret room in her house for escaped prisoners. She even hid her horse there for a time, in case she needed to make a quick getaway.
When you're about to be captured, it's really important to destroy your codebook. Spies have burnt, flushed, even eaten!, their codes. But make sure you do a good job. In World War I, while his zeppelin was crashing over enemy territory, a German captain and his crew tore their codebook into tiny pieces and sent the scraps fluttering across miles of English countryside. They thought they were safe. But the British carefully collected the pieces-gathering 22 sackfuls of paper-and glued them back together. (Guess the Germans should have had codebook for dinner instead.)
There were many spies during the Revolutionary War. But Anna Strong, a member of the Culper Spy Ring reporting to General George Washington, had an unusual way of sending messages... her clothesline. She hung a black petticoat on her line as a coded signal to her spy neighbor across the bay, who watched the line with his telescope. The order in which she hung the clothes indicated which of six coves along the coast was that night's meeting place.
French captain Georges Painvin was a brilliant paleontologist and cellist. He was also a genius at code breaking. But breaking the super-complicated German ADFGVX cipher during World War I, nearly broke him! Exerting his enormous brain power on the problem was so stressful that Painvin lost 33 pounds and had to spend six months in the hospital to recover.
One way to send a secret messages is to shave someones head, tattoo your message on his or her scalp, then wait until the hair grows back. Presto! Your message remains safely concealed (until the next haircut). A Greek ruler in ancient times discovered this spy technique. He used the head of his slave as a notepad. Note: This technique is not useful for urgent messages or bald spies... and probably won't make parents very happy if tried at home!
In feudal Japan, the fearsome Ninja were military spies known for 'their stealthy techniques, clever disguises, and general trickiness. In combat they sometimes wore two false heads to confuse opponents, who would not know which one to hit! When pursued, they dropped small metal spikes that could dig into the straw-bottomed sandals most people wore. They could even "disappear" by crushing a hollow egg filled with dust and blowing the dust in the enemy's face, giving them time to escape before the enemy could clearly see again.
During the Civil War; Elizabeth Van Lew was a Southern belle living in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Because she visited Union soldiers in prison and spoke openly against slavery, people called her Crazy Bet. In fact, she was one of the Union's most successful spies. She smuggled the secrets she learned out of the Confederate prison in hollow eggshells hidden in baskets of eggs. She kept a secret room in her house for escaped prisoners. She even hid her horse there for a time, in case she needed to make a quick getaway.
When you're about to be captured, it's really important to destroy your codebook. Spies have burnt, flushed, even eaten!, their codes. But make sure you do a good job. In World War I, while his zeppelin was crashing over enemy territory, a German captain and his crew tore their codebook into tiny pieces and sent the scraps fluttering across miles of English countryside. They thought they were safe. But the British carefully collected the pieces-gathering 22 sackfuls of paper-and glued them back together. (Guess the Germans should have had codebook for dinner instead.)
There were many spies during the Revolutionary War. But Anna Strong, a member of the Culper Spy Ring reporting to General George Washington, had an unusual way of sending messages... her clothesline. She hung a black petticoat on her line as a coded signal to her spy neighbor across the bay, who watched the line with his telescope. The order in which she hung the clothes indicated which of six coves along the coast was that night's meeting place.
French captain Georges Painvin was a brilliant paleontologist and cellist. He was also a genius at code breaking. But breaking the super-complicated German ADFGVX cipher during World War I, nearly broke him! Exerting his enormous brain power on the problem was so stressful that Painvin lost 33 pounds and had to spend six months in the hospital to recover.
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