Russia's Mind-Controlled Pigeon Army Is Real — And It's Already Flying

A Russian tech company claims it can upload flight commands directly into a bird's brain — and convince the pigeon it was its own idea.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
A Russian tech company claims it can upload flight commands
directly into a bird's brain and convince the pigeon it
was its own idea. I'm Darren Marler, and this is
weird dark news. When it comes to surveillance technology, governments
have tried just about everything. Satellites, drones, hidden cameras, the

(00:31):
usual suspects. But one country has decided to take things
in a direction that feels less like military innovation and
more like the opening scene of a dystopian thriller. So
Russia has apparently decided that regular drones are just too boring.
Why you use a machine when you can surgically implant
a chip into a pigeon's brain and turn the bird

(00:54):
itself into your remote controlled surveillance device. I know I
had to read that twice myself. A Russian neurotechnology company
called Niri announced in November twenty twenty five that they
have begun field testing, and I want you to really
sit with this phrase, a flock of mind controlled pigeons.
These researchers claim they can now upload flight patterns directly

(01:18):
into the bird's brains. By stimulating specific neural regions, the
pigeon takes off from the lab, flies wherever the operators
want it to go, and then returns like a homing pigeon,
except the homing part is now someone at a computer
deciding where home is. The obvious question, doesn't this essentially

(01:40):
turn the pigeon into a prisoner in its own body.
Nyri's explanation is interesting. They claim that through their stimulation process,
the bird itself genuinely wants to fly in the directions
chosen by researchers. The pigeon's not being forced. It's been
neurologically convinced that this was its idea all along. Whether

(02:03):
that's meaningfully different from mind control is unclear. Honestly, I'm
not sure it is. The company says the surgeries are
performed on a production line, Yeah, a production line using
precision guided equipment that inserts electrodes into targeted brain regions.
They proudly state that they seek a one hundred percent
survival rate for the birds undergoing the procedure, which sounds

(02:26):
reassuring until you notice they conspicuously avoided mentioning what the
actual survival rate currently is. That's the kind of careful
wording that makes you raise an eyebrow once implanted. The
device sends signals that influence the bird's impulses, making it
turn left or right on command. GPS tracks the pigeon's location.

(02:47):
And here's a detail that almost feels quaint by comparison.
The whole system runs on tiny solar panels strapped to
the bird's back. So if you ever spot a pigeon
wearing what looks like a little maybe, don't dismiss it
as somebody's strange art project. Myrie says, their biodrone technology,

(03:08):
their word, not mine, has practical applications for monitoring power lines,
gas distribution hubs, and other infrastructure. And yeah, share on paper,
that sounds almost reasonable. Pigeons can get into places drones can't.
They're inconspicuous, they don't need to be recharged at a station.
But let's be honest here, if you can make a

(03:29):
bird fly wherever you want by convincing it's brain that
it wanted to go there anyway, I'm monitoring power lines.
Probably isn't the only application someone's gonna think of. If
you'd like to read this story for yourself or share
the article with a friend, you can read it on
the Weird Darkness website. I've placed a link to it
in the episode description, and you can find more stories

(03:51):
of the paranormal, true crime, strange, and more, including numerous
stories that never make it to the podcast, in my
Weird Darknews blog at Weird Darkness dot com, slash news