For most of us, intelligence agencies are extremely mysterious. They’re kept that way on purpose, of course, but it only increases our fascination with them. There are catalogs of popular films revolving around FBI, CIA and NSA agents including the Bourne movies, Argo, Snowden and Zero Dark Thirty. As much fun as it is to see Hollywood’s spin on the secretive lives of intelligence agents, it’s even more exciting to hear stories from the actual people inside the system.

Last year, Reddit user mr_squirrell reached out to Ask Reddit with the question, “FBI/CIA agents, what’s something that you can tell us without killing us?” The question received over 10,000 comments from readers, many of whom have either worked in intelligence agencies or know someone who has. We’ve gathered some of the most fascinating stories and juicy bits of information, so you can live vicariously through these agents. And after you’ve finished this list, continue your investigation into the world of the FBI with this Bored Panda piece.

More info: Reddit

• Read More: 30 Secrets From Former FBI And CIA Agents That Common People Aren’t Supposed To Know About

#1

My spouse is an FBI agent. One of the things they had to do at the FBI Academy was going to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. The lesson was what can happen if you blindly follow orders without ever questioning the morality/intent behind them. I found that pretty compelling, and I was glad to hear that it’s part of their training.

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#2

Not an FBI or CIA officer here, but my sister is a district attorney, and over the years she has prosecuted a number of animal-cruelty cases. This led to her having an ongoing partnership with the FBI for the last several years. It turns out the FBI started tracking animal cruelty cases about 10-15 years ago due to the incredibly high correlation between harming animals when you’re young and becoming a serial violent offender as an adult.

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#3

Somewhat unrelated but my great uncle was an FBI agent. Every time we would ask him if he had any interesting stories but he would say he was sworn I to secrecy. After 10 years of hearing this, my sister asked “Really?” and he responded with “No, I just don’t remember anything interesting happening.”

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#4

A friend applied to work at the FBI. He was required to tell them anything illegal he had done so he told them he had illegally downloaded a bunch of media and they laughed and said if that disqualified you, no one would work there

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#5

Met an old, retired, CIA spook at a wedding reception. Spitting image of Col. Sanders, he was amazing.

So I asked him “I don’t want you to tell me anything you can’t, but I’d love to know when Kennedy got killed, what was the talk around the water cooler in the office?”

He didn’t halt, or pause to think.

“Hell, we all thought Johnson did it.”

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#6

My SIL is involved in these organizations. She can’t tell us much about what she does, but she has a large backpack with a radiophone on top. If the phone rings she’s told us you don’t answer it. You just drop everything and get out of town faster than ASAP.

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#7

I have a relative that retired from the NSA a few years ago. She has talked about a few things in generalities, nothing specific. Among them:

You will see things that entirely change your view of the world. People go in there all the time with lofty goals of changing things and within months those goals are mostly gone. Still, if you want to change things, you work for the agency. If you just want to make money, you work for a contractor. No one cares what contractors have to say.

Most people that stay long enough will do a tour in counterterrorism. Many people transfer out after a few months, and the average stay is two years because of the visuals. Those who stick around for a long time often change for the worse, and many struggle with mental illnesses, become alcoholics, get divorced, and generally lead miserable lives with their work their only reason for continuing.

Alcoholism in general is rife in the agency. When you cannot speak to anyone outside the agency about your work, it becomes nearly impossible to confide in anyone close to you. Even if you have close work friends or family, you have to be careful what you say because not everyone is read into every program. Two people can sit next to each other in the same office, working on the same subject for months, and never talk about it with each other even though they’re close friends outside the agency. So people turn to the bottle. Her husband worked for a different government agency and also had a Top Secret-SCI clearance, but she couldn’t talk about her work with him (nor could he with her, but he didn’t involve the intelligence community).

The agency employs psychiatrists who are cleared to be read into almost any program. Going to them, though, is often seen as a mark of shame among other agency employees, so they are not used nearly as often as they should be.

She told me most of these things while trying to recruit me. She believed that I should go in knowing what to expect. I eventually declined to apply.

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#8

My dad worked for the government, and he told me that anytime he had a meaningful interaction with someone who wasn’t American (ie going over to my friend’s house for the lunar new year, or going on vacation to Canada) he had to report it all and if he saw anything suspicious.

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#9

This is anecdotal and years old, but our family still gets a kick out of it…

I had a great uncle who was in construction years ago, he did high-quality rendering and plasterwork – he did some jobs for some security stuff in Australia.

In his later years, he would rave about the CIA and FBI and Australian secret services being in the country, with technology we’d never seen nor would see for decades.

In so 60s and 70s, we’re talking about in-ear communication devices, wristwatches with video and audio, small portable computer tablets, and super small/thin screens in full high-quality color, delivering information worldwide in seconds.

His ramblings got to the point where it was conspiracy theory level, and was before smartphones and pads were really a household item… now though, what he described was VERY accurate.

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#10

Worked with a woman who was a former NSA. We would always beg her to tell us s**t, but she never did. The one thing she did say, though, was that during training they show them a video of a bunch of things they’ve found out about and stopped. She said she hardly slept for two weeks after watching that.

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#11

There is a book called Moscow Rules. It was written by 2 CIA people, all about, well, disguise.

The CIA had all these agents in Russia, but the Russians were insane about following literally every single American in Russia, 24/7, looking for spies.

So a huge part of their job was trying to shake off the KGB. They had crazy quick-change disguises, all sorts of stuff.

The movie Argo was based on one of the writers somewhat.

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#12

We are all told never to use sites like this and social media, in general, is pretty much a no-go.

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#13

My dad worked for GCHQ in the 80s doing voice recognition and he can’t say anything more for a decade more.

The way they can recognize you by Siri/Google today was being used in the 80s… Just a bit slower…

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#14

I worked with the Australian Federal Police with the spider squad doing “computer stuff” for them in regards to pedos and finding trafficking victims – it is the most heartbreaking work but when you get them the office looked like NASA after the Mars landing

Edit; left 3 and a bit years ago but do get called up to lend a hand every now and then

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#15

My grandfather was CIA.. we all knew better, no one asked. Over time as his assignments became unclassified, he would slowly tell little stories. Was eating dinner. He asks my mom you remember that time y’all dropped me off at Dulles airport? I actually flew to Camp Perry. And was then helicoptered overseas. My mom replied which time. Turns out he was a demo expert. Defused bombs. Spent 30 years all over the world. His claim to fame Toyko Rose used to call him personally. Every time he landed in Japan. Man never traveled under his real name.

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#16

Not either of these, but I’ve had a clearance so I can weigh in a little.

Two things:

Firstly, most secret s**t happens right in front of people’s faces under the guise of being normal everyday stuff.

Secondly, properly secret programs and operations are never named in any way that indicates what they actually are about. They’re generally just two words chosen at random and that would rarely come up in normal conversation, stuff like “Cracked Gorilla” (which I just made up off the top of my head.)

So when people talk about classified stuff and its name is super topical, it’s either very very old or a nickname at best. Only public programs and operations have topical names as a PR motive, like “Desert Storm.”

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#17

I talked with some CIA recruiters towards the end of college and almost applied earnestly after a large group Q&A and then a much smaller one.

The thing that stuck out to me was that the guys said most CIA agents are out of shape and have limited combat training with guns or hand to hand. They made it clear that it’s the military that uses force. If confronted they were trained to immediately surrender or to drop their bags and run if possible.

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#18

If you apply for a job at GCHQ/MI5/MI6/Fylingdales/etc. they will talk to every member of your close family and if any minor red flags come up you might not get the job.

And also if you are Chinese/Russian/North Korean/etc. (I think that it probably goes to a grandparent or great grandparent being from that country) you will not even be able to apply.

Source: Stepdad was in MI6 and fun-fact; if he wants to go to certain countries (eg. Israel) he has to ask permission from the MOD to travel there

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#19

I applied for a job as a computer programmer for the CIA in the 1980’s which required a top-secret clearance. The application was 17 pages long and wanted to know the exact dates of any illegal drug use, your sexual proclivities as well as every place you have ever lived as well as other things. The second interview would be conducted while taking a polygraph test. I noped out on that one.

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#20

Any gadget with a microphone that connects to the internet is always listening. Odds are good a human won’t ever hear anything said because they are collecting data to sell to other companies. But they are listening, cataloging, and collating it all into databases. I won’t get in trouble for that because you already gave permission for your devices to do that. You just clicked accept without reading your terms of use.

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