The Agency needed to deliver a listening device in a large field where two men were regularly meeting. A person walking towards them would scare them off. A dog or cat might also scare them off, believing the animal's owner would soon come looking for it. They needed a bug to deliver their bug, hence the design of a dragonfly.
In the photograph, the real thing is on the left, the prototype is in the middle, and the final "production" model is on the right. As impressive as this wing-beating, jet fuel powered, laser guided device is, far more impressive is its age.
The dragonflies are 35 years old! (Photograph courtesy of the CIA's Exhibit Center)
Declassified in November 2002
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