When it comes to intelligence gathering, one of the biggest hurdles can just be finding a way to get close enough to the target to get any meaningful data. During the Cold War, the U.S. Army devised a small sensor that sounds straight out of a James Bond movie, which an individual could hide inside a camera lens to try to discreetly record the signatures from lasers on Soviet armored vehicles, helicopters, and other weapon systems in East Germany. The Army’s then-brand-new Intelligence and Security Command initiated the project, nicknamed Trivial Tiger, in 1977. Declassified details of the program are included in an INSCOM history covering activities during the 1978 Fiscal Year, which a private individual received through the Freedom of Information Act request in May 2018. Government transparency website GovernmentAttic.org then posted a copy of this document online in July 2018.

“A means of delivering these microminiaturized devices into the proper area was studied with the resultant sensor/camera piggy back configuration,” according to the historical review. “[The] object of the project was to acquire Electro-Optics signals believed associated with such tactical devices as field artillery range finders, helicopter-borne target designator, and other weapons associated systems that might use lasers to increase offensive operational effectiveness.” It’s not entirely clear how the system worked or what kind of data it necessarily recorded and how. The sensors themselves were modified variants of devices that INSCOM had first developed under a separate project called Gravel Stream. Almost all of that section in the history is redacted, with only a portion of the last sentence left uncensored.

Roland Holschneider/Picture-Alliance/DPA/AP Images US Army troops patrol the Berlin Wall in West Berlin in 1986.

It says “[redacted] position horizontally polarized, thereby changing its mini-directional transmit capability, severely impacting on the possibility of success,” which could reflect trouble with placing the sensors and attempting to operate or receiving information from them remotely. This could explain the decision to convert two of the five Gravel Stream types into the hand-held Trivial Tiger versions. It could also imply that the sensor was recording information about possible laser signatures in a format that could be transmitted via radio frequency. We do know that the Trivial Tiger configuration was small enough to slot in between a regular Nikon camera and a 1000 millimeter telephoto lens. This had to be the case since the U.S. Military Liaison Mission to Commander in Chief, Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, routinely used these cameras already. Inserting the sensor inside made it less likely that the Soviets would notice anything out of the ordinary.

via Nikon Rumors A rare 1970s-era Nikon Nikkor-P 1200mm f11 lens, similar to the 1000mm lenses that the U.S. Military Liaison Mission would have had access to in 1978, attached to a modern DSRL camera.