Someone is out there, hiding from you.  At least they think they're hiding.  You know exactly where they are.  You have the Spy-Tech Spy Detector!

They say that what you don't know can't hurt you.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  Your operation could be destroyed by an enemy agent hidden in the bushes, listening in on a secret meeting.  An enemy agent could be lurking in the darkness, waiting for you in ambush.  With the Spy-Tech Spy Detector you can locate these agents and turn the tables on them.  The Spy-Tech Spy Detector measures infrared radiation.  Turn it on and sweep it across an area.  The seven LED visual readout will light up when it is pointed at a person.  The closer the person is the more LEDs will light up.

A mouse scurries silently along the desert floor on a moonless night.  Invisible in the darkness, it seems safe from any predators.  Suddenly a rattlesnake strikes, swallowing the mouse in one gulp.  How did the snake locate it?  Not through hearing, smell, or sight, but with a sense that humans do not possess.  The rattlesnake is equipped with a built-in infrared detector that enables it to sense the heat of a mouse body.

All objects above the temperature of absolute zero (-459°F) give off a certain amount of heat, which can be detected and measured as infrared radiation.  Warm-blooded mammals give off much more heat than their surroundings, so they are fairly easy to detect.

Infrared light was discovered in 1800 by Sir William Herschel.  He was using a prism to break sunlight into the different colors that combine to make it - red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.  He noticed that most of the heat went to an area beyond the red band of visible light.  He concluded that there was an element of light which could not be seen but which could be felt as heat.

Light waves that are longer than those of the color red are called infrared.  Infrared light is detectable as heat.

Since the Spy Detector measures the infrared radiation of a target against that of its background, there are situations in which it may not work.

• The target may be hidden behind something which blocks infrared radiation, such as a large rock or a pane of insulated glass.
• On a very hot day the heat of the target may not be measurably greater than the heat of his surroundings.
• Very hot objects, such as space heaters, electrical transformers or running (or recently run) automobile engines may give off high infrared signals.  Keep this in mind and it won't be a problem - in fact, it's often useful to an agent to know whether a car has been driven recently, and he can use his Spy Detector to find out.

You are assigned to tail an enemy spy.  He's easy to keep an eye on - he's wearing a big overcoat, a green hat, and carrying a bulky dufflebag.  As he walks up the street you follow from the other side.  The spy steps into a phone booth and you stop to watch.  Suddenly a bus stops in front of him and lets off passengers.  For 10 seconds your view is completely blocked!  As the bus pulls away you relax.  There he is, still in the phone booth.  You wait a few more minutes.  Then you become suspicious.  You approach the telephone booth.  Inside, you see the dufflebag (stuffed with crumpled newspaper) with the overcoat around it and the green hat on top.  The enemy spy is long gone - he probably took the bus.  You have been fooled by a decoy.

Using decoys is a favorite trick of spies who are under surveillance.  If the decoy works, you will be busy watching the decoy while the enemy spy goes on with his mission.

The following are typical decoys you can use.  But be careful - some of them can be defeated by the Spy-Tech Spy Detector.

• Make a dummy on your bed out of rolled blankets and pillows.  Then cover it with a blanket and turn off the light.  This decoy makes an enemy spy think you're asleep in bed when you're on a mission or keeping watch from a closet.
• If the opposition is watching your house, the silhouette of a seated figure near the window will make them think you're at home even as you slip out the back door.
• Put a pair of shoes behind floor-length curtains so that just the toes are visible.  If an enemy comes into the room he'll think you are hiding behind the curtains.
• If the opposition has seen you wearing a certain hat, you can set the hat up behind a wall or a bush to fool them.  While they're watching it you may be able to circle behind and surprise them!

You can fool the ear as well as the eye.  Certain sounds or noises may convince the opposition that you are somewhere that you are not.

People often leave the television or radio on when they leave the house so that a burglar will think they're home.  They are using sound to trick him.

Another technique, good for short periods, is to turn on a shower.  If someone hears a shower running they assume you are in the bathroom.

When you're in hiding and the opposition is closing in on you, toss a pebble or other small object over their heads so that it lands as far away as possible.  When they hear the sound of it landing they'll head off in that direction, allowing you to make your getaway.  It's an old trick but it sill works!

If your house is being watched you may need help to slip away from the opposition.  Ask another agent to come to your house wearing pants and shoes similar to those you are wearing, as well as sunglasses and a loose sweatshirt with the hood up.  Once the other agent is inside, put on his sweatshirt and sunglasses.  When you leave, the enemy agent watching your house will assume you are the person who came to visit.

Spies spend a lot of thinking of ways to fool the opposition.  They set up dummy operations which they know will be under surveillance.  They send false messages which they know will be intercepted.  They leak information about notional agents (agents that don't exist).  They use known double agents (agents that are working for both sides) to feed false information to the opposition.  If your enemies are busy following false leads, trailing decoy agents and running around on wild goose chases they won't have the time or energy to do anything about your genuine operations.  Hoaxes, or false operations, can serve as a smokescreen to hide real ones.  If enemy agents have been taken in by hoaxes in the past, they won't know whether to trust any real information they may come across.  They'll end up so confused they won't know what to believe - and that's just the way you want them!

For centuries there was constant warfare in Japan between rival warlords.  The warlords needed spies to get information and perform secret missions against the enemy.  These spies were called Ninjas, and they may have been the greatest spies of all time.  They developed many clever techniques that are still studied by spies today.  Here are some tricks a ninja would use to enter a heavily guarded castle at night.

• The ninja would wait until a windy or rainy night when the background noise would cover noises he made.  While outside, the ninja stayed downwind so his sounds wouldn't carry to the guards.
• He would sneak into one area of a castle while an accomplice staged a noisy diversion at the other side, distracting the guards.
• The ninja would throw a stone into a campfire to cause a guard to look there.  The ninja knew that looking into the fire would temporarily cost the guard his night vision.
• If he was concerned about traps or tripwires he could walk on his hands and feel his way down a passage.
• He learned to run sideways so he could quickly pass through narrow spaces.
• He carried oil with him to lubricate squeaky hinges and sliding panels.
• He could tell whether someone was really asleep or was just pretending by the sound of their breathing.
• If he accidently made noises that attracted a guard's attention, he would imitate the sound of a cat or a rat to cover it, or speak loudly as though he himself was part of the castle guard.

The ninja prepared his escape routes in advance.

• He might hid a springboard near the castle wall, which would allow him to make an astonishinly high jump - he would then pull the springboard up after him with a rope.
• He might dig a hole in a field near the castle and cover it with a grass mat.  When he was being pursued he would drop into the hole and cover it up.  His pursuers would think he disappeared.
• He put stepping stones under the surface of a river and memorized their location so that he could run across them.  Anyone chasing him would think he was running on top of the water!
• The ninja could quickly climb a tree and position himself so he blended with the branches.
• He practiced running sideways and backwards so it was hard to follow his tracks.  The technique of sideways running allowed the ninja to slip through dense groves of bamboo.