Have you ever wished you could have been a fly on the wall for a particular moment — for an entertaining squabble, an important moment in history, or simply just to spy on people for the fun of it? Well the Military does, and a group of researchers at University of California Berkeley are hard at work making that wish come true.

Researchers attached electrodes to various parts of a beetle and its brain in order to gain the ability to control it in flight.  These beetles are apparently zombie-like after the procedure (sorry, PETA), but the results are startling.  It’s pretty well known that the Military and researchers have been hard at work for a while on controlling insects, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in action — and from the video it’s pretty impressive.

I’m not sure of the actual device they use to control the beetle but it seems that they just activate an electrode to control left or right direction in flight.  There is obviously quite a way to go before they are controlling humans and spying with real flies, but it seems to be getting scarily close to reality.