Warning: This article contains brief discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
Everyone in the US knows what the FBI and the CIA are, but how much do you actually know about what goes on inside those agencies?
Unless you, reader, are here because you happen to be an agent tasked with keeping tabs on articles about the FBI or CIA, chances are the answer to that question is, 'not much'.
That's all very purposeful, of course, because staff there are tasked with solving crimes, and that would be a lot harder to do if all of their intelligence was open to the public.
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So the bottom line is, FBI and CIA agents have their secrets - but now some of those secrets are being spilled.
The revelations come after one Reddit user decided to ask the question we've all been wondering, taking to the platform and writing: "FBI/CIA agents of Reddit, what’s something that you can tell us without killing us?"
Some staffers, and acquaintances of staffers, were quick to respond - although it's worth noting that they haven't shared their identities, for fair reasons. So we do just have to take their word for it, but many Redditors are clearly convinced they can be trusted.
So, what secrets did they share?
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Close calls will keep you up at night
One story came from the coworker of a former National Security Agency staffer, who claimed they would 'always beg her' to tell them secrets.
She held out, until one day she shared a chilling insight to her work.
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The Redditor said: "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."
Learning about how horrendous some of the would-be crimes could have been, one Redditor responded: "That makes me wonder... how many horrible, world-changing events have been prevented and us ordinary people just aren’t allowed to know?"
Classified material isn't that exciting
This might be a bit of a sweeping statement, because I'm sure there are some documents in the agencies that we'd all love to get our hands on.
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But one analyst for one of the agencies explained that the label 'classified' doesn't always relate to the content of the document, but rather how the agency got their hands on it.
They explained: "85% of all classified material is classified because of how it was collected, not because it is juicy / useful."
Another former authority confirmed this, claiming they were given Top Secret Clearance in the Navy and hoped they were going to be able to 'access some interesting stuff'.
However, they added: "I was largely disappointed. The a metric ton of classified material has almost no business being classified... There's also a ton of stuff that is just plain uninteresting and seemingly unimportant."
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So next time you hear rumors of some 'classified document', it's probably not worth getting your hopes up over some groundbreaking details.
Cases that stick with you
One Redditor recalled a conversation with a mentor, who used to work for the FBI.
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They explained: "Apparently, all he did was search for pedophiles by tracking child pornography. He said he didn't stay for very long because it was messing with his mentality."
Astounded by the truth of the job, another user responded: "That's an honorable job. People like him make a difference in this world."
There actually aren't any secrets
This revelation didn't actually come from an agent themselves, but from someone who claimed their great uncle was an FBI agent.
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They explained: "Every time we would ask him if he had any interesting stories but he would say he was sworn to secrecy. After 10 years of hearing this, my sister asked 'Really?'"
After being confronted with this question, the uncle came clean.
He responded: “No, I just don’t remember anything interesting happening.”
Maybe the biggest secret of all is, things aren't really as secret as we might expect?
Emily Brown