The CIA Museum, located inside the Agency’s Langley, Virginia headquarters, is famously closed to the general public. But even among those who can enter,...

The CIA Museum, located inside the Agency’s Langley, Virginia headquarters, is famously closed to the general public. But even among those who can enter, few realize that one of its most fascinating exhibits isn’t in a display case at all. It’s overhead. The museum’s “coded ceiling” is a sprawling, multi‑panel installation that embeds covert messages into the architecture itself, turning the very roof into an intelligence puzzle. A Museum That Tells Its Story TwiceThe CIA Museum chronicles the agency’s history alongside major global events, but the ceiling adds a second, secret narrative. Each section of the museum features a unique code panel — six in total — designed with graphics, symbols, and text that conceal...