The rebel briefing scene from Return of the Jedi. Lucasfilm

The CIA Created a Fake STAR WARS Fan Site As Cover for a Spy Network in the 2000s

Originally posted on Nerdist | By Eric Diaz | Last updated May 28, 2025 4:41 PM ET

Spies and spy networks are no strangers to the Star Wars galaxy. Andor was all about that, and we’ve had references to “rebel spies” as far back as the original trilogy. But did you know that Star Wars was used as a cover for actual real-world spies by the CIA? We learned via 404 Media that security researcher Ciro Santilli discovered that, back in the mid-to-late-2000s, the CIA created a fake Star Wars fan site. A Star Wars site they secretly used to communicate with informants in other countries. The name of this particular site was StarWarsWeb.net. If you click on that link now, it takes you directly to the official CIA website. So we’d say his research was accurate.

the fake Star Wars website used by the CIA in the 2000s. Wayback Machine

Of course, the site is long gone, but screenshots exist of it. And it is very much a time capsule of that era of the internet. The agents who designed it sure did their Star Wars homework. The screenshot shows a little boy in Jedi robes, with links to several Star Wars websites. Interestingly, many of those sites still exist today. There are some images of animated Clone Wars-era Yoda, which means the CIA was using this fake Star Wars site at least until 2010, not long after the show debuted on Cartoon Network.

Here’s where things get dark, however. Aside from this one Star Wars site, there were other pop culture and gaming websites used by the CIA in this manner. Eventually, Iranian authorities discovered these sites, and we now know of their link to the killing of several CIA sources in China, circa 2010-2012. Which is about the time that StarWarsWeb.net went away. Luckily, thanks to sites like the Wayback Machine, we have evidence of its existence. In Return of the Jedi, Mon Mothma sadly says “Many Bothans died to bring us this information,” in a reference to her spy network. In reality, it seems many actual spies died using Star Wars as a cover. It’s a truly tragic example of “Art imitates life, life imitates art.”

This article first appeared on Nerdist and was syndicated with permission.

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