Machines That Move Like Shadows

Standing in a light rain waiting for a school bus to take me to my cloud covered elementary school was a week day activity for me nine months out of the year. The rain was something you excepted in the northwest. It dripped all day long like a leaky bathroom faucet. Without an umbrella or raincoat, I stood there, letting each drop hit my head and shoulders. No one I knew used an umbrella and the thought of people running to their car to avoid the rain was something I laughed at while watching movies. My early childhood memories had a backdrop of grey clouds and puddles.

The rain and clouds could feel gloomy if it wasn’t for the tall evergreen pine trees blanketing the landscape. Green glowed like luminous emeralds creating a balance with the light absorbing grey skies. The forests of the Northwest covered the hills and valleys until it reached the very edge of the coastline.

As the school year ended, the weather shifted, and the nine months of gray gave way to crystal clear blue skies. Three months of summer lifted the mood of everyone’s rain soaked heads. On the first day of warm sun, jean pants were cut into shorts and smiles could be seen everywhere you went.

Living in the Willamette Valley made the Pacific Ocean a two-hour drive and one summer weekend my Mother took me on that trip. Leaving Friday evening with clear skies gave me an opportunity to stick my head out the window and gaze at the brilliant stars. Spotting the Big Dipper was enthusiastically announced out loud to my mother while she was singing every word to her favorite song.

Arriving late into the evening at the Newport Hatfield Marine Science Center, it had an empty parking lot. Slowly pulling into the back entrance, I noticed my mother’s friend Steve Hoffman, who was a forester, finishing up his college degree at Oregon State University (OSU).

Upon entering through a staff-only rear entrance, we found ourselves facing a large cylinder tank. The tank full of water had a glass port. What first looked like only dark water gave way to a large eye staring back at me. Frozen in place with the overwhelming feeling of awe, Steve tells us it’s a Giant Pacific Octopus (Enteroctopus Doflein).

The octopus’s intelligence could be felt. Its sense of awareness created a connection that could not be described. The color and texture of the octopus slightly changed as it moved in the tank. The experience left me with a profound respect for the animal and a fascination that’s lasted my entire life.

Camouflage and mimicry are not unique to the octopus but, combined with its intelligence, make it a fascinating creature. Imitating rocks, seaweed, and coral, it can hide from predators and ambush its prey.

Wherever life has evolved, the survival mechanisms of cloaking, mimicry, and decoy strategies have been developed across all species. It’s fair to assume that these strategies would additionally be present in life outside our solar system.

Meanwhile, here on Earth we are faced with the ugly truth that Humans biggest threat is currently other Humans. Camouflage has been used for thousands of years to prevent enemies from finding military forces and giving the advantage of surprise in an attack. Uniforms that blend in with the environment and coverings to hide equipment have been staples of the Army. Man-made fog hides Navy ships and the Air Force makes its aircraft invisible to radar.

Advancements in technology are giving way to stealth capabilities that previously seemed only possible in science fiction movies. Cutting-edge stealth technology is now being utilized not just in military settings, but also in public domains. The secrecy of the advanced aerospace stealth weapons reduces the risk of enemy forces developing counter technologies. This creates a question “how do you create a defense for something that you don’t know exists?”.

Early sightings of the United States B-2 bomber, while still classified as top-secret in the 1980s, were commonly reported as a UAP sighting. Civilians catching a glimpse of test flights of the bomber were left, puzzled as to what or who they had just seen. Reports of the of the object trickle through society, leaving only speculation. The rumors of this advanced vehicle eventually reached adversaries of the United States and created a hesitation for a direct conflict.

While the B-2 bomber created a cross section, the size of a bird to enemy radar, it was far from what is speculated to exist as its replacement. Due to the secrecy of the project, we can only speculate until an official release is presented by the government.

The aerospace industry is it an exponential growth curve. The privatization of the space race has created a gold rush. Companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the Pacific Northwest’s very own Boeing are leading the charge. The lines between aerospace and defense contracts have been blurred. Technology used for reaching the international space station can have dual defense capabilities. Companies like Raytheon and Halliburton have benefited from the access to classified technologies giving an advantage within the aerospace industry.

Each advanced aerospace capability is impressive as a standalone technology, but by stacking multiple stealth technologies together, a vehicle could dominate the battlefield while remaining unseen and creating mass confusion. Attacks could be done with complete deniability.

Fifth-generation warfare is conducted in a haze of confusion. Armies lining up and engaging in hand-to-hand combat could be relatively compared to cavemen, throwing sticks and stones when placed in fifth generational warfare scenarios.

Airspace supremacy has been key to any modern conflict. Previously, aircraft were limited to airtime based on human physical capacity. Pilots filling the fatigue of long combat flights returned to base needing rest and recovery. The stress and physical challenges limited combat time, but with advancements in AI, we now have drones that feel neither.

Autonomous multimodal hybrid vehicles (MHV) working independently through a mesh network could use artificial intelligence to achieve mission goals. Removing the pilot and using alternative fuel sources removes the two largest aerial vehicle failure points. Air supremacy could be sustained over prolonged periods of time, providing offensive, defensive and surveillance reconnaissance capabilities.

Vehicles able to transverse water, air and space with no GeForce tolerance limitations, creates a battlefield scenario as foreign to humanity as H.G. Wells “The War of the Worlds” a science fiction novel depicting a Martian invasion. The book was originally released in 1898, but most famously in 1938 a radio broadcast production of the novel was realistically played by voice actors causing nationwide panic.

The impact on the civilian population cannot be understated. The fog of war created from advanced stealth technologies can cause horrific psychological damage to the public. Panic and hysteria similarly experienced by the radio broadcasts realistic portrayal of advanced destructive technologies can cause mass hysteria. The impact on the public must be taken into regard.

Autonomous technologies allow for unprecedented maneuverability and speed. Removing the need for pilot life support, the vehicle can maneuver between water, air and space. GeForce training and the limitations of the physical body through acceleration are no longer a factor. AI piloted vehicles not only have an advantage of speed, but with the ability to change direction and orientation on any axis allows unpredictable movements that traditional anti-aircraft ammunition cannot replicate.

Multimodal hybrid vehicles conducting sustained operations encounter increased visibility and vulnerability issues. The increased operational deployment times creates a need for new stealth strategies. Similar to the giant Pacific octopus, the largest subspecies of the animal makes visibility its main weakness. Growing up to 150 feet long makes the invisibility of the Northwest Pacific octopus cloaking not only an advantage, but a necessity for survival.

The compounding effect of the stealth technologies stacked together creates a visual puzzle made to trick, confuse, and disorient the observer. This effect must be recognized as an additional layer to the stealth technology stack. The combination of the technology layers cloaking, mimicking, and decoy mechanisms results in the fourth layer called perceptual disruption.

Each one of these advanced aerospace, stealth technologies, creates a fail-safe onto each layer of technology. If the observer recognizes and becomes aware of one stealth technology advantage, then two other layers continue to create a perceptual disruption, making the observer come to false conclusions or assumptions. Unlike redundancies in technology, this creates a puzzle in which multiple layers of data analysis must be navigated in order to truly understand the threat.

Creating an offensive strategy to the advanced stealth technology stack becomes delayed because of the inability to come to reach a consensus on the actual threat of the vehicle. The plausible deniability and delayed defense actions is a key component of fifth generational warfare. What and who your enemy is becomes the biggest component to paralyzing any type of action.

Similar to my experience at seven, staring into the massive eye of the giant Pacific octopus, an enemy coming under attack from the MHV’s advanced stealth technology will not understand the severity of the situation.