US Army Optic Stealth Suit used in Iraq?

[karl 12]

Stealth Suit Video? - FFW to 2:55

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4f6_1178746833

[glyndowers heir]

Nice try! I admit I had to watch it 3 times before i twigged what was happening

If you watch closely you see the door of the first truck open, then another truck pulls up behind.

The supposed stealthy soldier gets out of the 1st truck door and shuts it. Because the truck behind is the same colour, its easy to miss this - giving the effect of him 'appearing' all at once.

Ask yourself - why would he have a stealth suit on inside the big highly visible truck?, sort of defeats the purpose!

Edited September 26, 2009 by glyndowers heir

[karl 12]

Glyndowers heir,thanks for the reply -I'm all for prosaic explanations but are we talking about the same bit of footage?

The man in question is highlighted with a red circle and climbs on a tank (around 3:00 on the video).

Looks pretty freaky to me.

Cheers.

[Universal Sight]

i would say its more of a camera error than anything to do with "cloaking". Although it is believed that this is a real goal of militaries all over the world.

This is one thing that i would really hate to see come to fruition. As we know, as with other inventions of this sort, If it starts out for a particular use...somehow it usually ends up being used for devious purposes.

Just think how many world leaders the Earth will go through. It would be non-stop assassinations. And just wait until a spy gives it to a terrorist group for a few million dollars... that would be unreal.

Unfortunately, i truly believe that they "riddle" of cloaking will be solved and this will be a very hard issue to deal with in the future.

[glyndowers heir]

Glyndowers heir,thanks for the reply -I'm all for prosaic explanations but are we talking about the same bit of footage?

The man in question is highlighted with a red circle and climbs on a tank (around 3:00 on the video).

Looks pretty freaky to me.

Cheers.

WOW!

I have no idea how I could have missed that!

i guess I was concentrating on the background trucks when I viewed this in small screen as they appeared at the time your recommended ffw point kicked in, and just thought the red circled guy was the same one as from the lead truck.

Now I have viewed it in full screen you are right, it is really eerie!

I am more inclined to think its caused by some sort of editing/camera artifact rather than a stealth suit because the guy climbing on the tank appears to be dressed in normal fatigue TShirt and combat trousers - rather than any sort of specialist suit - unless this appearance is part of the stealth suits repetoire!

Anyway if this is true I want one of these suits, I have scores to settle muahhhaahaha!

Edited September 26, 2009 by glyndowers heir

[karl 12]

Universal sight, thanks for the reply -if the effect is just 'a camera error' then I can honestly say I've never seen one like it before or since.

I do wholeheartedly agree with your other comments though.

Cheers.

[b_kid]

It's Solid Snake!

[village_idiot]

Nope...no stealth suit here...just a simple optical illusion thanks to the angle of the camera...

[Universal Sight]

Universal sight, thanks for the reply -if the effect is just 'a camera error' then I can honestly say I've never seen one like it before or since.

I do wholeheartedly agree with your other comments though.

Cheers.

IM just saying this because its possible that the high heat on ground surface may have interferred with the vision of the man initially. Plus if you watch after this when the first man to head that way (from which the invisible guy came) and stops...he also looks like he is disappearing to. you can see him distorted until he starts moving again.

[sepulchrave]

I think the ``stealth suit'' is more a factor of JPEG compression used in the video (at least I assume it is JPEG compression or a similar method; it certainly looks like it). In a JPEG, the original image is compressed by essentially taking the Fourier transform of blocks of the picture. The basic result is that edges of things are blurred. In this case, since we have soldiers in khaki running around on the ground, the video compression algorithm merges the boundaries of the soldier with the background grass.

I don't know what the guy highlighted with the red circle was doing, but he obviously comes running into the picture. The faster he moves, the fewer frames there are for each of his positions - i.e. moving fast tends to blur your motion anyway - so compounded with the detail losses present in the video compression algorithm it makes him look like a ghost.

If the soldiers were, for example, wearing blue uniforms and running around on a red background the compression algorithm would turn the edges of the soldiers into a purple colour. In this case, since both the uniforms and the landscape are essentially the same colour, the compression algorithm basically merges the edges of the soldiers with the background.

[Contract Killer Romeo]

I think it is a little funny that it started out as a propaganda video for the extremists..but it turned into a Americans have stealth suits!! Sleep uneasy with one eye open dirtbags. HOOYAHH.

[karl 12]

Nope...no stealth suit here...just a simple optical illusion thanks to the angle of the camera...

Village idiot -I'd hardly say it was a 'simple' optical illusion.

Can you post any other video examples where exactly the same effect has happened before?

Cheers.

[Torgo]

I'm pretty sure it's a compression artifact having to do with the fact that what he is wearing looks to be the same color as the wall on the right side of the screen and the truck that has pulled up behind the tank. The compression algorithm divides the screen up into lots of squares - where there is low contrast it makes those squares large, high contrast it makes them small. So when he is in front of the wall and the truck, he is very blurry and smeared out (not to mention the same color) but as soon as he goes in front of the tank the compression algorithm makes much smaller and more detailed blocks, making him instantly visible once he goes in front of the tank.

[Raptor]

It looks like the magical technology of camouflage, to me. Tan coloured clothes against tan coloured walls, trucks and vegetation.

[hippomchippo]

To say the US Government has not developed or is not attempting to develop something to this affect would be ignorant, and considering that we are almost there publicly, whos to say we aren't there in military terms?

[karl 12]

To say the US Government has not developed or is not attempting to develop something to this affect would be ignorant, and considering that we are almost there publicly, whos to say we aren't there in military terms?

Hippomchippo -you make a good point there and I don't think the idea is too outlandish.

Theres some interesting reading below about progress with certain optic technologies -if this is whats already in the public domain then god alone knows what limitless military black budget spending has produced.

- New material "perfectly absorbs light," converting it to heat:

While research into light refracting metamaterials has produced a few neat, if very small toys, some groups, like the British Royal Navy, are taking cloaking devices quite seriously. Mostly, this type of thing works on negative refraction indexes, the materials merely bend light, visible or otherwise, around themselves. While this would be incredibly useful for Motoko Kusanagi or Klingon Birds of Prey, cloaking materials don't have a lot of use in generic, not blowing up the bad guys, applications.

A collaboration between Boston College and Duke University has developed a metamaterial that might be slightly more useful to scientists and engineers. Their new metallic metamaterial absorbs light perfectly. The resonating materials can absorb both the electrical and magnetic properties of electromagnetic waves over a narrow frequency range, turning the light into heat.

Three things can happen to light when it hits a material. It can be reflected, as in a mirror. It can be transmitted, as with window glass. Or it can be absorbed and turned into heat. This metamaterial has been engineered to ensure that all light is neither reflected nor transmitted, but is turned completely into heat and absorbed. It shows we can design a metamaterial so that at a specific frequency it can absorb all of the photons that fall onto its surface, explains Boston College's Willie J. Padilla, a leading researcher in optics and metamaterials.

As the material's properties make it easily scalable, though the absorption range is narrow, it could be tuned to a vast portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Some of the possible uses for a material like this include light detectors and electronic imaging applications.

http://www.dailytech.com/New+Tunable+Metamaterial+Absorbs+All+Light/article11953.htm

and:

Last year researchers from Duke University stunned the world when they announced a cloaking device for the microwave range. This device made use of metamaterials that had a negative refractive index for electromagnetic radiation. The metamaterials were carefully designed split-ring resonators with a structure size much smaller than the wavelength. Only 10 stacked layers of metamaterials were necessary to achieve the desired invisibility effect.

Possible applications in the future include perfect lenses that beat the diffraction limit, and optical cloaking devices which provide some invisibility for macroscopic objects

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071221231539.htm

and:

The Purdue University engineers, following mathematical guidelines devised in 2006 by physicists in the United Kingdom, have created a theoretical design that uses an array of tiny needles radiating outward from a central spoke. The design, which resembles a round hairbrush, would bend light around the object being cloaked. Background objects would be visible but not the object surrounded by the cylindrical array of nano-needles, said Vladimir Shalaev, Purdue's Robert and Anne Burnett Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering..

Calculations indicate the device would make an object invisible in a wavelength of 632.8 nanometers, which corresponds to the color red. The same design, however, could be used to create a cloak for any other single wavelength in the visible spectrum, Shalaev said.

"How to create a design that works for all colors of visible light at the same time will be a big technical challenge, but we believe it's possible," he said. "It is clearly doable. In principle, this cloak could be arbitrarily large, as large as a person or an aircraft."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070402141206.htm

and:

Using a new design theory, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Imperial College London have developed the blueprint for an invisibility cloak. Once devised, the cloak could have numerous uses, from defense applications to wireless communications, the researchers said.

Such a cloak could hide any object so well that observers would be totally unaware of its presence, according to the researchers. In principle, their invisibility cloak could be realized with exotic artificial composite materials called "metamaterials," they said.

"The cloak would act like you've opened up a hole in space," said David R. Smith, Augustine Scholar and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke's Pratt School. "All light or other electromagnetic waves are swept around the area, guided by the metamaterial to emerge on the other side as if they had passed through an empty volume of space."

Electromagnetic waves would flow around an object hidden inside the metamaterial cloak just as water in a river flows virtually undisturbed around a smooth rock, Smith said.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060525193729.htm

and:

Scientists have already created an 'invisibility cloak' made out of 'metamaterial' which can bend electromagnetic radiation such as visible light, radar or microwaves -- around a spherical space, making an object within this region appear invisible.

Until now, scientists could only make objects appear invisible from far away. Liverpool mathematician Dr Sébastien Guenneau, together with Dr Frédéric Zolla and Professors André Nicolet from the University of Marseille, have proven - using a specially designed computer model called GETDP - that objects can also be made to appear invisible from close range when light travels in waves rather than beams.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070503100813.htm

Cheers.

Edited September 28, 2009 by karl 12

[karl 12]

Theres a good link here.

http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/meet-the-real-life-invisible-man.html

[sepulchrave]

Are we discussing whether the U.S. Military has optical ``cloaking'' suits, or whether the poor-quality 320x240 pixel internet video shows a stealth suit or merely compression errors as myself, Torgo, and others have suggested?

I am a physicist, and have a passing familiarity with metamaterials. You will notice that all applications cited by karl 12 involve limited wavelength (i.e. just red light) and limited geometries (i.e. only spherical shapes). These are not suitable for making soldiers invisible.

While all the press reports throw out the possibility of cloaking devices or invisibility cloaks, in my professional opinion whenever a scientist says `<blank> is a big technical challenge, but we believe it is possible' they are really saying `I have no idea how to achieve <blank> but I want a bigger grant so I'm gonna spit-ball'.

Now having said that, I can agree that there is a remote possibility that the U.S. Military has some how figured out how to use metamaterials to make objects invisible across the entire visible spectrum, and even how to use these metamaterials to make some sort of body suit. Is anyone here seriously suggesting that soldiers equipped with such top secret devices would actually take the time to respond to an ordinary I.E.D. attack? Wouldn't these suits be reserved for commando units operating deep in enemy territory or something?

[badeskov]

Are we discussing whether the U.S. Military has optical ``cloaking'' suits, or whether the poor-quality 320x240 pixel internet video shows a stealth suit or merely compression errors as myself, Torgo, and others have suggested?

I know where my vote would be

I am a physicist, and have a passing familiarity with metamaterials. You will notice that all applications cited by karl 12 involve limited wavelength (i.e. just red light) and limited geometries (i.e. only spherical shapes). These are not suitable for making soldiers invisible.

Nope, they are not suitable for that yet I am convinced. They are also very interesting for certain parts of optical communications and they still have a long way to go.

While all the press reports throw out the possibility of cloaking devices or invisibility cloaks, in my professional opinion whenever a scientist says `<blank> is a big technical challenge, but we believe it is possible' they are really saying `I have no idea how to achieve <blank> but I want a bigger grant so I'm gonna spit-ball'.

I couldn't have said better myself.

Cheers,

Badeskov

[paranoid pollock]

you guys had said it wouldent make sence sending a peace of tech like that into a average combat situation...

that it would b reserved for camando forces or what ever..

if it was a "prototype" w/ chance of malfunction. im sure "bugs" need to b worked out.

what we saw was the perfect way to test it.

you wouldent want the chance of it getting captured on a lone wolf test mission, a billion dollars down the drain and now some one else has our tech.

you would have it operate w/ a small unit incase anything should go haywire they could collect it quickley.

just having the test soldier operate say 50 to 100 yrds away, he could respond quickly to any combat matter.

which looks alot like what he did in this video.

no im not saying it was the real suit. its very blury and could b a film glitch.

but very realistic way to test it i think.