ScienceDirect - Technol Rep Tohoku Univ ... - Garryck Osborne

148 The Hunt for Zero Point
all our programs may be faulty, because I'm certainly not aware of
them."
The Air Force, he added, had no need for a reconnaissance aircraft
that could fly around the globe at Mach 7 or Mach 8 when the satellites
it already had in place could, for the most part, do the same job at a
fraction of the cost.
Stealth, however, was a different matter and here the Air Force was
developing a range of new technologies in the black.
Muellner wouldn't be specific, but he hinted that at least part of this
effort entailed the development of "reactive skins" that would enable a
next-generation stealth fighter to change color like a chameleon, blending
against its background from any perspective. A cloaking device that
could, in effect, make an aircraft disappear into the surrounding ether.
Visual stealth to add to the radar and infrared variety already in place.
None of these efforts had resulted in any new operational aircraft yet,
but there were test programs under way, he said, designed to "mature
technology."
From this it was acceptable to deduce that something had been
developed at the time of the Aurora sightings over the North Sea oil rig
and elsewhere, that something real had been tripping the seismology
sensors of the USGS, but that for whatever reason the vehicle had not
been procured for front-line service. Why? Because Muellner didn't
need to be saying any of this. The Air Force never talked about black
programs; but on this, his last full day in office, had the general decided
to invoke his other responsibility as the service's "chief information
officer" and set the record straight?
The black world had taken a pasting of late. The rumors about what
the Air Force was doing away from the public light of accountability were
starting to spiral out of control. There were certain things that the Air
Force would always need to develop in the black to maintain America's
readiness in an uncertain world, Muellner said.
"And the rest?" I asked him, easing between the agreed subject matter
of the interview and the antigravity question. What about the people—
apparently sane and credible witnesses—who said that they saw things in
the desert night skies that seemed to defy the laws of physics? Craft that
hovered right over them sometimes, huge, motionless, silent?
Muellner smiled. Get him the name of the contractor, he said, because
he'd love to put them under contract. Whatever was out there, it had
nothing to do with the Air Force.
But here was the disconnect. People were seeing things that defied
explanation in the vicinity of Area 51, Nevada, the U.S. Air Force base