Secret Insignias From The ‘Black Ops’ World

Like A Space-Phoenix From Hell

The Latin phrase below the Phoenix translates to "The Devil You Know." That's the rationale behind the spy-satellite operators at the National Reconnaissance Office, who peer into the workings of foreign military arsenals from hundreds of miles into space.

This patch, from National Reconnaissance Office Launch 49, puts a bold face on a failure: the Future Imagery Architecture, a $10-billion disaster in the guise of a satellite able to peer through heavy cloud cover.

The end of Future Imagery Architecture meant that NRO had to continue with its KH "Keyhole" satellite family, many of which the United States uses to spy on Russian nukes. Launch 49 of the KH-11 series supposedly used spare parts from Future Imagery Architecture -- hence the Phoenix design.

Image: Courtesy Trevor Paglen

• Special Projects Flight Test Squadron

  No one patch may cobble together as many symbols as this one does. "Rat 55" is the call sign for pilots flying theT-43A, a radar testbed ("Rat," get it?) with an Air Force serial number ending in 55.
  The rat's holding a pair of radar devices, one stretched outward and one near its butt, "both of which recall the radome configuration" of the plane. Other flight-test operators for classified aircraft wear patches with wizardy features, so presumably that's what's up with the rat's hat.
  Image: Courtesy Trevor Paglen

 

• Confirmed: The Air Force Totally Hides Aliens From Us

  You don't know how many Freedom of Information Act requests we've filed in the hope of finding the Alien Technology Exploitation Division, the intrepid souls who'll soon announce a sources-sought contract to develop the Hyperspace Blaster. Alas, they don't exist.
  A former officer at Air Force Space Command tells Paglen that he and his friends had the patches made at their own expense after getting endlessly ribbed for working in a secure vault "where they kept the alien bodies." They wore them on their flight suits for months before a one-star general asked where he could get one of his own.
  Oh, and the barely-decipherable legend on the bottom? It's Klingon for "Don't Ask." Paglen got it in the mail from its creator after mentioning that he knew about its existence on the Colbert Report.
  Image: Courtesy Trevor Paglen
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• Special Projects Flight-Test Squadron

  Welcome to Area 51.
  Out in the Nevada desert, in a place called Groom Lake, the Air Force's most secretive organization tests its advanced prototypes. Supposedly, Lockheed's F-117A Nighthawk stealth plane went through Groom Lake's test facilities -- one of many flown by the Special Projects Flight Test Squadron, whose patch this is.
  The diamond shape in the center of the undated patch "may refer to early designs of stealth aircraft," Paglen writes. Those planes are parked next to the dismembered Martians.
  Image: Courtesy Trevor Paglen
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• Space Spies Are Ready to Breach Your Borders

  Paglen won't be able to find the origins of every patch he comes across. But rarely is a mystery more appropriate than in the case of the Sensor Hunters, whoever they are. Illustrated by one of MAD Magazine's spies, their brief(cases) include spying on the entire world, with swaggering disregard for nations' claims to control their own internal affairs.
  The twinkling stars probably suggest these guys have something to do with space, but all Paglen writes is that they "devoted to reconnaissance and intelligence operations."
  Image: Courtesy Trevor Paglen
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• • Drone Strikes From Space?

    The PAN satellite is so secretive that people joke it stands for "Pick a Name," rather than "Palladium at Night." Launched into geostationary orbit in September 2009, no military or intelligence agency claims to operate the communications device.
    Paglen reports that's led space-watchers to suspect it's a rare CIA-controlled satellite, used as a "communications relay for armed CIA Predator and Reaper drones operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
    Image: Courtesy Trevor Paglen
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  • • The Only Thing Falling To Earth Is Your Secrets

      This one belongs to the Hawaii-based 6594th Test Group, the wide receivers of military intelligence. In the early days of photo-reconnaissance satellites, back in the 1960s, the images taken by satellites printed to actual film. That meant anything the satellite observed had to be physically transported back to Earth for analysis.
      Those were the "Falling Stars" in this patch: Film canisters ejected from the satellites fell to earth over the Pacific. The 6594th Test Group "had to go out in airplanes and try to catch them as they fell from the heavens," Paglen says. This patch is one of his favorites.
      Image: Courtesy Trevor Paglen
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    • • I Want To Believe (In The Navy's Communications Network)

        The Navy uses a system of Boeing-designed space satellites to keep mariners connected with each other and home base while they're out at sea. The system is known as the Ultra-High Frequency Follow-On program.
        If you squint enough, that kinda-sorta-maybe abbreviates to UFO. Naturally, some wise-cracking sailor -- Paglen doesn't specify whom -- had the idea to make this X-Files-inspired patch.
        Image: Courtesy Trevor Paglen
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      • • The More Secretive The Drone, The More Psychedelic The Patch

          Groom Lake doesn't just house cutting-edge piloted planes. It's also home to the Desert Prowler, a Lockheed-designed drone shrouded in mystery since its 2005 launch -- and, perhaps, related to a different secret drone, the RQ-170 Sentinel aloft over Kandahar.
          And since its remote pilots and crew can't exactly flaunt their involvement with the program, their patches will have to suffice. The Roman numerals for 9 and 11 partially bound the badge -- subtle! -- and the rainbow-emanating eye has a lightning bolt through it, suggesting that the drone is armed and ready to rain vengeance for 9/11 on presumed Kandahari insurgents. Wild guess: The lightning-bolted Omega in the thought balloon indicates the drone is dreaming of a violent end to its targets.
          Image: Courtesy Trevor Paglen
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        • The Dragon Is In Ur Base, Killing Ur Dudes

          You're an imagery analyst, so naturally you see yourself as a Tolkein-esque flying serpent, dispensing destruction from the heavens. That's the apparent animating impulse behind what Paglen can only call the Unknown Dragon Patch. Dragons typically stand in for signals-intelligence satellite launches; their wing patterns on patches "symbolize the massive gold-foil dish antennae" of SIGINT spacecraft.
          Better still, the Latin translates to "All Your Base Are Belong To Us," which we remember as the earliest and most bizarre of all memes. Maybe the crew operating the "largest satellite in the world," which the National Reconnaissance Office launched into space on Friday, will have a Double Rainbow patch someday.
          Image: Courtesy Trevor Paglen
        • Source: Wired