NASA
A clay brick weighing 2.5 kg on top of an airgel block weighing just 2 grams
Dozens of countries around the world have huge arsenals of weapons, both conventional and unconventional. But what’s the biggest secret we (don’t) know? One of the candidates is “Fogbank” — something that almost no one knows exactly what it is.
For obvious reasons, militaries around the world go to great lengths to keep their latest innovations secret. But this secrecy can give rise to great curiosity and speculation among the public.
Every now and then, military secrets are revealed, even if only many decades after they were invented.
An example of this is – a strange secret material used by the United States in the production of nuclear warheads.
Its manufacture was so highly secret that details of the process were lost, says the BBC. Although its existence is now public knowledge, the Fogbank’s exact nature remains secret.
Thus, when a new batch of the material was needed to renew old warheads, the US National Nuclear Security Administration was forced to spend a lot of time and money to rediscover the process.
Weapons experts believe it is a aerogeldesigned for turn into superheated plasma when the fission phase of the weapon is detonated, which triggers the final detonation of the weaponin the fusion phase.
The Fogbank was initially manufactured in Tennessee between 1975 and 1989. After the last batch of warheads were produced, the installation has been disabled.
About 20 years later, when the American military decided to renew its old nuclear warheads to extend their useful life, those involved in the project realized that they had been preserved too much. few records about the manufacturing process.
Even worse, the most of the staff who had the necessary knowledge to manufacture the material had retired or left the agency.
After an expensive reverse engineering processin 2008 a new batch of the mysterious Fogbank was finally produced. It is not known whether this airgel is still used in new nuclear warheads today.
However… there are no ETs
In 2024, the public had the opportunity to take another peek at US military secrets, when those examining the UFO sightings since 1945.
The report concluded that most UFO sightings could be attributed to common objects on Earth — in many cases, these objects were actually classified military technology.
For example, the high number of reported UFO sightings in the 1950s and 1960s was caused by testing spy planes and space technology advanced US technology, such as high-altitude balloons and fighter jets.
Several secret research projects involved saucer-shaped planes, such as the Canadian fighter VZ-9AV Avrocardesigned for vertical take-off and landing.
The Pentagon report examined classified files and documents from all official government investigations into ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena’ and found no evidence of extraterrestrial technologies on Earth.
The US Department of Defense is currently considering the possibility of reducing the classification level of information about some of its secret space programs, in the hope that information about its defense capabilities act as a deterrent for your opponents.
In an unusual move, the US Space Force provided some details about the spacecraft’s capabilities. Silent Barker satellitewhich monitors satellites and spacecraft in Earth orbit, ahead of their launch in September 2023.
If Pentagon officials, who are insisting on greater transparency about their military space technology, get their way, perhaps revelations like this could become more common in the future.
