A thermal image purporting to show a previously unseen aircraft flying at night near Groom Lake, the Nevada base better known as Area 51, has begun circulating online and drawing comparison with what is known of the United States Air Force’s next-generation stealth fighter.
The still was first posted on 3 June 2026 by the Project Fear YouTube channel, which presented it as a teaser for a fuller video and captioned it as showing a craft the public has never seen before. The image is, by its nature, unverified, and some viewers have questioned whether it is genuine.
A craft the public has never seen before…
Video out this Friday. #ProjectFear #Area51 pic.twitter.com/8eOSJSUX1g— Project Fear (@ProjectFearX) June 2, 2026
Its authenticity has, however, been vouched for by others in the field. The US outlet TWZ reported that the image and the forthcoming video were confirmed to it by Anders Otteson of the Uncanny Expeditions YouTube channel, which observes restricted sites across Nevada and California from a distance, and both TWZ and The Aviationist have reported the footage to be authentic. That speaks to the provenance of the image rather than to any identification of what it shows, which remains a matter of speculation.
The picture is of poor quality, a function of the thermal sensor said to have been used, but the shape visible in it has struck observers as a reasonably close match for what is understood of the F-47, the sixth-generation fighter being developed for the US Air Force. Analysts looking at the image have pointed to a cranked-kite planform with canards, a configuration associated with low-observable designs, and to a sawtooth trailing edge of the kind used to manage radar returns.
The Aviationist noted that such a trailing edge might suggest a twin-engine design, while cautioning that no clear exhaust signature is visible and that any reading of faint possible exhaust streams would be purely speculative given the resolution of the image. Groom Lake has, for the longest time, drawn the interest of aviation enthusiasts because of the classified flight-test programmes it has hosted over the decades, and the suggestion that it may now be flying a current-generation demonstrator fits a long pattern of secret prototypes being glimpsed, or claimed to have been glimpsed, in the airspace around it.
“Trumpest”.
(copyright applied for last year).
Using it anyway Halfwit, see you in court 😂😂
Ha. I was just talking of Groom lake yesterday on the Chinese spy article. Great catch if genuine.
Some Chinese lad took It.
Or It might have been Francis Bourgeois 🤔🤔🤔 Choo Choo !
It’s going to be so funny if it has canards. The cope and spin from the Americans will be funny.
The nose on publicity image of F47 certainly at least suggested canards, it would broady fit the image apparenty captured.
Interesting cranked Delta layout, ‘if’ true of course….
Hey! PKCasimir, some of your countrymen have filmed one of your still classified jets.
WHERE ARE YOU…..LETS BE AVIN YOU…..
( See Delia Smith at half time at Norwich )
Something for the X files? 👽
No mate, they’re elsewhere, not at Groom.
It looks small, firstly.
My thoughts would be that this is the X-plane demonstrator that flew a while back, and is being used for various technology testing.
Agreed. All detailed in the TWZ. There’s even a suggestion of it’s lineage with another Boeing concept that looks very similar.
Yes, other sites mention the image is similar to Boeing’s X-36 demonstrator from thirty years ago. As the TWZ article mentions, three NGAD demonstrators were built (the third could be NG’s aborted NGAD which has possibly evolved into their F/A XX prototype). LM lost the NGAD.
Could always be an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) as well. The Chinese and the Americans have both flown a few designs that look a little like scaled-down stealth fighters, as this one does.
Yes, that was suggested in the article as well.
Whatever, if it’s genuine, it’s a catch.
I’ve loved this Black World stuff since seeing unauthorised photo’s of a still classified F117A in the mid 80s.
There’s lots out there, wish I lived in the SW US.