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 😂😂
😁😁😁
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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 )
here we go again. The Brit showing his stupidity and ignorance. The specific law the Chinese tourist broke has to do with photographing aircraft on a US installation without the Base Commander’s permission. Not the case here. It is really wearing having to deal with you ignorant, and at times rather stupid Brits. No wonder you can’t defend yourselves and haven’t been able to do it for a century without the US’s aid and assistance.
Ahhh, Buford T Justice answers the call.
So the Chinese student was on the base, was he?
“Not the case here.” So this film was acquired by rolling up the Groom road to the back gate and asking the base commander if it was ok, was it?
Considering it will be a classified aircraft.
As the article says, he was on public land.
Can you name the exact code please, Buford? Was it Section 795? This is what I can find, teach the ignorant.
“18 U.S.C. § 795 makes it illegal to photograph or sketch vital military and naval installations designated by the President. Violators face fines or imprisonment of up to one year. However, this generally applies only to CLASSIFIED or restricted areas and is NOT a blanket ban on all military planes or bases viewed from public property. While it is a federal crime, the statute relies heavily on specific restrictions (such as those defined in past Executive Orders) and requires intent or knowledge that the photography is unauthorized.
“It is really wearing having to deal with you ignorant, and at times rather stupid Brits.”
Agreed, it is a shame you are still frequenting this website.
Stupid? Gosh, were you one of the Americans asking why Windsor Castle was built under the Heathrow flight path???
Yeah, why did we build it there ?
🤔😎
You tell me, this sort of question was asked of my Dad all the time when he was a tour director, taking fat stupid Americans around Europe showing them real history.
I still can’t understand building Stonehenge so close to the A303.
Exactly. What’s the world coming to?
I blame the Druids.
Well, Paulinus I think it was wiped them out at Mona, but Getafix must have survived.
( you do know it predates them…)
Yup.
I counted the rings.
Interestingly, just a few miles away at Durington Walls, you can see “Woodhenge”. I’m sure you know that though.
I do, mate, they’ve found a much bigger Henge.
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Will never forget Trump asking Charlie ‘William the Conquerer was he a good king’. For someone so desperate to be a king himself one might have thought he might have learnt a little about the prime ones, or just used his brain cell to check out the obvious answer in the name, or indeed the alternative one perhaps closer to home in his case, ‘Guillaume le Bâtard’.
Quite simple really it was built there because the Queen was an avid plane spotter and liked to take photos of them👍
I wonder how many of them would believe that!
Piss poor forward planning.. same reason we stuck Stonehenge next to where the 303 was going to go.
The irony of a MAGA American using words like ignorant and stupid. They wouldn’t find their arse with both hands..
No one asked for your opinion PKCCasimir. If you going to be rude then bog of from this site.
Well I did, to be fair.
Just winding him up after his rudeness to me yesterday on the other article.
So blame me in this instance, I couldn’t resist, given the irony of the two articles.
Ye I saw that, that what’s annoyed me, his rudeness and far right agenda towards Briton. But I wasn’t any better, I apologise. Have a nice day.
I do find I funny though that this pic of a secret aircraft is fine but a aviation fan taking a picture of a aircraft that everyone can see on Google maps is a whole year in prison. I do understand the different laws regarding both instances but I still find it ironic. Regarding the aircraft it looks a lot like that Chinese plane we saw a little while back. Same wing shape.
Yeah, that was my point yesterday, don’t see what was gained.
But this, and other cases, possibly a great deal.
So I thought it political point scoring.
Hey ho.
Looks like a tarted up J-20 to me with the nose from the pr pics of the Boeing F-47 prototype as released.
Interesting that the article says the cranked kite wingform with canards is associated with superior stealth characteristics, not sure what ‘kite’ means in this regard, not a description I’m familiar with, is it the same or similar to cranked delta? However canards have not been associated with great stealth characteristics certainly in the US where their use on Chinese 5th Gen aircraft has led to much derision as a result, which now has led to some embarrassment and many a Chinese dig and perhaps has something to do with the sudden presentation that this configuration is superiorly stealthy. So ‘coincidentally’ Canards have been regarded negatively for stealth traditionally with Euro canard designs unfavourable in US circles in such arguments, but some have indeed more recently commented that negativity is much exaggerated. Maybe Boeing have found that to be the case especially where vertical tail surfaces are eliminated.
Maybe Davey will see this abd contribute.
The planform reminds me a bit of Firefox.
“PKCasimir.”
That sounds like an Indian Condom Brand. 🤔
Who rattled your cage,
President Trump, all the military gear at his disposal and absolutely no bloody clue what he’s doing, its cringingly embarrassing for the US armed forces, having to follow the clueless tangerines crazy orders 🙄.
Will he try to invade Mars next?
And we thought sleepy Joe had lost the plot!
Hail to the chimp indeed.
If you had half a brain PK you might like to question what would have been the US fate had we not ‘defended’ ourselves from 39 into 42 while you were profiteering from supplying weapons for profit to both sides. Even in early 42 you had no worthwhile fighter to field, indeed much of your aircraft industry was on the edge of bankruptcy until Britain and France started buying planes to keep it afloat, you relied on British technology given free, which not only allowed you to get you act together post 42 but fuelled along with acquired German technology your post war boom. Geez you had no idea of the feasibility of how to create a viable atom bomb until we supplied the secrets to you. Yep had Britain not defended itself during that period it would have been Germany or Russia who went on to dominate the World certainly NOT naive island USA. Your future would either have been irrelevance on the periphery or more likely nuclear missile threat that you had no ability to respond to or defend against. ‘The Man in the High Castle’ might have been the likely future rather than merely an alternative one. Sadly we see similar deluded political policy and public ignorance (as you so clearly demonstrate) in the US today so it doesn’t look like any lessons about how close to your own demise you were have been learned. Geez you wouldn’t even exist if we didn’t win a war you started and were losing miserably in the 1750s/60s.
Well said, all true. I’d add Von Braun and other Nazi scientists within Op Paperclip giving the US the means to go to Space.
It’d almost be poetic for China, with it’s ancient history, to usurp them, given their behavior.
Quite frankly the Chinese are now looking like the reasonable superpower on the block.. which is a hell of a thing.
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.
Bloody Yanks copying SAAB’s Viggen.
You’re 50 years too late !
Stealth Draken, now there’s an idea worth looking into.
Surely the F-47 Felon will be identifiable by its prison-stripes paint job?
Don’t be so silly.
The export version will be less good because the donald said so. We do so need tempest to work
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