Optical Illusion another fine art

Optical Illusions - Military Hologram Uses and Naval Decoy Strategies

What if the Somalian Pirates saw an oil tanker go by about 4 miles in the distance, and made a beeline towards it, and just as they got very, very, close they realized it was nothing more than a hologram? And then, a U.S. Navy Destroyer was following them cloaking itself using some of those neat tricks that MIT students came up with to bend light? If you think that's not possible, you don't know much about the latest technology. Okay so, let's talk about this for a moment shall we.

Perhaps a brief history lesson might better illustrate my point. And rather than take it from me, let me explain something I recently read; on SlashDot there was an interesting post on March 4, 2012 entitled; "Did the Titanic Sink Due to an Optical Illusion?" by Samzenpus as he quoted Hugh Pickens;

"According to new research by British historian Tim Maltin, records by several ships in the area where the Titanic sank show atmospheric conditions were ripe for super refraction, a bending of light that caused a false horizon, concealing the iceberg in the mirage layer, preventing lookouts from seeing iceberg. According to the new theory, Titanic was sailing from Gulf Stream waters into the frigid Labrador Current, an air column cooling from the bottom up creating a thermal inversion, layers of cold air below layers over warm, creating a superior mirage."

Perhaps, you've driven to the desert, and notice the road ahead of you look as if it was waving like it wasn't real, but you knew it was real, because you were driving down it. Well, you are beginning to experience some of the tricks that are possible based on light, reflection, humidity, and heat. Holograms are a projected image, and they look very real, especially as you get further away. Is it possible to project an oil tanker? I mean something that's pretty big right? Sure it is.

Of course, you don't have to project the full size of the oil tanker, just project a small image off in the distance, or the perceived distance from the observer. As they travel towards it, it keeps getting further away, but they don't notice for quite a while, meanwhile the destroyer coming behind them, or perhaps a UAV with hellfire missiles will simply shoot them from the air, as soon as it notices that the pirates in the boat are armed with weapons and rocket propelled grenades sitting on the deck of their little attack boat, one they probably stole from some other hapless victim.

What if the Iranian Navy with their little attack boats attempted to fire upon a hologram? What would happen? The answer of course is nothing. They would just be shooting rockets into the Straits of Hormuz perhaps even hitting their own sea mines. It might even be possible to make them think they actually hit something, which would be quite a hoot indeed, and then when they looked back they will have assumed they sumk whatever was there, when it really wasn't.

Of course, once they fire on the hologram, you know they're serious, and then you can return fire from an undisclosed position. Are you beginning to see the value of this technology in warfare? Please consider all this and think on it.