Fascinating - Patches from Black Ops projects, page 1

I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World.

No, not an idle threat, but rather, this is the title of a relatively new book by Trevor Paglen:

From Amazon.com
Shown here for the first time, these sixty patches reveal a secret world of military imagery and jargon, where classified projects are known by peculiar names (“Goat Suckers,” “None of Your #ing Business,” “Tastes Like Chicken”) and illustrated with occult symbols and ridiculous cartoons.

Perhaps humourously, the title of the book is indeed lifted from a Black Ops patch and if nothing else we can certainly surmise that those involved in super secret projects manage to keep their sense of humor, at least in the case of "Gustatus Similus Pullus", which means "Tastes like chicken".

Twilight Zone afficionados may even recognize the phrase "To Serve man", an amusing episode where aliens "come in peace" with a book titled "To serve man". But by the time the heroin translates the book and discovers it's a cook book, it's too late as hordes of humans are being transported to "the promised land" when in reality it's their slaughter.

Less humourous, more curious would be the phrase "Altitudo cum habitus" which means "To consider from on high". But what exactly, is being considered?

Recently featured by the N Y Times these patches may offer some credibility towards certain documents and testimonies that are out there. But then again, the liberal use of humor makes them just as easily dismissed as shennanigans.

They're certainly interesting...