[eitland]

> What this tells us is that the research had yeilded such results as

Personally, if I was tasked with making sure everyone respected the American Army I'd make sure to hire a magician and keep that hire very very secret.

I'm not saying there aren't any serious technical breakthroughs.

But I'd still hire the best reliable magician I could get.

After all, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and my bet is that it goes the other way too. (Some replace "magic" with "rigged demo" and that too is true - and possibly relevant.)

Also, I think it is Penn or Teller who says something along the lines of: there's one thing people constantly underestimate when it comes to magic and that is how incredibly far magicians are willing to go to conceal their tricks.

[tejohnso]

If I'm understanding your hypothetical correctly, this would require the American Army to publicly take credit for the "magic", not publicly announce that the "magic" is unidentified.

[eitland]

Actually not, if you fake it you don't want to do that because then people (including high ranking people) will start asking you for demos and it will become impossible to keep the secret.

If this is the case it is way better do like they do today and selectively leak stuff and then let everyone, friends and enemys, fill out the blanks :-)