# Visible-spectrum invisibility is easy but often not useful

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/visible-spectrum-invisibility-is-easy-but-often-not-useful/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Palmer Luckey](https://realalpha.app/builders/palmer-luckey/) · Palmer Luckey is cofounder of Anduril. · Co-founded Anduril, which builds autonomous defense systems, and designed the Oculus Rift that revived VR.
- Host: [Molly O'Shea](https://realalpha.app/people/molly-oshea/) · Founder, Sourcery · Ex-Upfront Ventures investor; has interviewed Alex Karp and Palmer Luckey.
- Show: Sourcery
- Episode: [Palmer Luckey on UFOs, Anduril, Invisibility Tech, & Moon Wars](https://realalpha.app/v/WEGJh-4Iq30/), Dec 22, 2025
- Moment: 14:18 to 17:51 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/visible-spectrum-invisibility-is-easy-but-often-not-useful/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/WEGJh-4Iq30/?t=858

## Quote

> “the point is visible spectrum **optical camouflage is actually quite easy**.”
> — [Palmer Luckey](https://realalpha.app/builders/palmer-luckey/) at [16:44](https://realalpha.app/v/WEGJh-4Iq30/?t=1004) · Sourcery

## Takeaways

1. A projection system can match the background behind a drone.
2. Visible camouflage can work against the naked eye.
3. Infrared, lidar and radar can still reveal a drone.

## About this segment

Palmer Luckey describes how Anduril tested optical camouflage on a drone, then explains why it offers little protection from modern sensors. The distinction shows why a striking capability may have limited military value.

From “Palmer Luckey on UFOs, Anduril, Invisibility Tech, & Moon Wars”, Dec 22, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/WEGJh-4Iq30/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[14:23](https://realalpha.app/v/WEGJh-4Iq30/?t=863) never being fired upon, because the moment that you're hit, you're probably totally wrecked. How far do you think we are from invisibility cloaks and masking? And I don't mean by radar. Sure, you mean like visible spectrum. Yes, yeah. That's actually a lot easier. You think so? Oh, yeah, way easier. It's a lot harder to hide from synthetic systems. So if you're talking about like radars or lidars or there's a large number of ways that you can see the world that are not just visible spectrum imaging, people are actually relatively easy to fix.

[14:55](https://realalpha.app/v/WEGJh-4Iq30/?t=895) too. Andrel has a project going way back building optical camouflage for the ghost helicopter drone that we make. And it's essentially a projection system that looks at the target, looks behind, it looks at where the target is, knows where you are, looks behind you, and it calculates the luminance and color values that you would need to match whatever is between your target you're surveilling and the background. So that might be the sky, that might be a mountain, it might be a cloud it's not that hard and our eyes don't have very good resolution you know ghost has a very narrow frontal cross section and so it was actually designed partly to make itself very uh very workable with optical camouflage so building drones that are invisible to the human eye at the ranges that you're using them it's not just like a hypothetical andrel did this in like 2019 2020 um you know

[15:50](https://realalpha.app/v/WEGJh-4Iq30/?t=950) Actually, let me see if I can find something for you. I might have a picture I can pull up of some of those tests. An invisible. Yeah, invisible drone. Yeah. We're looking for an invisible drone right now. you'll notice so this is a ghost drone just the body of it like you know not with uh without without without the the landing gear attached and we put up on this tripod and we're testing it against the drug of the truck and then also the sky because they're very very different systems so we're moving up and down to view you know to make it change color as the observer moved but this is with optical camouflage disabled so you can clearly see the body against the sky see how you can see this ever so slight disturbance yeah see how it's perfect and it lines up and we it can't the goal wasn't and by the way you'll see how the body is also copying the truck as well

[16:37](https://realalpha.app/v/WEGJh-4Iq30/?t=997) right in this case it was turned off then we turn it on so it has to have part of itself be the sky part of it be the truck it's a very very difficult high contrast problem to do both at the same time if you're all in the air it's even easier the point is visible spectrum optical camouflage is actually quite easy. But something like this would be trivially easily seen by, you know, an infrared camera, thermal camera, you know, LiDAR, radar. So the biggest problem with optical camouflage and the main reason you don't see a lot of money being put towards it in the modern defense base is it's not actually that useful. It's useful against human adversaries who do not have any other technology to aid them. And those are not really the enemies the United States is focused on stopping these days. So like, for example, you might notice ghost doesn't come

[17:24](https://realalpha.app/v/WEGJh-4Iq30/?t=1044) with optical camouflage. All of our customers have been briefed on this. They've seen this. Their point is Palmer, I'm not going up against a bunch of guys, you know, who are walking around with their naked eyes and nothing else. These are people who are, we are concerned about adversaries like Russia and China and Iran that are armed with very, very high levels of technology. And they're, if anything, the optical camouflage in some ways actually