U.S. Black Projects
Nation Involved: United States of America
Time Period: 1900 to Present
While most developed nations have a version of this, the United States has the “Special Access Program.” This is basically just a term for “black projects” that the U.S. uses. These are the most highly classified military or defense projects in the history of the nation. Most have still not been publicly addressed by the U.S. government to this day. Most of the funds used for these projects tend to be under the “black budget.” This is the money that you, uh, just don’t ask anyone about.
Several weapons were developed under the black project category along with major aircraft. One such project resulted in the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, which is a stealth attack aircraft. Another was the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, which is a stealth bomber. Technically, the Manhattan Project falls under this but does pretty much every nuclear program. The U.S. often works with private contractors on these projects too, such as Boeing and obviously Lockheed Martin. In fact, they might use more contractors for this stuff today than their own military scientists and engineers.