In the early hours of January 14 2026, a camper with a thermal camera recorded a sharply triangular aircraft over the restricted skies of Area 51 in Nevada. The sighting happened while a B 2 Spirit bomber was flying nearby and it has fueled debate over whether the United States is already testing its next generation of stealth aircraft.
The footage, captured by videographer Anders Otteson and shared on his Uncanny Expeditions channel, was later examined by aviation specialists including The Aviationist and Spanish outlet El Confidencial.
It appears to show a Dorito-shaped craft unlike any publicly-acknowledged jet, turning a grainy clip into a new flash point in the global race for airpower.
A strange triangle in the Nevada night
Otteson was camping along Groom Lake Road, a lonely track that passes near the front gate of the secretive base, when he began sweeping the sky with an AGM TM50 640 thermal camera. He first picked up the familiar outline of a B 2 bomber, then shifted position until a sharper triangle slid into view against the cold desert sky.
He later said that the new aircraft’s trailing edge looked nothing like the jagged edge of the B 2 and that it seemed to be flying deep inside restricted airspace over the base. The trailing edge is the back of a wing and its shape matters because it changes how much radar energy bounces back to an enemy sensor, one of the basic tricks behind stealth.
From mystery jets to the F 47 program
For aviation watchers, that outline looks eerily familiar. In 2014 a dark flying wing with unusual proportions was photographed over Wichita and weeks later photographers Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett caught three similar aircraft at high altitude over Amarillo in Texas, sightings that never received an official explanation.
Today many observers see the new thermal silhouette as part of the same family and note that it appeared just as the United States Air Force pushed ahead with its Next Generation Air Dominance program, usually shortened to NGAD.
The effort centers on a crewed sixth generation fighter now designated F 47 that will replace the F 22 Raptor and fly alongside autonomous drone wingmen sometimes called collaborative combat aircraft.
Donald Trump announced in March 2025 that Boeing had won the F 47 contract and Air Force leaders say experimental NGAD aircraft have already logged “hundreds of hours” of secret test flights.
That record makes the Nevada triangle a plausible candidate for an NGAD demonstrator in the eyes of some analysts, while others think it could be linked to the long rumored RQ 180 spy drone that the government still refuses to discuss in detail.
China’s prototypes and what is at stake
On the other side of the Pacific, China has rolled out its own next step in air combat. United States defense reports and open source analysis say at least two Chinese sixth generation prototypes, often referred to as J 36 and J 50, have been seen in flight tests since late 2024, with large tailless layouts and multiple engines that point to long-range stealth missions.
The J 36, linked to Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, is described as a big flying wing with three engines and ample internal volume for fuel and weapons. Analysts add that such designs likely generate enough electrical power to feed high-energy radars, electronic warfare suites and the control links needed to manage swarms of unmanned combat drones.
Chinese strategist Wang Xiangsui argues that China’s investment in hypersonic wind tunnels gives its engineers a clear advantage and that the United States is several years behind in that field, which adds pressure on Department of Defense to show that programs like NGAD and the F 47 are moving quickly from slides to metal.
For now, though, the Dorito-shaped craft caught over Area 51 remains officially unidentified and the United States Air Force has offered no comment, even as ordinary people go about paying bills and sitting in traffic far below a quiet race for control of the skies.
