"I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World" is the awesome title of a new book by photographer Trevor Paglen. It focuses on a rather odd subject: the completely freaky patches worn by secret U.S. military units, workers on classified Pentagon programs and the like. Featuring space aliens, ballsy threats, mythical monsters, and nonsensical drawings that just look scary (skunks firing laser beams), the patches are both striking and surprising.

"The military has patches for almost everything it does.... Including, curiously, for programs, units and activities that are officially secret," writes Paglen. The book's title, incidentally, comes from the motto of a Navy squadron that tests strike aircraft and other pleasant products the U.S. has developed.

Somewhere in this country is a very, very haunted tailor.

via the new york times