Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Also hard to see what could be gained by keeping it secret at this
stage. If one exists, any opposition knows about it. It's been in the
UK and you know how crap they are at keeping secrets. (One of them
had a close encounter with a Brittania airlines 767 in Manchester
about ten yars ago, though it could have been an F-117, of course)
in this day and age when sattelites can read licence plates and
everyone knows it you'd wonder why they would bother keeping it
secret after all these years for any reason other than habit.


Bertie

A. If they make it public they are going to have to tell how much it costs.

B. Once public, sooner or later the specs on it will get out. The one
advantage a spy plane has over spy-sats is that you don't know when it is
going to be over you taking pictures. If it becomes known that the plane can
fly from Nevada to Iran in x hours they just have to have someone in Nevada
to tell them about the launch and then x hours later whatever they need to
hide will be hidden.

C. They would have to disclose the alien tech that is in the aircraft.

My money's on A. No matter what they will use B as the reason once they do
make it public. But I really wish C were the reason.