Open secret

One famous open secret is that of Area 51, a United States military base containing an aircraft testing facility.[http://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/dreamland_50years.html Dreamland: Fifty Years of Secret Flight Testing in Nevada] By Peter W. Merlin The U.S. government did not explicitly affirm the existence of any military facility near Groom Lake, Lincoln County, Nevada, until 2013, when the CIA released documents revealing that the site was established to test spy planes.{{cite news|url=http://www.nbcnews.com/science/area-51-its-purpose-declassified-no-ufos-lots-u-2-6C10931555 |title=Area 51 and its purpose declassified: No UFOs, but lots of U-2 spy planes |first=Alan |last=Boyle |publisher=NBC News |date=16 August 2013 |access-date=16 August 2013}} While the general location of the base is now officially acknowledged, the base does not appear on government maps or in declassified satellite photography.[http://www.topoquest.com/map.asp?lat=37.25932&lon=-115.81388&s=100&size=l&u=4&datum=nad27&layer=DRG25 USGS 1:24K/25K Topo map] for location UTM 11 605181E 4124095N (NAD27) (map via TopoQuest.com) Yet despite this, the base was demonstrably and widely acknowledged to exist for many years before the CIA officially confirmed its existence.Pike, John. "Area 51 Facility Overview", Federation of American Scientists.[http://www.ufomind.com/area51/articles/1996/60min_960317.html "Area 51 / Catch 22"] segment, 60 Minutes broadcast 17 March 1996. The immense secrecy has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to UFO folklore.Jacobsen, Annie (2012), Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, Back Bay Books, {{ISBN|0316202304}}

The National Security Agency was formally established by President Truman in a memorandum of 24 October 1952, that revised National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 9.{{cite web |title=Memorandum|author=Truman, Harry S. |url=https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/truman/truman_memo.pdf|publisher=National Security Agency|date=24 October 1952 |access-date=2 July 2013|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130821073605/http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/truman/truman_memo.pdf|archive-date=21 August 2013}} Since President Truman's memo was a classified document, the existence of the NSA was not known to the public at that time. Due to its ultra-secrecy, the U.S. intelligence community referred to the NSA as "No Such Agency".{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/no-such-agency-spies-on-the-communications-of-the-world/2013/06/06/5bcd46a6-ceb9-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html|title='No Such Agency' spies on the communications of the world|last=Anne Gearan|date=7 June 2013|access-date=9 November 2013|newspaper=The Washington Post}}

The existence of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) was widely known for several decades before the government's official acknowledgement of the organisation in 1994.{{cite web|last=Whitehead |first=Jennifer |url=http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/521906/mi6-boost-recruitment-prospects-launch-first-website/ |title=MI6 to boost recruitment prospects with launch of first website — Brand Republic News |publisher=Brandrepublic.com |date=13 October 2005 |access-date=3 November 2012}}

Post Office Tower was completed in 1964 and information about it was designated an official secret, due to its importance to the national communications network. In 1978, the journalist Duncan Campbell was tried for collecting information about secret locations, and during the trial the judge ordered that the sites could not be identified by name; the Post Office Tower could only be referred to as "Location 23".{{cite book |title=Jeremy Hutchinson's Case Histories |last=Grant |first=Thomas |publisher=John Murray |year=2015 |page=315}} It was officially revealed by Kate Hoey under parliamentary privilege in 1993.{{cite hansard |title=No title| url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199293/cmhansrd/1993-02-19/Debate-5.html |house=House of Commons |date=1993-02-19 |column=634}}

It is often said that the tower did not appear on Ordnance Survey maps, despite being a {{convert|177|m|adj=on}} tall structure in the middle of central London that was open to the public for about 15 years.{{cite web|title=London Telecom Tower, formerly BT Tower and Post Office Tower, Fitzrovia, West End, London|url=http://www.urban75.org/london/telecom.html|publisher=urban75|access-date=19 November 2014}} However, this is incorrect; the 1:25,000 (published 1971) and 1:10,000 (published 1981) Ordnance Survey maps show the tower.{{cite journal|first=Paul|last=Kennett|title=Not so secret tower|journal=Sheetlines|issue=106|publisher=THE CHARLES CLOSE SOCIETY for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps|date=August 2016|page= 27}} ([http://www.charlesclosesociety.org The Charles Close Society]) It is also shown in the London A–Z street atlas from 1984.{{cite book |title=A–Z London de luxe Atlas |publisher=Geographers' A–Z Map Company Ltd |year=1984 |page=59}}

Israel is widely acknowledged to possess nuclear weapons.{{cite book |author=Cohen, Avner |url=https://archive.org/details/israelbomb00cohe/page/349 |title=Israel and the Bomb |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1998 |isbn=0-231-10482-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/israelbomb00cohe/page/349 349] |url-access=registration}} This can be considered an open secret, because the Israeli government has never explicitly stated whether or not it possesses a nuclear stockpile, officially maintaining a policy of deliberate ambiguity.{{cite news |last=Korb |first=Lawrence |date=1 November 1998 |title=The Quiet Bomb |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/reviews/981101.01korblt.html |access-date=4 November 2012}}{{cite news |last=Borger |first=Julian |date=15 January 2014 |title=The truth about Israel's secret nuclear arsenal |newspaper=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/15/truth-israels-secret-nuclear-arsenal |access-date=5 April 2020}}{{cite news |last=Stockman |first=Farah |date=19 November 2013 |title=Israel's nuclear precedent |newspaper=The Boston Blobe |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/11/19/israel-nuclear-monopoly-middle-east/5kzBwiHxGG9KYxKrJFfrNJ/story.html |access-date=5 April 2020}}{{cite web |last=Mizokami |first=Kyle |date=9 January 2020 |title=Submarines Are the Key To Israel's Secret Nuclear Weapons Arsenal |url=https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/submarines-are-key-israels-secret-nuclear-weapons-arsenal-112071 |access-date=5 April 2020 |website=TheNationalInterest.org}}

Camp Mirage is the codename for a former Canadian Forces forward logistics facility located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The facility was established in late December 2001 and, though not officially acknowledged by the Canadian Forces, was considered an open secret.{{Cite news |date=2010-10-10 |title=Secret base to be shuttered over failed airline talks: source |publisher=CTV News |url=https://www.ctvnews.ca/secret-base-to-be-shuttered-over-failed-airline-talks-source-1.561798 |url-status=live |access-date=2012-11-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101012170601/http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20101010/canada-dubai-base-101010/ |archive-date=12 October 2010}}

Russell Brand is a British actor and comedian, accused multiple times of sexual assault and harrassment, with events dating back to 1999. These accusations have been discussed many times, however due to libel law, he couldn't be conclusively named on public broadcast due to a lack of hard evidence. In 2025, he was charged with five counts of various sex crimes by the Metropolitan Police, and named in a civil law suit in New York state, and he is now widely associated with these incidents, publicly.

Kayfabe, or the presentation of professional wrestling as "real" or unscripted, is an open secret, kept displayed as legitimate within the confines of wrestling programs but openly acknowledged as predetermined by wrestlers and promoters in the context of interviews for decades.

In television, the primary real-world identity of The Stig, a costumed and masked television test-driver used by BBC Television for Top Gear, was an open secret until the unofficial embargo was broken by a newspaper in 2009.{{cite news|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article5548705.ece|title=Identity of Top Gear's The Stig revealed as Ben Collins|first=Patrick|last=Foster|date=2009-01-19|access-date=2009-01-19|newspaper=The Times|quote=The identity of the white-suited Stig ... has been an open secret within the motoring world for some years, with newspapers refraining from publishing his name, to uphold the spirit of the programme.}}{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}

Charles Seife described it as an open secret that nuclear fusion technology, although cleaner than nuclear fission, is not "clean energy", and planned fusion reactors would produce more waste by volume than fission reactors—the idea that it is clean is an oversimplification used to sell the technology.{{Cite book |last=Seife |first=Charles |url=https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/Sun_in_a_Bottle/ifeh21iGE10C |title=Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking |date=2008-10-30 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-1-101-07899-0 |pages=169 |language=en}}

• He never married – Euphemism for homosexuality of the deceased
• Pronoun game – Concealing one's sexual orientation from others by using gender neutral pronouns
• Secret de Polichinelle – another term for open secret
• Alena V. Ledeneva – researcher of open secrets, particularly in the Soviet context

{{reflist}}

• [https://www.in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Global%20Informality%20Project Global Informality Project]

Category:Secrecy

Category:LGBTQ linguistics

Category:Area 51