‘Shikaka’ Flies — Air Force Video Reveals Top Secret ‘Great White Bat’
The RQ-180’s existence has never been confirmed, but a new video appears to reveal the “Great White Bat.” Composite by Coffee or Die Magazine.
The US Air Force’s Profession of Arms Center of Excellence recently released a video titled “Heritage Today — ISR and Innovation” that appears to reveal the secret RQ-180 High-Altitude, Long-Endurance (HALE) stealth drone, which some airmen have reportedly nicknamed “The Great White Bat.”
The aircraft, which was sighted over the Mojave Desert in 2020, the Philippines in September of 2021, and Area 51 earlier this month, has never been confirmed to exist by the Air Force or its purported maker, Northrop Grumman.
Aviation Week reported last year that airmen on Edwards Air Force Base gave the drone its nickname — a reference to the fictional sacred white bat “Shikaka” in 1995’s Ace Venture: When Nature Calls.
The new video highlights the Air Force’s strides in Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance, or ISR, from gathering information about enemy capabilities to combating natural disasters.
But the highlight of the video comes at the 2:23 minute mark, when the narrator states, “The days of balloons and biplanes have been replaced by white bats.” The video then cuts to an image of the RQ-180 in all its glory. To catch a glimpse of the mythical Great White Bat, or Shikaka, watch the full video above.
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Mac Caltrider is a senior staff writer for Coffee or Die Magazine. He served in the US Marine Corps and is a former police officer. Caltrider earned his bachelor’s degree in history and now reads anything he can get his hands on. He is also the creator of Pipes & Pages, a site intended to increase readership among enlisted troops. Caltrider spends most of his time reading, writing, and waging a one-man war against premature hair loss.
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