Initial testing would be done well away from prying eyes. Testing at the edges of the performance envelope would be done well away from prying eyes. But eventually it is going to have to work with normal fleet units - that's why the Navy is buying the thing. That means nominal testing with regular units. Still considered sensitive enough they don't want to publish a schedule and give adversaries a chance to put intelligence assets in place to monitor the tests. Nor do they want to publish every little detail of the test parameters so the test itself isn't even acknowledged. That's why the squid with the NVGs doesn't know what he's looking at. But even though you want to keep it quiet, it still has to happen with Navy units - so they're going to see something.
Yeah, you didn’t understand my point. No, the X-47B isn’t ‘highly secretive.’ But the X-47B CLEARLY isn’t the object that was observed by the USS Kidd.
Like all fixed-wing turbine-powered aircraft, the X-47B must move through the air at a minimal air speed lest it loses aerodynamic lift resulting in a stall and crash. While it’s impossible to say exactly what that stall speed is, there’s NO WAY it’s 15-knts.
Why is that important? Because the objects observed by the Kidd shadowed the vessel, moving slowly over the bridge and fantail while ship moved through the water at 15-knts.
So, in order for this to be one of ours, we would have had to develop a hovering drone that is capable of being loitering over a target for no less than 2-hours and can intercept a target no less than 100-miles off-shore. This would represent a multi-generational leap in UAV technology. Your theory is that we would tip our hand to our enemies that we’ve developed such technology by testing the tech in highly trafficked commercial and recreational maritime navigation routes off the coast of California?
Does that really sound likely to you?