The NRO has a history of interesting patch designs.<p>This one in particular has always felt pretty apt:
"Better the devil you know"
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NROL49_patch.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NROL49_patch.jpg</a><p>There's also:<p>"We own the night"
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NRO_L11_missionpatch.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NRO_L11_missionpatch.jpg</a><p>Earth in eagle talon
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA200patch.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA200patch.jpg</a><p>Earth being humped by dragon
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NROL19_USA171_patch.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NROL19_USA171_patch.jpg</a><p>Space devil with wrench
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NROL49_2_patch_sml.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NROL49_2_patch_sml.jpg</a><p>Full list here:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_Launches" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_Launches</a>
Sweet patches with a gigantic octopus devouring the Earth<p>"Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach"<p>"Full Spectrum Dominance"<p>"Total Information Awareness"<p>"Five Eyes"<p>This is the culture of a whole generation of career bureaucrats. I'm afraid even major legislative victories for privacy will struggle to change the culture.
Er, doesn't a very similar octopus/earth image make up the main body somebody's squadron patch? Said differently: I'm pretty sure I've seen this image somewhere before!<p>As others have mentioned, a lot of patches are downright creepy.<p>Why? Well, I always assumed that it was a manifestation of the terrible power that these young men and women have been ordered to wield, and create for that matter.<p>Before you reject that outright since I said it maybe a little too poetically, consider this:<p>Which member of the team gets asked to design a patch? The guy who can draw. The guy who thinks too much and reads too much. The warrior poet.<p>When you are asked to build something that you KNOW must never fall into the wrong hands, you take your job seriously. That weight is what is going to come to mind when you're asked to make an image to represent your work.<p>NB. I am completely confident that the hardworking defenders of our nation generally believe in their missions. They know that their work would be evil <i>IFF</i> it wasn't all being carried out by good people, like themselves.
tl;dr: it's a geeky reference to an issue which arose during testing (the testing team's joke was that the 'octopus harness' had taken over the world).<p>A harmless instance of esprit de corps.
A nice book about patches from the "black world" of the US military:<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Could-Tell-Then-Would-Destroyed/dp/193555414X" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Could-Tell-Then-Would-Destroyed/dp/193...</a><p>Some more memorable ones:<p><a href="http://cl.ly/0p2g1H3y1p0P" rel="nofollow">http://cl.ly/0p2g1H3y1p0P</a><p><a href="http://cl.ly/473h003u0f0z" rel="nofollow">http://cl.ly/473h003u0f0z</a><p><a href="http://cl.ly/0M3h331s0d0j" rel="nofollow">http://cl.ly/0M3h331s0d0j</a>
Interestingly, though not at all surprising, is that the octopus' forward tentacle appears to land right at the intersection of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. Meanwhile, the octopus' body is climbing over the North Pole from the US to Russia (I've seen that in a bunch of these patches), and has a tentacle heading toward the Bering Straight.
This book is pretty interesting:
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Could-Tell-Then-Would-Destroyed/dp/193555414X" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Could-Tell-Then-Would-Destroyed/dp/193...</a>
About half the time the NRO has been mentioned in my lifetime, it's in relation to some story about a UFO that got away (but was tracked by NRO radar)