Sometimes you want to disappear. But often it is better to avoid what people are looking for, or at least, obscure your direction and intentions. It is a very old problem.

The problem in WW1 was U-boats. The solution was dazzle camouflage. Even though the military was never quite comfortable with it, contemplate the second illustration while maintaining a straight face and a military frame of mind, it worked. Dazzle painted ships suffered fewer losses from submarines.

http://gotouring.com/razzledazzle/articles/dazzle.html#3

http://gotouring.com/razzledazzle/articles/dazzle9.html

An interesting historical artifact. IMHO worthy of a post on its own. But perhaps useful in other ways.

You don't need to paint your vehicle in a dazzle color scheme to obscure your presence and intention. A plain white pickup truck with a generic magnetic sign on the side telling people you work for "Universal Logistic and Consulting" will get you a lot of places. Step out with a hardhat, clipboard and day-glow vest and you disappear into the background. They see you but really don't.

How many other ways can you think of to hide in plain sight?

I am not quite in agreement with the above. Personally I notice such things a lot more and tend to make mental notes more then I would if I happened to see a plain white pickup with no signs and a person wearing a simple grey t-shirt and blue jeans.

Also none of my clothes I own have any large or readily identifiable marketing slogans etc on them. I always purchase nondescript clothing and not because I want to blend in, rather I refuse to be a walking marketing billboard for company xxx and pay extra for that billboard "privilege"...

The "stand out to blend in" technique has been used a lot in mystery novels.

You don't even need the magnetic sign and a hard hat, just a clipboard, a little frown, and a firm, non-hesitant step.

Cop in uniform on the beat. If you're not a criminal, they're part of the scenery. Unless he's really cute, do you look at his face?

Mail carrier. Blue, white and red, pushing a mail bag. Do you look at his face?

Elderly person or couple walking their dog, or looking for their 'strayed' dog or cat.

Cat trappers (personal experience): trap, stick to hold it open, long string tied to stick. Talk to the people passing -- no one fusses.

Child molesters and many wife-beaters are the most common in real life.

Child molesters simply get a job or volunteer where there are children: teachers, Scouts, Big Brother, Little League, sandlot baseball, etc.

Many serious wife abusers are like two entirely different people. At work, they're the ultimate Mr. NiceGuy, at home they're Mr. Hyde. Well, they're probably psychopaths, too...

Sue

It all depends on the environment into which you want to blend.

Wearing a tux at a baseball game won't work. Nor will full camo (including face paint) at a PTA meeting. But there ARE situations in which both the tux and camo would be the perfect camouflage.

Art and Teslinhiker, I suspect you're thinking along the same lines -- the difference is the environment you are in. A plain white pickup with some nondescript -- but official-looking -- logo, along with the correct props, should be effective. But if none of the local utility folks wear day-glo vests, then that's going to look out of place -- and Teslinhiker will notice. Studying the lay of the land will go a long way toward teaching you what will work.

Looking like you belong, and have been there before, goes a LONG way towards blending in.

Regarding the Davy Crockett, here's an interesting link. <<http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/davyc.aspx>>

And, anyone want to carry this backpack for me? It's starting to get heavy.
<<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition>>

many of the mom and pop cab companies in the area drive former police vehicles...Ford Crown Victoria, spotlight on the driver side roof pillar, push bar, dual exhaust, small hub cap etc....with dark limo window tint and vinyl logo. If you were doing surveillance for the local Sheriff's office, what would you drive?.... regards Les

Appropriate Cammo works - I made a post about the classic "mechanics blues/greys" being pretty much the ultimate 'urban cammo', both because you are something "expected", and the color!

As for "Dazzle Cammo" - It WASN'T to hide the ship at all, in fact it actually made it EASIER to SEE, what it DID was make it harder to see which way it was moving - a term called "angle on the bow" that you may have heard in movies

OK folks - Not one of MY projects, but at a company I worked for we repaired/overhauled OLD style (read Just post WWII) Target Motion simulators

Picture You're in a sub - You've spent a bunch of time figuring that the enemy ship is zig/zaging it's way to you, and is doing say, 10 knots - You raise your scope, and there he his - 10K yards away, he's at a 25 degree angle off your bow (aka slightly to the right), and is GENERALLY coming towards you - the thing is, what YOU don't know is actually what direction he is heading - is he coming straight at you, 10, 20 , 30, 40 degs to either side of that line? You don't KNOW - you have to LOOK at the target, and GUESS. (I'm using subs, but for navel gun fire, it's the same problem) A mistake of 10-15 degs (or MORE) on the "angle on the bow" number is the difference between a hit, and a miss - heck, they only reason it's not worse than that is that subs fired a "spread" of torpedos - 2-3 or more at the target, on slightly different headings, so that if the target changed motion, or you guessed wrong, you MIGHT still hit - remember, WWII torpedos were NOT homing torpedos, they didn't LOOK for the enemy ship, plus, you really needed (and still do) to limite the amount of time your scope was up, so you only have 30 seconds or so to find the enemy ship, get a bearing, a range, and an angle on the bow

BTW, the computers that kept track of this were called TDCs - and like I said, I got to play with them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_Data_Computer

Oh, and it seems that the Germans invented the Homing torpedo in mid wwII

BTW, todays torpedos are amazing devices - they are/can be wire guided by the sub, are amazingly fast (I don't know the offical number, as I didn't have the 'need to know'), have farly amazing build in sonar, and quite a bit of computing power onboard to interpert that sonar data

If you want to know what they are talking about today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_48_torpedo

Flamboyant running gear and a girlie poodle makes you virtually invisible to people who are looking for bad boys.

Walking a pit bull (the kind that requires a thick chain as a leash) makes you virtually invisible to robbers.

A manly tattoo on the arm makes you virtually invisible to people who are looking for nice guys.

A man wearing a "wife beater" tank top is virtually invisible to people who are looking for smart people or fellow wine drinkers. A woman wearing a wife beater tank top is not that bad, and is in fact encouraged. To see what I mean for either men or women, Google "wife beater tank top pics", or press this link:

Wife Beater Tank Top Pics

I took a Cisco reseller class years ago and the instructor was a security consultant before he started at Cisco and teaching. He would get a contract to test the security at a company and before even touching a computer would walk in the front door with his button up shirt and name tag "Bob" and a couple trash bags and tell them the normal janitor was out sick and the company sent him. 9 times out of 10 he would be let in and would go around to desks and lift up the keyboards and collect all the post it notes under them with peoples user names and passwords. He usually wold then have access to systems such as payroll with that method.

This is an interesting topic. I just watched "the men who stare at goats", and they made a passing reference to "invisibility", which I found amusing.
I think its 100% correct that camoflauge matched to your environment is the most effective. Yes, a while panel van with a generic label on the side may stick out in suburbia-but, in a large city, it blends right in. Cars that blend in almost anywhere are the 4-door grey nondescript sedans. Clothing to match your environment. And, believe it or not, your mindset.
I geocache on a fairly regular basis, and part of the fun of the game is not getting found out. Sometimes, this can get a little creative. I had read stories of people walking around with clipboards, looking authoritative, with a reflective vest on-and were never questioned. Its not so much they are blending in, but that people percieve them as someone who is there for a reason-and usually isnt questioned. They are practicing deception moreso than hiding in plain sight-and it is VERY effective.

Yes and no. Consider that prime time for submarine attack are sunset and sunrise. And that submarine will be spotting ships at or near the horizon. Those garish bold strokes of orange, yellow, pink and purple might blend quite well with many of the maritime sunsets and sunrises I've seen. At mid-day with a clear sky those colors stick out but mid-day is also prime time for submarines to be spotted. The last thing any submariner wants is to be spotted.

Even a common freighter of the day had a pop gun, typically a 3" to 5" gun, that could easily ruining a submariner's day if they had something to lay the tube on. Submarines are always happier dishing it out than taking it.

Your right that some dazzle camouflage seems to be far more concern with making its orientation to the observer hard to determine than concealing its existence.

http://gotouring.com/razzledazzle/articles/dazzle3.html

Hurts my eyes to look at that. I would be beside myself trying to for sure what direction the ship might be traveling in. A wild guess of +/- 30 degrees is as well as I could manage.