# Is there any way to hide from infra red detection? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 25, 2015, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494 "2015-04-25T02:12:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/1 "2015-04-25T02:12:06Z")
Hello Everyone, I’ve seen IR video of people inside of buildings. I’m just wondering if it’s possible to how from an IR sensor. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/2 "2015-04-25T02:21:52Z")
Metal would probably obscure an image enough that you couldn’t make out any detail, only the average temperature of the room. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/3 "2015-04-25T02:30:56Z")
climb inside a large Dewar bottle. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/4 "2015-04-25T04:54:57Z")
IR won’t pass through most materials, like concrete or brick. ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/5 "2015-04-25T05:31:09Z")
Hide behind something hot. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/6 "2015-04-25T05:56:18Z")
Can you link the videos in question? A few possibilities, depending on what you mean by hiding: 1. Put something that blocks IR radiation in-between you and the IR sensor. A pane of glass might do. [Infra-red thermography demo -- glass opaque to IR light - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhD1Ozk1hGU) 2. Shine a powerful IR emitter toward the IR sensor. Equivalent to shining a spotlight in the other guy’s face. Works if you’re trying to hide what you’re doing or who you are. Does not hide that something is going on. 3. Wear clothing that lets IR radiation escape to varying degrees and in irregular patterns to break up your silhouette. Don’t move fast or at all. Relevant: [Multi-spectral camouflage - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-spectral_camouflage) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/7 "2015-04-25T06:08:27Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > 1. Put something that blocks IR radiation in-between you and the IR sensor. A pane of glass might do. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhD1Ozk1hGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhD1Ozk1hGU) Mythbusters did this. They took a big sheet of plexiglass and stuck two handles on it. Then they were able to walk through a room with an infrared alarm. The infrared detector just reads the surface of things, which in this case was the plexiglass and that was at room temperature. ---
**Author:** ![Willcross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Willcross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willcross)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/8 "2015-04-25T07:02:42Z")
I saw a documentary about jungle wildlife in 1987, where a person was able to cover himself in mud to foil the IR detection of an animal that was actively hunting him. ---
**Author:** ![sevenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@sevenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sevenwood)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/9 "2015-04-25T13:26:15Z")
I believe that was the documentary “[Predator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_%28film%29)”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/10 "2015-04-25T13:33:52Z")
> [@Willcross](#): > > I saw a documentary about jungle wildlife in 1987, where a person was able to cover himself in mud to foil the IR detection of an animal that was actively hunting him. That was one of the other methods Mythbusters tried. It didn’t work. It gave some temporary cover when the mud was first applied but within a minute or so, your body would heat up the mud and then the infrared detector would go off. Hard to believe, but apparently _Predator_ was not scientifically accurate. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/11 "2015-04-25T13:41:34Z")
Who’d have thought? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/12 "2015-04-25T14:11:58Z")
Do you want short term or long term? Short term, nearly any sort of insulation will work. I’ve played around with an IR camera, and putting on a winter coat was like putting on a cloak of invisibility: Suddenly everything the coat covered just vanished from the display. In the long term, of course, you’re still producing the same amount of body heat, and it’s going to get out somehow or another, but you’ll still have plenty of time to sneak across the camera’s field of view. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/13 "2015-04-25T14:12:37Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Hard to believe, but apparently _Predator_ was not scientifically accurate. > [@GaryM](#): > > Who’d have thought? Not entirely scientifically inaccurate, either. By following the methodology discussed in this documentary, I am now a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/14 "2015-04-25T15:54:31Z")
[hijack] This reminds of the fact that they identify grow-ops be the infrared they detect that comes, ultimately, from the lighting. It seems to me that if you ran a pipe deep into the ground and used a heat pump you could get rid of the excess heat and make your grow-op undetectable from outside (at least by an infrared detector). In my neighborhood, at least one guy has done this to pump heat out of the ground for home-heating. I guess it is reversible for air conditioning. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/15 "2015-04-25T16:05:00Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Not entirely scientifically inaccurate, either. By following the methodology discussed in this documentary, I am now a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/16 "2015-04-25T16:22:46Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Not entirely scientifically inaccurate, either. By following the methodology discussed in this documentary, I am now a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus. Surely - no one knows how dinosaurs procreated? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/17 "2015-04-26T01:29:07Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Surely - no one knows how dinosaurs procreated? I’m guessing tyrannosauruses must have been getting a lot of sex. Judging from their forearms, they had evolved to lose the ability to masturbate. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-hide-from-infra-red-detection/718494/18 "2015-04-26T13:21:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’m guessing tyrannosauruses must have been getting a lot of sex. > > Judging from their forearms, they had evolved to lose the ability to masturbate. That’s what you might think from looking only at pix of Tyrannosaurs that had been drawn to be “family-friendly.” Had you ever seen an “anatomically correct” Tyrannosaurus you’d immediately understand that masturbation was no challenge at all. Hence **Ruken** ’s pride in his achievement. 😃