Editing Cobalt and Baby Blue-on-Blue (section)

=== Baby-on-Cobalt ===
Describes civilian-initiated contact with classified operations, often accidental. This includes:
* Independent researchers identifying covert logistics patterns,
* Journalists investigating illicit networks involving state-linked actors,
* Whistleblowers unintentionally uncovering dual-use programs (e.g., biodefense research).

Baby-on-Cobalt scenarios frequently trigger Cobalt-on-Baby responses, as institutions lack procedural capacity to absorb unsanctioned discovery without compromising secrecy.

These encounters also reflect a failure of deconfliction—an internal process typically used by state and military actors to coordinate operations and avoid cross-interference. However, no analogous mechanism exists to "deconflict" institutional secrecy from public transparency, resulting in reactive or improvised responses when civilians enter protected operational domains.

Such encounters are often described by civilians as highly disorienting: they may uncover anomalous patterns, inconsistencies in official accounts, or direct physical artifacts, but find no institutional pathway for inquiry or verification. In some accounts, even credentialed individuals—such as PhD-level scientists—report being delegitimized, ignored, or subtly threatened when pursuing research areas that may intersect with black programs or classified research domains.