1. A method for detecting, identifying or classifying of objects hidden on the surface or buried below the surface of the ground, comprising: acquiring image data in separate infrared (IR) and/or visible spectral regions simultaneously; converting the acquired image data into intensity value arrays for each spectral region; applying a transformation on the intensity value arrays to form two-dimensional discrete wavelet transform arrays for each spectral region; removing background clutter from the two-dimensional discrete wavelet transform arrays to form clutter reduced two-dimensional discrete wavelet transform arrays; performing an inverse two-dimensional discrete wavelet transform on the clutter reduced two-dimensional discrete wavelet transform arrays to form clutter removed intensity value arrays; subtracting the clutter removed intensity value arrays in a pair-wise manner to obtain chemical-specific thermal spectral signatures; and correlating the chemical-specific thermal spectral signatures with 3-dimensional matched filters of known emissive signatures of objects to detect a presence of the object.