The present disclosure provides for a system and method for detecting and identifying unknown targets. At least one region of interest comprising an unknown target in a sample scene may be targeted using SWIR spectroscopic techniques. A region of interest may be surveyed to thereby determine whether or not a human is present. This surveying may be achieved my assessing LWIR data, data acquired from motion sensors, and combinations thereof. If no human is present in a region of interest, the region may be interrogated using Raman spectroscopic techniques to thereby obtain a Raman data set representative of the region of interest. This Raman data set may be assessed to thereby identify said unknown target. This assessment may be achieved by comparing the Raman data set to a reference data sets in a reference database, where each reference data set is associated with a known target.