Photometric degeneracy between high-z DCBHs, obscured AGN, and very dusty galaxies. The thin black lines represent the Pacucci et al. (2016) model spectra of DCBHs with mass 5 × 10⁶ M_⊙ (upper line) and 5 × 10⁵ M_⊙ (lower line) at z = 10. The white squares indicate the corresponding integrated fluxes in the NIRCam filters used in the PEARLS/NEP survey. While the detailed spectra of the DCBHs display features that would set them apart from both dusty galaxies and obscured AGN, their photometric properties can be relatively well reproduced by both of these types of objects. The blue line represents the model spectrum of a passively evolving, very dusty (A_V ≈ 2.5 mag, Z = 0.004, age ≈2 Gyr) galaxy at z = 2.3 based on the Zackrisson et al. (2011a) set, with filter fluxes (blue squares) that can roughly reproduce the photometric data points of the 5 × 10⁶ M_⊙ DCBHs that lie above the PEARLS/NEP detection threshold (dashed black line). The red line and red triangles represent the Polletta et al. (2007) template spectrum and its corresponding NIRCam filter fluxes for an obscured AGN (QSO2 template), redshifted to z = 5 and scaled to match the 5 × 10⁵ M_⊙ DCBH model as closely as possible. Also in this case, there is a substantial similarity in the photometric SED between the z = 5 AGN and the z = 10 DCBH.