Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by O5vYtytb on Friday December 13, 2024 @07:38PM
(#42413623)
The only hypothesis that makes sense to me is that there is something very dangerous on the loose that is being searched for, such as nuclear material. The highest authorities don't want to cause panic so they are executing a search this way.
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by EE84M3i on Sunday December 15, 2024 @05:03AM
(#42422619)
If they are Department of Energy, that's consistent with them not being US Military. For example, DoE is publicly known to have radiation detection helicopters - See Aerial Measuring System (AMS) and Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST)
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by defrost on Sunday December 15, 2024 @05:26AM
(#42422689)
The reason AMS like functions are carried out by fixed wing aircraft and helicopter slung pods is the weight of the doped crystal packs required to sense gamma radiation from even relatively low ground clearance.
Radiation surveys are steady paced gridding runs, evenly spaced lines flown at a uniform height and speed.
Little drones bobbing about aren't doing a good job running a detection grid.
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by EE84M3i on Friday December 13, 2024 @08:00PM
(#42413732)
I think I'm also leaning this direction. All of the credible images I've seen are very similar to RQ-170 flying wings, which have existed for >15 years so of course could easily have had several development iterations since then.
It seems unlikely to me that with the radar/SIGINT capabilities of the government especially around the largest city in the country that there would be significant mystery about where they're coming from/going/being controlled.
This would also explain the various reports of first responders looking for "crashed drones" in the woods, etc for example in Hillsborough with Hazmat teams. They weren't looking for a downed drone, they were looking for whatever the drones are searching for.
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by thrwthsnw on Friday December 13, 2024 @08:00PM
(#42413733)
Gas mileage, safety, noise, cost, on top of the fact they already have tons of long range single prop drones kitted out with surveillance gear. Almost all of the videos look like predator style drones flying search grids. Maybe they have some large quadcopter drones in the air but I haven’t seen a single photo or video of anything that looks like one.
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by snypher on Friday December 13, 2024 @07:50PM
(#42413684)
The military has all sorts of cool techniques to find things without using drones, which makes me wonder if it's a private party conducting a search. Or is this in order to make it deniable for the military - not _looking_ like a military op
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by sleigh-bells on Saturday December 14, 2024 @01:14PM
(#42418550)
Yeah wouldn't they pull out all the stops if this were the case? Including running these drones during the day and all night (and making up a cover story)?
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by MarkMarine on Friday December 13, 2024 @08:39PM
(#42413925)
Highly doubt someone in military PR is doing the 4d chess involved with making this quote while also being in the search grid and not informed:
"While no direct threats to the installation have been identified, we can confirm multiple instances of unidentified drones entering the airspace above Naval Weapons Station Earle," Bill Addison, public affairs officer for the naval station, said in a statement to ABC News.
They’d just say nothing was seen, or it was normal flight ops, or make up a training mission.
The military doesn’t re-enforce the reason for public panic or admit they aren’t omnipotent unless they really don’t know.
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by MarkMarine on Friday December 13, 2024 @10:02PM
(#42414332)
I'm not. I was part of the government and a defense contractor.
As to what these are: they are clearly something complying with the FAR on dusk to dawn lighting, it's going to be some disappointing, boring outcome like dominos pizza delivery drones.
Half the videos I saw were people noticing a commercial aircraft with landing lights on. I saw a bell 412 with some terrain mapping sensors mounted on it hovering in a pattern around my neighborhood earlier in the year and it turned out to be scanning for the power company, a new way of checking the lines. I'll be far more interested in a UAP that doesn't follow our dusk to dawn lighting rules.
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by exabrial on Friday December 13, 2024 @07:46PM
(#42413667)
I feel like myself and a few others, some cash, some materials, a bit of legal immunity, could easily have a working solution to capture a few of these for analysis.
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by exabrial on Friday December 13, 2024 @09:09PM
(#42414079)
Hilariously, that was one of the ideas I had... among others: everything from shotguns (when loaded with birdshot and fired upwards, the shot falls back to earth harmlessly), to FPV chase pilots, long endurance ISR and tracking to origin, or even getting the right people to the table that have faster drones.
All of these things are pretty simple, I'm sure with the right people in the room even better ideas would emerge.
Re:What we know about the mysterious drones flying over New ...
by jjwiseman on Monday December 16, 2024 @04:18PM
(#42435532)
Here's a video by Mick West, who's an expert in analyzing things people see in the sky, that does a great job of explaining what's happening and making it seem obvious in retrospect. It's short (< 4 minutes) and if we could figure out a way to make it required viewing for media that would help a lot.
I guess they could be playing semantic games. Could be defense contractor owned and operated as opposed to directly military controlled.
In any case, if they know what they are they are lying. Either directly or by omission. Not that either would be unusual.
[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/11/pentagon-says-mystery-dron...
Radiation surveys are steady paced gridding runs, evenly spaced lines flown at a uniform height and speed.
Little drones bobbing about aren't doing a good job running a detection grid.
It seems unlikely to me that with the radar/SIGINT capabilities of the government especially around the largest city in the country that there would be significant mystery about where they're coming from/going/being controlled.
This would also explain the various reports of first responders looking for "crashed drones" in the woods, etc for example in Hillsborough with Hazmat teams. They weren't looking for a downed drone, they were looking for whatever the drones are searching for.
I don’t now anything about such scans but that was my immediate rebuttal.
Like you, though, at least I find this explanation plausible.
"While no direct threats to the installation have been identified, we can confirm multiple instances of unidentified drones entering the airspace above Naval Weapons Station Earle," Bill Addison, public affairs officer for the naval station, said in a statement to ABC News.
They’d just say nothing was seen, or it was normal flight ops, or make up a training mission.
The military doesn’t re-enforce the reason for public panic or admit they aren’t omnipotent unless they really don’t know.
As to what these are: they are clearly something complying with the FAR on dusk to dawn lighting, it's going to be some disappointing, boring outcome like dominos pizza delivery drones.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F...
Half the videos I saw were people noticing a commercial aircraft with landing lights on. I saw a bell 412 with some terrain mapping sensors mounted on it hovering in a pattern around my neighborhood earlier in the year and it turned out to be scanning for the power company, a new way of checking the lines. I'll be far more interested in a UAP that doesn't follow our dusk to dawn lighting rules.
I’m calling it - this is going down as the largest case of mass hysteria in recorded history.
CEO of a drone manufacturer seems to agree with your hypothesis
All of these things are pretty simple, I'm sure with the right people in the room even better ideas would emerge.
- with bright lights,
- flying over the same populated areas
- at the same time each night.
Not fake at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK4HFxzsjgo
tldr: People aren't seeing drones. It's collective delusion.