17 ms·

FAA documents give unprecedented look into Colorado drone swarm mystery

117 points by mdturnerphys 6y ago

jagged-chisel 6y ago
> ... the “mystery drone” wave also elicited serious expressions of concern from at least two U.S. senators and attention from Colorado’s governor and state public safety agency. What concern? > ... absence of evidence of criminal intent, or of a proximate threat to military assets or other critical infrastructure. Once the aerial activity stopped, it appears that both federal and state agencies quickly dropped the matter And rightly so. Interesting oddity, but pointless use of federal investigatory resources.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  It don’t see why you’re puzzled. It sure sounds very concerning to me. It was concerning enough to many people that they reported it, including law enforcement personnel. Given this, it makes complete sense someone might choose to investigate.
  - jagged-chisel 6y ago
    You didn’t explain the concern. Starting an investigation while the activity is on-going in an attempt to ascertain potential threats: fine. Continuing an investigation for unfounded “concern” and curiosity’s sake after the activity stops and there was no crime committed: wasteful.
    - wastedhours 6y ago
      Because whomever was flying the drones might do it again. If they can ascertain who it was and what they were doing, they'll be able to rule out any malicious future intent to their actions. I'm not sure anybody really wants a number of unidentified flying objects (in their literal sense) in the air at night with noone knowing where they came from or what they might be doing. I don't consider that "unfounded" concern, think it's quite valid on the spectrum of concerns actually. Seems like a reasonable use of resources to get to the bottom of it (albeit, perhaps not their full-time work). Not every investigation will succeed, and the outcomes can often be that nothing can be done. You can only get to that by doing the work though.
      - tfigment 6y ago
        If no law was being broken then investigation sounds like harassment to me. While it could be annoying there are a lot of thing that are annoying that are no illegal. I'd love to take away the power tools from my neighbor but they are not doing anything wrong and should not be subject to official inquiry just in case they could be.
        wastedhours 6y ago
        Agree with that, however this is a case with very little precedent - there needed to be an investigation to get to the conclusion nothing was wrong as it obviously did concern a lot of people. For me, that's part of the role of these bodies, ensure that something that looks sketchy actually (or potentially in this case) isn't. It's unchartered territory for people to have random flying things buzzing over the skies at night (and feel it's an entirely valid thing to be concerned about), whereas an annoying neighbour with some tools is well established.
        UncleEntity 6y ago
        > Agree with that, however this is a case with very little precedent - there needed to be an investigation to get to the conclusion nothing was wrong as it obviously did concern a lot of people. Anything that isn't specifically illegal is legal by default. They determined no illegal activities were conducted by flying a fleet of drones in a low-population rural area so...
        wastedhours 6y ago
        > They determined no illegal activities were conducted by flying a fleet of drones in a low-population rural area so... And they determined that by investigating (which is what we're discussing here). I'm not arguing about it's legality, just that they determined its legality by investigating something reported by genuinely concerned people.
      - 14 6y ago
        I have to disagree. You sound like the person in the video linked in one comment. She called the drones creepy. Why are they creepy? You don’t say creepy but you call them “unidentified flying objects” the article clearly states they are drones. We just don’t know who flew them and that bothers you. Also you think it is a good use of public resources to drive around and identify people not committing crimes flying drones after the fact. Why do you fear drones so much? I mean if they were flying into your yard hovering by a window I could see being upset but some guy flying drones in formation way in the sky and people freak out, why? It could be as simple as a drone enthusiast taking it to the next level. As I type this I feel my tone will come across as negative but I honestly hope you can bring some discussion to my questions. I have only ever played with cheap drones my kids own. Awesome fun. But slowly the drone world is being chipped away with more regulation some good but some implemented by people out of fear. If you are in my area and you see a drone in the sky it’s just me having fun and probably if you watch long enough I will put it in a tree. I don’t want the police searching around and bothering me especially after it was confirmed by the FAA that no crime was committed. Otherwise it sounds like harassment for something they don’t like.
- oxymoran 6y ago
  It’s not concerning, or even worth trying to solve the mystery, to you that we can’t identify a fleet of flying drones that are not from our military and that seem to be slightly more advanced than current consumer drones.(hovering silently for hours in high winds/storms). That’s just not worth your time? The drones could have been doing any number of nefarious things, but let’s not worry about it right? It could have been a foreign adversary for crying out loud.
  - na85 6y ago
    First, who's "we"? Do you work in national defense? Second, how do you know they can't identify it, when there are several emails being withheld from the FOIA request? To me, that's a dead giveaway it's a CIA project or something. Third, if a foreign adversary has the capability to maliciously land and take off from rural airports in Nebraska then US national defense has bigger problems than some quadcopters doing formation flying.
- rwmj 6y ago
  A major British airport was put out of action for days in Dec 2018 because of a drone or drones flying around. So yeah it'd be nice to find out who was flying these even if they didn't disrupt any airports or military installations this time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatwick_Airport_drone_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatwick_Airport_drone_incident
  - googlryas 6y ago
    There isn't even evidence there ever was a drone(that wasn't controlled by the police). > The lead investigator from Sussex Police questioned whether there had been a drone at all.[18][19] Giles York, Chief Constable, later said police thought that original sightings were of an unauthorised drone, but it was possible that later sightings may have been of a drone used by Sussex Police
the-dude 6y ago
There are many eye witnesses, but no pictures or videos?
- bronco21016 6y ago
  I’d have to go digging but a local news crew was able to capture video at one point. Here’s an amateur video... https://www.denverpost.com/2019/12/31/drone-video-yuma-county-colorado/ https://www.denverpost.com/2019/12/31/drone-video-yuma-count...
  - the-dude 6y ago
    Thank you! Funny the video quality is very UFO-alike : it could be anything.
    - GordonS 6y ago
      Yep, all I see is a small white dot moving on a completely black background - not particularly convincing.
      - dylan604 6y ago
        What would you expect though? More than likely someone's mobile device. These things are not good at taking pictures without plenty of light.
        GordonS 6y ago
        Maybe it would be more convincing if you could see something, anything other than pure black - buildings, a tree line, whatever. As it is, it's literally a white dot on a black background - I couldn't even see any image noise in the black (although I am on mobile).
        dylan604 6y ago
        Why? It's western Colorado. There's nothing out there except land. The sky at night is black. Something flying in the night sky will be flying above tree lines requiring the observer to be looking up. I honestly don't know why you'd be expecting a full on feature film production level of equipment to be available to someone that happens to notice a drone flying and trying to capture it. There's a reason certain activities take place in the dead of night. Avoiding being seen is one of them. What's the confusion? I get it's "disappointing" to not see everything, but if everything could be seen in the footage there'd not be mystery/intrigue.
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
tl;dr: somebody flew some drones in formation frequently for a few weeks. Nobody knows why. Nobody came forward to say why.
- 14 6y ago
  “The FAA is also currently withholding some key documents, citing FOIA exemptions.” You missed the part about the secret documents that the FAA won’t release. So now there is more to it then they let on.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Yeah no. The whole website is a 'conspiracy theory' saga, with endless pointless citing of 'official documents' and quotes from clueless people. A legitimate article could simply say "There were some curious drones flying around, which the military doesn't claim. The FAA knows something they aren't telling." Then we'd all know the score without scrolling through 100 pages of obfuscated rambling.
fabbari 6y ago
Just to balance out things a bit: most of the sightings were dismissed as either aircrafts, stars or other lights [1]. It may be worth reading the actual released documents rather than take the cherry picked quotes from them. My 2c. Edit - Just to be clear: this is not about drones being spotted, there may have been small drones flying at night. This is about reports of drones with a large wingspan flying in formation around a 'mothership'. These sightings have been investigated and dismissed [2]. [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884xv3/the-colorado-mystery-drones-werent-real https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884xv3/the-colorado-myste... [2] https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/publicsafety/news/updates-investigations-suspicious-drone-activity-ne-colorado https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/publicsafety/news/updates-i...
- matthewdgreen 6y ago
  The articles you point to note that the sightings were investigated on Jan 11-13, and the investigators found nothing. It doesn't prove that the previous sightings were an invention. The War Zone (OP) article also says that reports of sightings ended around mid-January. I don't know what people saw out there. But I don't think one three-night investigation is enough to completely discredit all of those very detailed reports, especially given (1) how close together they are in time, (2) that reporting dropped off in multiple states at a similar point, (3) that there are matching descriptions from people who were quite far apart, and (4) that some were from pilots and others using night vision. It could still be imagination, I just don't think your links provide enough to conclude that.
  - fabbari 6y ago
    If you would read the second link I posted carefully you would find out that the investigations started in November, field investigations went from the 6th of January to the 13th. If there was an activity of large groups of drones flying in grid patterns - let alone ones with a 6 feet wing span - these would have been easy to confirm. Add to this that there is no video or photographic evidence of any of these activities. Of 90 reports in a couple of months none of the witnesses had a phone on them to shoot anything that's not a single light in the sky? I think that this is a text book example of social media fueled collective hysteria at its best. Specifically your points 1, 2 and 3 are signs of the phenomenon - about your 4th point: even more reason to expect any form of firm evidence.
stevespang 6y ago
local radar should have picked up the origin of the flights
aaron695 6y ago
I understand the hacker community has always been into UFO's and 40 years ago this forum would be talking about aliens. But what they were still stands at what we knew they were when first reported, hysteria. (aka stars, planes and maybe, perhaps an occasional domestic DJI drone) Go have a look at the drones being used by independent militant groups (with some state help) around they Middle East, they are much more interesting and real. Link to get you started - https://twitter.com/N_Waters89/status/1255821485979176962 https://twitter.com/N_Waters89/status/1255821485979176962
Shivetya 6y ago
Was thinking what a fabulous method to generate publicity in lead up to a motion picture. Perform this event multiple times across the country before a reveal when a trailer is dropped; would be good for any dystopian future or alien invasion movie
- Trias11 6y ago
  Angel has Fallen, scroll to 0:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isVtXH7n9lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isVtXH7n9lI
kelvin0 6y ago
Maybe this is the equivalent of the flash mobs in malls some years back? Instead of people being physically present, they all have drones and fly them in a formation? Bored, smart, rich kids will definitely be able to pull this off.
chrisdalke 6y ago
The amount of hysteria over drones (Particularly incidents like this) is really concerning to me, because it plays right into the hands of regulators and lobbyists in the US trying to justify unnecessary Remote ID legislation under the guise of "safety". The recently released proposed rules for Remote ID raised a huge amount of concern in the model aircraft world, because it proposed restrictions that would effectively kill the hobby: - All drones/RC aircraft must have a GPS-based tracking ("Full remote ID") on the aircraft, connected to a ground station and relayed to a subscription third-party service. These "Full remote ID" aircraft can be flown past line of site. - Aircraft not constructed by a single manufacturer (For example, handmade RC planes) are not allowed to use full remote ID, and instead must use "limited" remote ID in which GPS can be on the ground station, but the aircraft must disable itself past 400ft from the ground station. - Aircraft with limited remote ID can only be flown in a dedicated "FRIA" flying site. - FRIA sites are "legacy" and after a short period, no new sites will be created. The stated intention of the FAA is to phase these sites out completely, meaning after a certain period all planes must comply with full remote ID, effectively killing hand-built model aircraft. The end result of this regulation is _not_ safer airways: It's an airspace <400ft owned by commercial entities such as Amazon who are able to comply with the requirements of the Remote ID tracking and single-manufacturer requirements. It's an example of regulatory capture that will genuinely make the world worse for us by increasing noise pollution and drone traffic at low heights. Meanwhile, the model aircraft and drone hobby will have a large barrier to entry that pushes away the innovation of millions of engineers who got their start as kids flying affordable DIY planes.
- tlow 6y ago
  As a RC enthusiast who flies for recreation and enjoyment, this is really alarming. Especially because I am someone who enjoys constructing my own aircraft. For what it's worth, the craft I make are in the "Ultra-micro" category which are only a couple ounces flying weight.
  - bilbo0s 6y ago
    Not sure your aircraft would be regulated if they are that small.
adamsea 6y ago
It seems pretty obvious that if this is real and not mass hysteria the first most plausible explanation is a secret military project, no? The Government doesn’t tell folks when they are testing new spy planes and stuff, etc.
- wyattpeak 6y ago
  I can't remember where I read it and can't think how to look it up, but as I recall the military do generally submit flight plans to the FAA even for classified experiments. They used not to, but after a few crashes changed their processes. Would appreciate confirmation or contradiction from someone who knows better.
one2know 6y ago
These drones had Denver area defense contractor written all over them. I would guess Lockheed or Raytheon or Boulder based lab or company. They would not coordinate because 1. every project they do is classified 2. probably is some sort of mass surveillance tech that they would rather not advertise 3. Probably not sponsored directly by the military or deemed a weapons system, so no need to go through the hassle of testing on a military range (lets just drive a few hours outside town). 4. Didn't want to go through the hassle of dealing with the FAA and know that if the FAA seriously got involved they could just pull strings. 5. Don't care if they bother a few farmers and consider most of the area to be "empty" Clearly the drones stopped because it was a limited term contract.
- novask 6y ago
  Ball Aerospace is another near Boulder
- ReedJessen 6y ago
  This is the most obvious answer.
  - sdinsn 6y ago
    There is nothing obvious about this. It's the kind of baseless speculation that belongs in fringe conspiracy forums, not here
    - irl_zebra 6y ago
      Former defense contractor at (Relatively) small company here, this is a reasonable and common sense explanation, especially from what I know from being inside the defense industry. It’s not even far fetched at all. I don’t think this goes to the level or being conspiracy or fringe at all.
    - one2know 6y ago
      Why is that a "conspiracy?" It makes good sense, just sign an NDA with a farmer to use their property. What is the alternative? For every single test travel down to a missile range having days of turnaround. A conspiracy would be more like they are testing remote monitoring drones on unsuspecting farmers and are not supposed to be spying in the United States because they are under government contract. But there would be no need for something like that for some tests. Or its aliens.
flareback 6y ago
It's aliens. They've realized if they use drones that people will blame governments or large corporations. /sarcasm
chasd00 6y ago
the fact there were multiple sightings in rural areas and not one was destroyed by buckshot should mean something. I grew up in the country, I don't see any teen/young adult spotting one of these over their farm/ranch and resisting the urge to grab a 12 gauge and take a shot.
trhway 6y ago
>the pattern of multiple “drones” flying a grid type pattern and remaining airborne for several hours at a time in less than optimum flying conditions (high winds and storm-like conditions). The number of drones reported operating at one time range from between 2 and 16 and appear to be approximately 6 feet width and length. Flight time has been 2 to 3 hours continuous. that isn't amateurs, nor does it look like any small business/start-up. That smells like defense contractor.
devalgo 6y ago
This reads like a UFO hysteria report. "10 ft drones that make no sound and hover in the air for hours at a time" Do drones like this even exist that are available to civilians? Even $30,000 commercial grade drones are only a few feet wide and have sub hour flight times.
BrandonMarc 6y ago
For all these witnesses, i haven't seen any pictures

117 points by mdturnerphys 6y ago

> ... the “mystery drone” wave also elicited serious expressions of concern from at least two U.S. senators and attention from Colorado’s governor and state public safety agency. What concern? > ... absence of evidence of criminal intent, or of a proximate threat to military assets or other critical infrastructure. Once the aerial activity stopped, it appears that both federal and state agencies quickly dropped the matter And rightly so. Interesting oddity, but pointless use of federal investigatory resources.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
It don’t see why you’re puzzled. It sure sounds very concerning to me. It was concerning enough to many people that they reported it, including law enforcement personnel. Given this, it makes complete sense someone might choose to investigate.
- jagged-chisel 6y ago
  You didn’t explain the concern. Starting an investigation while the activity is on-going in an attempt to ascertain potential threats: fine. Continuing an investigation for unfounded “concern” and curiosity’s sake after the activity stops and there was no crime committed: wasteful.
  - wastedhours 6y ago
    Because whomever was flying the drones might do it again. If they can ascertain who it was and what they were doing, they'll be able to rule out any malicious future intent to their actions. I'm not sure anybody really wants a number of unidentified flying objects (in their literal sense) in the air at night with noone knowing where they came from or what they might be doing. I don't consider that "unfounded" concern, think it's quite valid on the spectrum of concerns actually. Seems like a reasonable use of resources to get to the bottom of it (albeit, perhaps not their full-time work). Not every investigation will succeed, and the outcomes can often be that nothing can be done. You can only get to that by doing the work though.
    - tfigment 6y ago
      If no law was being broken then investigation sounds like harassment to me. While it could be annoying there are a lot of thing that are annoying that are no illegal. I'd love to take away the power tools from my neighbor but they are not doing anything wrong and should not be subject to official inquiry just in case they could be.
      - wastedhours 6y ago
        Agree with that, however this is a case with very little precedent - there needed to be an investigation to get to the conclusion nothing was wrong as it obviously did concern a lot of people. For me, that's part of the role of these bodies, ensure that something that looks sketchy actually (or potentially in this case) isn't. It's unchartered territory for people to have random flying things buzzing over the skies at night (and feel it's an entirely valid thing to be concerned about), whereas an annoying neighbour with some tools is well established.
        UncleEntity 6y ago
        > Agree with that, however this is a case with very little precedent - there needed to be an investigation to get to the conclusion nothing was wrong as it obviously did concern a lot of people. Anything that isn't specifically illegal is legal by default. They determined no illegal activities were conducted by flying a fleet of drones in a low-population rural area so...
        wastedhours 6y ago
        > They determined no illegal activities were conducted by flying a fleet of drones in a low-population rural area so... And they determined that by investigating (which is what we're discussing here). I'm not arguing about it's legality, just that they determined its legality by investigating something reported by genuinely concerned people.
    - 14 6y ago
      I have to disagree. You sound like the person in the video linked in one comment. She called the drones creepy. Why are they creepy? You don’t say creepy but you call them “unidentified flying objects” the article clearly states they are drones. We just don’t know who flew them and that bothers you. Also you think it is a good use of public resources to drive around and identify people not committing crimes flying drones after the fact. Why do you fear drones so much? I mean if they were flying into your yard hovering by a window I could see being upset but some guy flying drones in formation way in the sky and people freak out, why? It could be as simple as a drone enthusiast taking it to the next level. As I type this I feel my tone will come across as negative but I honestly hope you can bring some discussion to my questions. I have only ever played with cheap drones my kids own. Awesome fun. But slowly the drone world is being chipped away with more regulation some good but some implemented by people out of fear. If you are in my area and you see a drone in the sky it’s just me having fun and probably if you watch long enough I will put it in a tree. I don’t want the police searching around and bothering me especially after it was confirmed by the FAA that no crime was committed. Otherwise it sounds like harassment for something they don’t like.
oxymoran 6y ago
It’s not concerning, or even worth trying to solve the mystery, to you that we can’t identify a fleet of flying drones that are not from our military and that seem to be slightly more advanced than current consumer drones.(hovering silently for hours in high winds/storms). That’s just not worth your time? The drones could have been doing any number of nefarious things, but let’s not worry about it right? It could have been a foreign adversary for crying out loud.
- na85 6y ago
  First, who's "we"? Do you work in national defense? Second, how do you know they can't identify it, when there are several emails being withheld from the FOIA request? To me, that's a dead giveaway it's a CIA project or something. Third, if a foreign adversary has the capability to maliciously land and take off from rural airports in Nebraska then US national defense has bigger problems than some quadcopters doing formation flying.
rwmj 6y ago
A major British airport was put out of action for days in Dec 2018 because of a drone or drones flying around. So yeah it'd be nice to find out who was flying these even if they didn't disrupt any airports or military installations this time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatwick_Airport_drone_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatwick_Airport_drone_incident
- googlryas 6y ago
  There isn't even evidence there ever was a drone(that wasn't controlled by the police). > The lead investigator from Sussex Police questioned whether there had been a drone at all.[18][19] Giles York, Chief Constable, later said police thought that original sightings were of an unauthorised drone, but it was possible that later sightings may have been of a drone used by Sussex Police

the-dude 6y ago

There are many eye witnesses, but no pictures or videos?

bronco21016 6y ago
I’d have to go digging but a local news crew was able to capture video at one point. Here’s an amateur video... https://www.denverpost.com/2019/12/31/drone-video-yuma-county-colorado/ https://www.denverpost.com/2019/12/31/drone-video-yuma-count...
- the-dude 6y ago
  Thank you! Funny the video quality is very UFO-alike : it could be anything.
  - GordonS 6y ago
    Yep, all I see is a small white dot moving on a completely black background - not particularly convincing.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      What would you expect though? More than likely someone's mobile device. These things are not good at taking pictures without plenty of light.
      - GordonS 6y ago
        Maybe it would be more convincing if you could see something, anything other than pure black - buildings, a tree line, whatever. As it is, it's literally a white dot on a black background - I couldn't even see any image noise in the black (although I am on mobile).
        dylan604 6y ago
        Why? It's western Colorado. There's nothing out there except land. The sky at night is black. Something flying in the night sky will be flying above tree lines requiring the observer to be looking up. I honestly don't know why you'd be expecting a full on feature film production level of equipment to be available to someone that happens to notice a drone flying and trying to capture it. There's a reason certain activities take place in the dead of night. Avoiding being seen is one of them. What's the confusion? I get it's "disappointing" to not see everything, but if everything could be seen in the footage there'd not be mystery/intrigue.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

tl;dr: somebody flew some drones in formation frequently for a few weeks. Nobody knows why. Nobody came forward to say why.

14 6y ago
“The FAA is also currently withholding some key documents, citing FOIA exemptions.” You missed the part about the secret documents that the FAA won’t release. So now there is more to it then they let on.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Yeah no. The whole website is a 'conspiracy theory' saga, with endless pointless citing of 'official documents' and quotes from clueless people. A legitimate article could simply say "There were some curious drones flying around, which the military doesn't claim. The FAA knows something they aren't telling." Then we'd all know the score without scrolling through 100 pages of obfuscated rambling.

fabbari 6y ago

Just to balance out things a bit: most of the sightings were dismissed as either aircrafts, stars or other lights [1]. It may be worth reading the actual released documents rather than take the cherry picked quotes from them. My 2c. Edit - Just to be clear: this is not about drones being spotted, there may have been small drones flying at night. This is about reports of drones with a large wingspan flying in formation around a 'mothership'. These sightings have been investigated and dismissed [2]. [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884xv3/the-colorado-mystery-drones-werent-real https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884xv3/the-colorado-myste... [2] https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/publicsafety/news/updates-investigations-suspicious-drone-activity-ne-colorado https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/publicsafety/news/updates-i...

matthewdgreen 6y ago
The articles you point to note that the sightings were investigated on Jan 11-13, and the investigators found nothing. It doesn't prove that the previous sightings were an invention. The War Zone (OP) article also says that reports of sightings ended around mid-January. I don't know what people saw out there. But I don't think one three-night investigation is enough to completely discredit all of those very detailed reports, especially given (1) how close together they are in time, (2) that reporting dropped off in multiple states at a similar point, (3) that there are matching descriptions from people who were quite far apart, and (4) that some were from pilots and others using night vision. It could still be imagination, I just don't think your links provide enough to conclude that.
- fabbari 6y ago
  If you would read the second link I posted carefully you would find out that the investigations started in November, field investigations went from the 6th of January to the 13th. If there was an activity of large groups of drones flying in grid patterns - let alone ones with a 6 feet wing span - these would have been easy to confirm. Add to this that there is no video or photographic evidence of any of these activities. Of 90 reports in a couple of months none of the witnesses had a phone on them to shoot anything that's not a single light in the sky? I think that this is a text book example of social media fueled collective hysteria at its best. Specifically your points 1, 2 and 3 are signs of the phenomenon - about your 4th point: even more reason to expect any form of firm evidence.

stevespang 6y ago

local radar should have picked up the origin of the flights

aaron695 6y ago

I understand the hacker community has always been into UFO's and 40 years ago this forum would be talking about aliens. But what they were still stands at what we knew they were when first reported, hysteria. (aka stars, planes and maybe, perhaps an occasional domestic DJI drone) Go have a look at the drones being used by independent militant groups (with some state help) around they Middle East, they are much more interesting and real. Link to get you started - https://twitter.com/N_Waters89/status/1255821485979176962 https://twitter.com/N_Waters89/status/1255821485979176962

Shivetya 6y ago

Was thinking what a fabulous method to generate publicity in lead up to a motion picture. Perform this event multiple times across the country before a reveal when a trailer is dropped; would be good for any dystopian future or alien invasion movie

Trias11 6y ago
Angel has Fallen, scroll to 0:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isVtXH7n9lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isVtXH7n9lI

kelvin0 6y ago

Maybe this is the equivalent of the flash mobs in malls some years back? Instead of people being physically present, they all have drones and fly them in a formation? Bored, smart, rich kids will definitely be able to pull this off.

chrisdalke 6y ago

The amount of hysteria over drones (Particularly incidents like this) is really concerning to me, because it plays right into the hands of regulators and lobbyists in the US trying to justify unnecessary Remote ID legislation under the guise of "safety". The recently released proposed rules for Remote ID raised a huge amount of concern in the model aircraft world, because it proposed restrictions that would effectively kill the hobby: - All drones/RC aircraft must have a GPS-based tracking ("Full remote ID") on the aircraft, connected to a ground station and relayed to a subscription third-party service. These "Full remote ID" aircraft can be flown past line of site. - Aircraft not constructed by a single manufacturer (For example, handmade RC planes) are not allowed to use full remote ID, and instead must use "limited" remote ID in which GPS can be on the ground station, but the aircraft must disable itself past 400ft from the ground station. - Aircraft with limited remote ID can only be flown in a dedicated "FRIA" flying site. - FRIA sites are "legacy" and after a short period, no new sites will be created. The stated intention of the FAA is to phase these sites out completely, meaning after a certain period all planes must comply with full remote ID, effectively killing hand-built model aircraft. The end result of this regulation is _not_ safer airways: It's an airspace <400ft owned by commercial entities such as Amazon who are able to comply with the requirements of the Remote ID tracking and single-manufacturer requirements. It's an example of regulatory capture that will genuinely make the world worse for us by increasing noise pollution and drone traffic at low heights. Meanwhile, the model aircraft and drone hobby will have a large barrier to entry that pushes away the innovation of millions of engineers who got their start as kids flying affordable DIY planes.

tlow 6y ago
As a RC enthusiast who flies for recreation and enjoyment, this is really alarming. Especially because I am someone who enjoys constructing my own aircraft. For what it's worth, the craft I make are in the "Ultra-micro" category which are only a couple ounces flying weight.
- bilbo0s 6y ago
  Not sure your aircraft would be regulated if they are that small.

adamsea 6y ago

It seems pretty obvious that if this is real and not mass hysteria the first most plausible explanation is a secret military project, no? The Government doesn’t tell folks when they are testing new spy planes and stuff, etc.

wyattpeak 6y ago
I can't remember where I read it and can't think how to look it up, but as I recall the military do generally submit flight plans to the FAA even for classified experiments. They used not to, but after a few crashes changed their processes. Would appreciate confirmation or contradiction from someone who knows better.

one2know 6y ago

These drones had Denver area defense contractor written all over them. I would guess Lockheed or Raytheon or Boulder based lab or company. They would not coordinate because 1. every project they do is classified 2. probably is some sort of mass surveillance tech that they would rather not advertise 3. Probably not sponsored directly by the military or deemed a weapons system, so no need to go through the hassle of testing on a military range (lets just drive a few hours outside town). 4. Didn't want to go through the hassle of dealing with the FAA and know that if the FAA seriously got involved they could just pull strings. 5. Don't care if they bother a few farmers and consider most of the area to be "empty" Clearly the drones stopped because it was a limited term contract.

novask 6y ago
Ball Aerospace is another near Boulder
ReedJessen 6y ago
This is the most obvious answer.
- sdinsn 6y ago
  There is nothing obvious about this. It's the kind of baseless speculation that belongs in fringe conspiracy forums, not here
  - irl_zebra 6y ago
    Former defense contractor at (Relatively) small company here, this is a reasonable and common sense explanation, especially from what I know from being inside the defense industry. It’s not even far fetched at all. I don’t think this goes to the level or being conspiracy or fringe at all.
  - one2know 6y ago
    Why is that a "conspiracy?" It makes good sense, just sign an NDA with a farmer to use their property. What is the alternative? For every single test travel down to a missile range having days of turnaround. A conspiracy would be more like they are testing remote monitoring drones on unsuspecting farmers and are not supposed to be spying in the United States because they are under government contract. But there would be no need for something like that for some tests. Or its aliens.

flareback 6y ago

It's aliens. They've realized if they use drones that people will blame governments or large corporations. /sarcasm

chasd00 6y ago

the fact there were multiple sightings in rural areas and not one was destroyed by buckshot should mean something. I grew up in the country, I don't see any teen/young adult spotting one of these over their farm/ranch and resisting the urge to grab a 12 gauge and take a shot.

trhway 6y ago

>the pattern of multiple “drones” flying a grid type pattern and remaining airborne for several hours at a time in less than optimum flying conditions (high winds and storm-like conditions). The number of drones reported operating at one time range from between 2 and 16 and appear to be approximately 6 feet width and length. Flight time has been 2 to 3 hours continuous. that isn't amateurs, nor does it look like any small business/start-up. That smells like defense contractor.

devalgo 6y ago

This reads like a UFO hysteria report. "10 ft drones that make no sound and hover in the air for hours at a time" Do drones like this even exist that are available to civilians? Even $30,000 commercial grade drones are only a few feet wide and have sub hour flight times.

BrandonMarc 6y ago

For all these witnesses, i haven't seen any pictures