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Mysterious helicopters have been circling Los Angeles
- ericcholis 6y agoSimilarly, there's been an increase in helicopter traffic in Western New York. But, we do know why. It's Canadian snowbirds trying to skip the border shutdown to head to Florida https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/canadians-buzz-through-buffalo-as-a-way-to-beat-border-closure/71-07c93156-1365-46ab-80c1-613e5b1d7938 https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/canadians-buzz-throu...
- pbourke 6y agoProbably this will be discontinued now that the US will require a negative COVID test prior to entry via air.
- ikpomtdk 6y agoThese passengers were still subject to quarantine requirements (enforcement may be a different story). There are no direct flights between Toronto and Buffalo so the helicopter charters were filling this gap, while also skirting the physical border closures.
- sandworm101 6y agoGiven the up to 10k they are paying for flights and to have their RVs driven across the boarder (yes, commercial drivers can cross in RVs) a few hundred dollars for a covid test won't be an issue. Private covid tests in canada cost about 250$.
- thatguy0900 6y agoYou have to pay $250 in Canada for a covid test?
- nucleardog 6y agoPrivate COVID tests. There’s an upper limit to testing capacity, and optimistically the government allocates that capacity in the way it thinks it will do the most good. They’re worried about processing tests from care homes, healthcare workers, suspected positive patients, outbreaks, etc... not old people that want to go to Florida for vacation. But that doesn’t preclude finding a private company that will test you, but the government isn’t going to pay for non-medically-necessary medical treatment and testing from a private company.
- thatguy0900 6y agoIn the US I just went to a local er and got a 30 min response quick test for 25$ because I felt like my throat was a little itchy, not for any real reason. Are you saying that this wouldn't be an option in Canada? That seems really surprising to me
- monkeybutton 6y agoIf you experiencing symptoms, the test is free and available through the public system.
- deskamess 6y agoYes, but how soon do you get results. Is it instantaneous or do they call/text your the results?
- na85 6y agoDepends on which test you get but I've seen people who work for me get both same-day results and results within 72 hours.
- nucleardog 6y agoIn case you're actually curious (even though this is like two weeks later): Despite never leaving the house I woke up with little to no smell/taste the other day and while it was likely some random sinus infection or something, given the vulnerable people I live with I isolated and immediately got tested. Went online and scheduled an appointment for an hour later. (They had sooner, but I took that one.) Drive through test. Just had to provide my usual identification for healthcare (provincial health card), but there was no screening as far as whether I really needed it since the labs aren't really backed up right now. About 20 hours later got a text with the result in the middle of the night. From "Maybe I have covid?" to getting a PCR test result was 21 hours and $0. A antigen test would only take an hour or two, but be much less accurate. As far as PCR testing, no complaints here. Only had to spend one night sleeping on the couch in the basement before knowing I wasn't going to infect and kill my family.
- sokoloff 6y agoThe helicopter flight is $1200 for up to 3 pax: https://greatlakeshelicopter.ca/flights-to-the-u-s-a/ https://greatlakeshelicopter.ca/flights-to-the-u-s-a/ and an RV shuttle looks to be $1600.
- CyberDildonics 6y agoYou think people who can afford to fly on helicopters can't get a covid test?
- Triv888 6y agoThey can still fly to come down here (but if they want to bring their car, they need to ship it down). It is packed with Canadians down south Florida.
- deskamess 6y agoMany have also jumped the queue to get free COVID shots (Tampa had a recent news report). One couple said they booked shots (4 weeks in the future) for their friends who are still in Canada (they will travel down shortly). Not sure how this is permitted although it makes scientific sense (anyone can transmit). The US is currently well ahead of Canada in per-capita COVID delivery.
- tenpies 6y ago> The US is currently well ahead of Canada in per-capita COVID delivery. The US is actually well ahead of most of the world, especially when you factor population and geography [1]. Sure, Israel has crushed everyone, but I think we can all agree there are exceptional circumstances which make this easier in Israel than in most other countries. Other success stories have been largely small, wealthy countries. It's a shame that the US media is so politicized as to not recognize Operation Warp Speed and the men and women - from researchers, to logisticians, to clinicians - who have made this possible. It has been an absolute miracle of human achievement and will hopefully be celebrated by historians, since the current generation refuses to do so. --- [1] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
- throwaway894345 6y agoThis is pretty remarkable. I wonder why numbers in so many European countries are so much lower?
- xeromal 6y agoI heard on NPR that the EU as a whole is ordering the vaccines so there's probably a bit of red tape holding things up.
- trhway 6y agohunting for the jetpack man i guess. In general with jetpacks and drones of all sizes, including human carrying, the airspace is to become more lively and entertaining with coming years - for example police in Japan is using drones with nets to catch drug carrying drones, so the drug traffickers started to use drones with nets to catch those police drones...
- handmodel 6y agoThe route they took wasn't particularly close to where the jetbacks were spotted. I don't think it is that - although I don't know enough about aviation to know what they were doing or how rare of an occurrence they are.
- thewebcount 6y agoAs far as how rare they are - helicopters in LA are a daily occurrence. I used to live in Mar Vista, just a few blocks from Venice Beach, and they flew over our house every night. There were times when they flew so low they caused the water in our pool to ripple (though that was rare). Now I'm down in Westchester, and we get fewer, but they're still around frequently. I saw some yesterday, but think they were just regular LAPD, and not these particular ones. (And looking at the map of their route, they didn't fly over us.)
- asdff 6y agoHelicopters are practically a native bird here, they are incredibly common. I've been working outside for the past hour and spotted my third flying overhead already in that time span. LAPD also always has at least two birds in the air for like 20 hours out of the day, but there are tons and tons of private operators and just plain old rich people who commute like this (most famously probably Kobe Bryant given he recently died commuting by helicopter).
- harpiaharpyja 6y agoMakes me wonder if those helicopters being "purchased" by Iraq was just OPSEC.
- steverb 6y agoI would have expected them to have changed the number if that were the case.
- donatj 6y agoThe most curious part to me is that all these photos of the helicopters were taken by cameras without rolling shutters.
- daysigh 6y agoI see we have a man of culture here.
- mdoms 6y agoThis isn't reddit. Keep these comments to yourself.
- donatj 6y agoThis is the persons very first comment. Assuming good faith on their part, and that they are new to HN, there's no need to be rude. We want to foster a friendly community here.
- uoaei 6y agoThat wasn't rude. It was direct.
- mwambua 6y agoI found it rude and indirect. It would have been nice of them to point out why the comment is unhelpful, rather than just saying "This isn't reddit"
- texasbigdata 6y agoThe best part though, is not the initial response or the counter, it’s the fact the “commons” is so valued you have this sort of meta self-regulation taking place to rebalance to equilibrium. Super cool and wish, well basically everything else in life was like that.
- 6y ago
- raphaelcosta 6y agoHow many conspiracy theories people will create/associate using that story?
- mikestew 6y agoBlack helicopters? Conspiracy? There's even a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_helicopter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_helicopter Now, just like every other conspiracy nut, I'd like to state upfront that I'm no conspiracy theorist. However, over the years "seeing black helicopters" has been an insult used by some. Yet I used to see them parked out in the open at the National Guard base along I-70 in eastern Indiana like 25-30 years ago. And here we have photos published by not-disreputable source. Make of it what you will.
- MikeTheGreat 6y agoAre you saying that 25-30 year old helicopters from eastern Indiana are now circling LA?
- zamadatix 6y agoI think it's pretty clear they are saying people would say you're a nutter for saying unmarked helicopters are used by government agencies yet he knew them to exist even back then. Not sure where you picked up that they were the same exact helicopters.
- airstrike 6y agoNow I feel like watching every movie listed in the "Fictional representations" section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_helicopter#Fictional_representations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_helicopter#Fictional_rep...
- digikata 6y agoSimilar reports of helicopters in my community were aerial inspections of the electrical grid being conducted by So Cal Edison.
- vidanay 6y agoThat sounds exactly like a Karen: The power company started the fires due to lack of maintenance! Why is the power company flying helicopters and disturbing me?
- digikata 6y agoI don't think the utility had sent out any community notices. So when helis loiter around a little lower and slower than normal I think it's natural to be curious. Particularly when they show up on a daily basis for maybe a few weeks to a month.
- pwenzel 6y agoThis was a similar ordeal in Minneapolis in 2020. When news choppers weren't circling the George Floyd memorial, it was National Guard and State Patrol scanning for civil unrest, or more recently, State Patrol's investigating carjackings: https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/more-than-40-arrested-in-police-op-that-required-helicopter-over-minneapolis https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/more-than-40-arres... I live next to the autonomous zone and the helicopter traffic frequenting our neighborhood always triggers me. During the protests on December 30th we had State Patrol lights shining in our windows. With all the surveillance and military response to events happening in the country right now, I'm definitely curious to see what these choppers in Los Angeles are up to.
- mgarfias 6y agoalert alex jones
- cronix 6y agoPortland didn't have helicopters that I'm aware of, but at the height of the multi-month riots over the spring, summer and fall, the Air Force was flying one of these[1] Special Operations Surveillance Planes that they denied were doing any "surveilling." It's interesting that the flight paths happened to coincide with the locations of where the riots happened to be occurring that day and Portland had a No-Fly Zone restriction in place.[2] [1] https://theintercept.com/2020/07/23/air-force-surveillance-plane-portland-protests/ https://theintercept.com/2020/07/23/air-force-surveillance-p... [2] https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-protest-flight-restrictions-drones/ https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-protest-flight-res...
- CydeWeys 6y ago> multi-month riots over the spring, summer and fal There were no multi-month riots this summer. Multi-month protests, yes. But not riots. The riots were much smaller in number and generally only lasted a few days at any one location prior to order being restored (here in NYC we had a few nights of looting that could be described as a riot). Even the infamous 1992 LA riots only lasted a week. Multi-month riots would be downfall-of-society level.
- chrissnell 6y agoNot sure what media you watch but before I went to bed, I watched Portland livestreams of very violent "protests". These went on every night for weeks and I watched people throw Molotov cocktails and shoot mortars at law enforcement. Call it what you want, but this shit was happening for over 100 nights in a row.
- newnamenewface 6y agoMortars or fireworks? That said, I agree that there were certainly protests that consistently became violent at night time for the span of at least weeks, maybe months.
- ndiscussion 6y ago
- openasocket 6y agoWhen I lived in Northern Virginia I saw a lot of helicopters flying over my apartment building, and not just the usual news and police helicopters. More than once I saw 4 uh-60s flying over in formation, and some uh-60s and uh-72s with a distinctive black and gold stripe color scheme. I did some research online and found that there were people in this region fascinated with identifying and cataloguing all of these aircraft, almost like bird watching. I found out they were likely stationed at the Pentagon. The black and gold ones are VIP transport helicopters, meant for transporting members of congress and cabinet members, particularly for evacuations in an emergency. I also saw marine one a couple times, though since it was alone I believe it didn't have POTUS in it at the time (when POTUS is actually in there they fly several identical helicopters in formation so you don't know which has the president). My apartment was roughly under the direct route between Andrews AB and DC, and pretty close to the pentagon, my guess is it was a convenient route for training and drilling.
- joncrane 6y agoYep, there's even a "helicopters of DC" Twitter account which is really interesting.
- nradov 6y agoThere is no single Marine One helicopter. The squadron has several identical helicopters, but they only get the "Marine One" call sign when the President is on board. At other times they use different call signs.
- Simulacra 6y agoHas anyone heard any more about the Los Angeles program to fly airplanes around the city during the day to record everything that happens, similar to what they did in Baltimore? https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-surveillance/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-sur...
- hamitron 6y agoThe twitter account @SkyCirclesLA keeps track of these sorts of instances. Definitely worth a follow
- Dnguyen 6y agoThere are reports of a person flying around LA airspace with a jet pack. Maybe that's why the helicopter is there, to catch that person?
- jrockway 6y agoHow much does a helicopter cost to operate per hour? Whatever it is, it's probably not worth it to catch some guy in a jet pack.
- SrslyJosh 6y agoDitto for San Jose lately. Lots of low circling at night. Edit: Here's an example: https://fr24.com/2021-01-08/05:10/12x/EC20/2683abc3 https://fr24.com/2021-01-08/05:10/12x/EC20/2683abc3
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- neartheplain 6y agoReminder that with a ~$25 software-defined radio (SDR) dongle you can receive any aircraft’s ADS-B signal, complete with position, altitude, velocity, and flight ID: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillance%E2%80%93Broadcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillan... https://www.rtl-sdr.com/adsb-aircraft-radar-with-rtl-sdr/ https://www.rtl-sdr.com/adsb-aircraft-radar-with-rtl-sdr/
- runjake 6y agoAnd even without an SDR radio, you can head over to https://adsbexchange.com https://adsbexchange.com and explore aircraft live in your area!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tambeb 6y agoI contribute ADS-B data grabbed with SDR to Flightradar24. It's pretty sweet because they give you their Business subscription plan (the highest one, $50/month) for free. I think you may need at least a free account to see the stats, but in any case these are my two sites: https://www.flightradar24.com/account/feed-stats/?id=5024 https://www.flightradar24.com/account/feed-stats/?id=5024 https://www.flightradar24.com/account/feed-stats/?id=23968 https://www.flightradar24.com/account/feed-stats/?id=23968
- tastyfreeze 6y agoI am amazed and appreciative at how quickly real, informative news hits the internet. Even if nothing comes from added aerial surveillance, the world knows it is happening.
- Sohcahtoa82 6y agoKeep an eye on the helicopter colors. Are the unmarked helicopters circling the area black? Probably World Government. Not a good area for play that day. Are they blue? That’s the Sheriff’s Secret Police. They’ll keep a good eye on your kids, and hardly ever take one. Are they painted with complex murals depicting birds of prey diving? No one knows what those helicopters are, or what they want. Do not play in the area. Return to your home and lock the doors until a Sheriff’s Secret Policeman leaves a carnation on your porch to indicate that the danger has passed. Cover your ears to blot out the screams. http://www.nightvalepresents.com/welcome-to-night-vale-transcripts/2012/6/15/1-pilot http://www.nightvalepresents.com/welcome-to-night-vale-trans...
- makz 6y agoWorld Government? what's that?
- mfkp 6y agoThe Illuminati, of course.
- wiml 6y agoWelcome to Night Vale is a fiction podcast in the form of a radio show from a remote small town in which all sorts of strange things happen — aliens, vast conspiracies, mad cultists, supernatural beings, etc etc. Straddles the line between dryly funny and legitimately creepy. It's worth a listen if you enjoy that kind of thing.
- waiseristy 6y agoOh boy are you in for a treat https://www.wikiwand.com/en/New_World_Order_(conspiracy_theory) https://www.wikiwand.com/en/New_World_Order_(conspiracy_theo...
- FinnLeSueur 6y agoOh man, Welcome to Night Vale is fantastic. I’m glad to see a reference!
- protomyth 6y ago
- Animats 6y agoA flight all the way around greater LA while following freeways suggests a training mission. What they're training for is another issue.
- asdff 6y agoPretty much all helicopter flight paths going through LA follow freeways to navigate, that doesn't suggest anything.
- williesleg 6y agoBut are they wearing masks?
- asdff 6y agoIt shouldn't be that other worldly in socal. This is the land of the helicopter, where Kobe (may he rest in peace) used to commute to the staples center on helicopter. Where elon musk also commutes by air rather than by his own tesla car. Where the LAPD flies at least two helicopters between 8am-4am every single day regardless of what the radio calls for. In fact, I'm working outside and hear one above right now, by the looks of it, its a small grey personal helicopter. Just after I wrote this I am hearing a second one, navy blue with a yellow callsign on the tail, probably another personal craft.
- ravenstine 6y agoFor the past few years I've called Pasadena(I live in the general area) the "land of helicopters", but I didn't know that LA in general was seeing something similar recently. People keep telling me that Pasadena/SGV must be a good place to train helicopter pilots, but I don't buy it. It's been a while since I've bothered to actually look at these helicopters, but a lot of them are pretty nondescript. Not obvious news or police helicopters. Multiple times a month I hear them circle around at night, but I never see anything in the news about an incident or a fugitive. When I ask on Nextdoor I never get replies despite it being loud enough to keep me up. Then again, I just realized that "Helicopter Hell" is more alliterative. I think I'll call it that from now on.
- acwan93 6y agoThe area above the SGV (Pasadena to Pomona area) is the Santa Fe Practice Area. A lot of first-time pilots, private plane or helicopter, practice and learn how to fly out of El Monte or Brackett (Pomona). I've checked FlightRadar24 during the protests of June and it seemed like most of the tail numbers of the helicopters flying around the SGV were either Pasadena Police Department, LA County Sheriff, or a private (news?) helicopter. Lately the ones I've seen aren't showing up on FlightRadar24, oddly enough.
- prawn 6y ago"Hellacopters"
- scruple 6y agoI'm down in south Orange county. We have helicopters near our neighborhood a few times a week. It surprised me a bit when we first moved here. One of our neighbors is a retired deputy and I've talked to him about it handful of times and he isn't sure what the deal is, either. I lived in East LA for a while, so I've had a fair bit of exposure to the things. It's weird for sure.
- lloydatkinson 6y agoI wonder if this is related to the mysterious jet pack man that keeps flying over LA?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- egberts1 6y agoI am reminded of former Governor Jerry Brown who released a swarm of whirlybirds dumping chemicals from the air ... throughout many California cities AND suburban.