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Multiple US Navy destroyers swarmed by mysterious 'drones' off California coast
- airstrike 6y agoShould add (2019) to the title EDIT: probably better to add "...in 2019" based on the correction below
- pilom 6y agoDisagree, the events happened in 2019 but the article was published this year based on FOIA requests that were fulfilled after 2019.
- airstrike 6y agoAh, my bad—you are absolutely correct. Not sure how I missed that... guess it's time to go to bed. I do think the headline has an urgent undertone that makes it seem like this just happened. Not sure if intentional or not
- jader201 6y agoYeah, agreed that from the headline, it seems recent. While the article does make this clear first thing, it may be worth having the title reflect this is a past event.
- brighton36 6y agoI've wondered a lot about whether these uavs aren't more powerful than a lot of our fighter jets. I guess it's inappropriate to talk about scenarios where they could be deployed to cause great harm. But, it doesn't take much thinking to imagine the efficacy of a well placed uav, and the small difficulty it would be to conceal one of these in an adversarial country.
- redisman 6y agoHuh? We’ve all been talking about predator drones for well over a decade
- imranhou 6y agoIt is unclear why weren't any attempts made to capture these uavs despite repeat encounters.
- DSingularity 6y agoDo you think a trigger happy captain wouldn’t request permission to engage/capture these drones? He probably did, it was probably denied, and evidence of these requests were not leaked. This was obviously an exercise between friendlies.
- animal_spirits 6y agoLooking at a couple of the logs it mentions that some were flying 700-1000 feet above deck, seems tough to be able to capture something that far up
- lightgreen 6y agoShoot and collect parts
- tablespoon 6y ago> Shoot and collect parts This was happening at sea, and apparently at night. The parts probably would have been blown into the ocean and sank or floated away before anyone could find them.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- King-Aaron 6y agoI'm surprised they didn't try to disable them. Considering the range off-shore and the flight time, these certainly aren't consumer grade drones. > This calls into question the “drone” designation. Was there ever even a hard description of these craft beyond lights in the sky?
- trdtaylor1 6y agoagreed for the second sighting after everyone was made aware of them not being anything navy related. Given the waters, the proximity to other testing sites, it's likely the sailors didn't man the guns the first time for the simple reason of perhaps not being in the loop for a test. Second time sounds like they weren't prepared to respond quick enough.
- divbzero 6y agoWould you want to reveal what defenses you have against drones that are not doing any damage? It is possible such a swarm was intended precisely to suss out what defenses there may be.
- King-Aaron 6y agoSurely one of the people on the deck with a shotgun could have a go at it without revealing too much secret information
- lambda_obrien 6y agoAs a former ordnance officer: lol No one is going be the CO the opens fire on a non combatant drone on the USA coast, as you'd lose your command pretty fast. Edit: I can't post faster, so here's a response to a reply: I didn't peruse the logs myself, so I don't know the situation, but the rules of engagement are pretty strict, and also they may not have even had ordnance onboard for the weapons needed to take out one of these things. Not every ship carries live rounds all the time, and near the USA coast we pretty much never wanted to have loaded guns. Like I said elsewhere, the US Navy isn't a bunch of untrained psychos looking to shoot stuff. Officers and enlisted are trained to put our lives on the line, not get scared and shoot everything that looks weird or threatening. I don't get the bloodlust shown in here!
- holler 6y agofascinating read.. my first thought was that they must have been either a covert military operation to test some bleeding edge tech, or launched via submarine by an adversary
- ping_pong 6y agoA covert operation using a drone with a big flashing light on it so that it can be identified?
- HenryKissinger 6y agoOther possible theories: - "Hacker in his garage" A highly qualified amateur who built/modded drones to play a prank or showcase his products to potential customers. - The drones were launched from the coast by a secret Russian/Chinese military cell to test new technology and spook the US military.
- King-Aaron 6y agoAnother possibility, that it's the same kind of aircraft that Cmd David Fravor's FA18 squadron intercepted several years ago... 'Tic Tacs'.
- jonathankoren 6y agoPerhaps, but I'm not convinced that these things are actually all that fast, or at least the ones popularized in Gimbal and Go-Fast. The trigonometry just doesn't work out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLyEO0jNt6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLyEO0jNt6M
- bigiain 6y ago> "Hacker in his garage" I think that’s well within the bounds of possibility. I know at least 8 or 10 people who could pull this off if they tried, I’d give myself maybe a 70% chance of doing so on my own given a low-mid 5 figure budget. I’d suspect there are many many people on diydrones or rcgroups forums who could do it. Ardupilot, gps waypoint navigation remotely reset using satphone data/telemetry channels, initially guided using public ais coords of the ships. I’d probably go with a consumer grade fixed wing rc glider to get the range/duration required (that wouldn’t hover over the helipad, but would be much easier to get 90+ mins duration and 100+ mile range that a multi rotor). If I could get a non ais equipped boat near by I’d consider LoRa radios instead of a sat phone (which might end up leaving payment/identity/location data behind) but would have trouble getting much past 100km line of sight range. Also very low bandwidth at long range, so even sending back still images to use for setting new gps waypoints would be a challenge over LoRa. (For the record, I’m on the other side of the planet, and was at the time of these sightings too...)
- mikewarot 6y agoThis sounds like a direct threat to the operational security of the United States Navy, and to the freedom of navigation, and eventually the National Security of the United States. I'm surprised the Marines on board weren't authorized to shoot them out of the sky. Perhaps it's time to develop some high power EM weapons to take them out, big magnetrons are cheap, and there is a lot of electrical power available onboard. I'm willing to help develop countermeasures.
- large 6y agoPerhaps starting a war with the aliens is not the best thing to do right now
- airstrike 6y agoI had bet on zombies for the Dec 2020 final stage but I guess intergalactic war would have fit the bill too
- mikewarot 6y agoIt's not space aliens, it's some other group of humans from another country or non-aligned organization.
- King-Aaron 6y agoConsidering the amount of evidence provided, there's no way to be sure its 'some other country'. It could be US citizens, the US armed forces, or hell, an ET. Safe to not make assumptions.
- postalrat 6y agoWhat kind of odds are you willing to give me that it's actually space aliens?
- MichaelMoser123 6y agoHowever it would make a fitting sequel to COVID.
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- guscost 6y agoSo they declined to engage, and this incident left zero physical evidence at all? My honest guess is it was staged, to “help” congress approve the new drone defense budget (which is probably not a terrible idea). Next!
- ttul 6y agoSeems unlikely to me. A huge number of people would have to participate in such a conspiracy, facing the prospect of ending their careers - never mind prosecution.
- Rebelgecko 6y agoLike the Gulf of Tonkin incident?
- guscost 6y agoSounds like something a couple of CIA operatives (plus support) could do easily, without leaving a trail. And then the only other thing to risk might be to relay “anything in this sector is with our boys, wink wink” to one person in command locally, who will know not to engage, and who will never ask any questions. Matter of fact, they could get away with just reading and maybe temporarily “influencing” the rules of engagement for drones, and then allowing them to be amended “in light of the incident”.
- zozin 6y agoNow it's the Navy and the CIA? When does the NSA get roped into this elaborate conspiracy? Get a grip.
- guscost 6y agoWell the CIA isn’t technically supposed to operate on US soil, but this happened at sea, loads of people think that claim is a total joke anyway, and PSYOP is one of their specialties. Or it could have been highly compartmentalized within the Navy[0]. Or it could have been foreigners or pranksters! I have some “grip” on all of those possibilities, and I don’t claim to know what happened. Anyway, the possibility it was staged is not as ridiculous as you assume, even before considering precedent. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_team https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_team
- gonzo41 6y agoBe interesting if they did that next to a Aircraft carrier, the ciws system will make mince of the drones.
- HenryKissinger 6y agoNavy destroyers are equipped with Close In Weapons Systems too, you know.
- tgflynn 6y agoThe more recent DDG's, including the USS Kidd have those as well. I wonder why it wasn't used.
- lambda_obrien 6y agoWould you want to fire several hundred kilos of tungsten in a random direction while you're next to the USA coast, where civilians and shipping pass by all the time? Edit: as a reply, since I can't post faster: CIWS, in certain modes, do indeed track a target and fire at it, which could be considered a "random direction" when considering the maneuverability of the target.
- tgflynn 6y agoI would think CIWS systems don't fire in random directions. Anyway if these were just small drones that would probably be overkill, I would think a shotgun would be sufficient.
- akhilcacharya 6y agoIt's interesting that these encounters keep happening off the California coast - is the naval presence there unique compared to other regions?
- HenryKissinger 6y agoBig testing ground for the Navy. SD has a large naval base. If you wanted to prank/spook/spy on the USN there would be few better locations to pick from.
- rsa25519 6y agoAnd, we're only going to hear of events that were seen. Even if the locations of events were random, we simply would be more capable of spotting ones that happen in that area
- bonestamp2 6y ago> is the naval presence there unique compared to other regions Yes, the Navy operates two of the channel islands which are both relatively large. They each have a sizeable runway, plenty of radar, etc. A lot of training activities seem to occur in that area too.
- maybelsyrup 6y agoAren't those UFO videos in the New York Times a few years back from the same general area, off the coast of San Diego? Is this the same thing? (Also, this is the US military messing with itself. Someone in some skunk works hanger in Nevada has some secret weapon and they want to test it out on a real navy.)
- tgflynn 6y ago> Aren't those UFO videos in the New York Times a few years back from the same general area Yes. > Is this the same thing? Unfortunately the article doesn't have any details like what shape they had or how big they were so at this point it's anyone's guess.
- meowface 6y ago>(Also, this is the US military messing with itself. Someone in some skunk works hanger in Nevada has some secret weapon and they want to test it out on a real navy.) This would seem to be a pretty likely explanation (near-infinitely more likely than ETs, at least). It'd also perfectly explain David Fravor's story of spotting strange vehicles during a Navy training exercise (e.g. how the craft seemed to have advance knowledge of a Navy meeting spot, and the reaction from his superiors). He thinks it couldn't be US military, but if it's some covert/intelligence thing, doesn't seem too implausible that they may try to do a realistic, unannounced red team exercise during a routine training exercise. That wouldn't explain his claims of it performing gravity-defying maneuvers, but there's no evidence of that besides his and some of his colleagues' testimonies, though.
- CTDOCodebases 6y agoI’ve thought this could be a likely explanation especially considering the crazy patents that the US Navy has filed.
- ALittleLight 6y agoI think it would be pretty upsetting if the navy had access to super advanced technology and was withholding it for a decade like this.
- alexfromapex 6y agoThis is so weird me and my dad saw something really similar to this with the red flashing and then white light hovering around a ship off the NC coast a few months ago at night. We watched it go on for a while with binoculars, so strange. It was far away but could tell one was a ship not really 100% sure the other light was a drone it could’ve been another boat.
- cma 6y agoPeople use drones for sport fishing.
- loeg 6y ago> The question remains: who was operating these craft with apparent impunity, and for what purpose, and was this extremely bizarre case ever resolved? Maybe save you a click if you were looking for any kind of resolution.
- stevecalifornia 6y agoI don't get why the UAVs need lights. They might not have been detected without them-- so it's like they were asking too be seen. Also just an aside, I was on that cruise ship that was in the vicinity a month before this. I went out onto the deck (the bow) late at night. We were way out offshore near the military operating area. It was pitch black out there and creepy as fuck.
- jcims 6y agoI bet it’s incredible when the sky is clear tho.
- tablespoon 6y ago> I don't get why the UAVs need lights. They might not have been detected without them-- so it's like they were asking too be seen. Maybe that was meant as intimidation?
- watertom 6y agoIt's an identification counter measure. It's a small object emitting a bright light. Trying to take a picture or identify the craft becomes impossible.
- keeganpoppen 6y agothey definitely were asking to be seen. unclear why, though, other than as some sort of taunt.
- shahbaby 6y agoThe lighting is likely an unintentional by-product of the technology that powers the craft.
- pindab0ter 6y agoHeat is, light not so much. Unless you specifically choose to be seen, which seems to be the case here.
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- wallwarp 6y agoQuite similar to this... Similar region. Similar UAV reports. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpeSpA3e56A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpeSpA3e56A
- lambda_obrien 6y agoFolks, there are very strict conditions under which a Navy ship can use weapons, and some unknown aircraft isn't gonna be a situation that they're going to open fire. You could be shooting some moron in an ultralight or some kids science project or whatever. The US Navy is a professional organization, not some scared cops who shoot first and ask questions later. Edit: I'm done here, but please stop all the military fantasy where everything is a threat and needs to be shot. This was like 50 miles from the coast of the USA, not Iran or NK.
- Sudophysics 6y agoUnfortunately, I think it's a little more 21st Century Pearl Harbor, and less or at all benevolent. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/J0jD8Swl3h8/maxresdefault.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/J0jD8Swl3h8/maxresdefault.jpg
- lambda_obrien 6y agoFrankly, your thoughts don't matter because you don't have the expertise to judge.
- objectivetruth 6y agoOh, so you do have the expertise to judge, but that other poster doesn't. Gotcha. Can you please point me to the thread where you justify this (otherwise unbearably arrogant) response with your credentials? (Seriously, how did this comment not get yanked as an obvious ad hom troll?)
- lambda_obrien 6y agoI'm a former SWO qualified Naval officer, as stated elsewhere I believe. I vouched your comment just to reply, because it's important to be correct. I'm not going into details about anything else, I've gone into detail elsewhere about this topic already.
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- tyxodiwktis 6y agoUS Navy destroyers are equipped with CIWS and AA missiles designed to engage multiple supersonic sea skimming cruise missiles simultaneously. If the destroyers had felt that they were in any danger they would have quickly made mincemeat out of the UAVs. Still curious to know who operated their (fairly capable) drones in such a brazen manner though.
- wahern 6y agoHere's what CIWS look like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system Do those things have the capability to attack such tiny targets that are already close in? We're talking about something the size and speed of a bird. By the time you realize it's not a bird it's probably already on top of you. Moreover, they're small enough that they wouldn't represent a substantial threat to a ship in and of themselves (as compared to, say, an explosive-laden dinghy), and so perhaps not necessarily the kind of target that would've been specified for these weapons systems. I would imagine defenses for such small UAVs would be more in the vein of electronic countermeasures.
- hcurtiss 6y agoDid I miss some description of the size of the UAVs?
- wahern 6y agoFair point. Based on the admittedly thin circumstantial evidence in the article, I assumed relatively small craft. For example, 1) Why would a Carnival cruise ship feel the need to disclaim involvement for anything except a small, COTS drone? (IOW, presumably they at least believed they could have been such small drones.) 2) 4+ were spotted together. Wouldn't those be audible, especially if much larger than COTS drones? 3) The lights ("white light", "red flashing light") suggests COTS drones, especially because the cruise ship also noticed them. If they were special purpose military or intelligence drones, why keep the lights on? Granted, the supposed distances involved suggest otherwise, but the article never establishes why they believed the drones were necessarily flown such distances. Rather, it seems those distances are based on the presumption that the drones were flown from one of the ships with active AIS. But that's a rather dubious assumption in the context of someone buzzing military ships w/ multiple drones.
- berniemadoff69 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-miBH10bdCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-miBH10bdCs
- BoorishBears 6y agoIs this highly advanced spam or something? I've seen the original video but the audio is clearly some sort of rental property ad
- gnarbarian 6y agoI thought it was kind of surreal and endearing in a way.
- mikewarot 6y agoMore like an advertisement that says we could pay to have it developed (interesting choice of soundtrack)
- gnarbarian 6y agoLaunching rockets that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars at drones that cost almost nothing is not a solution. It's a recipe for defeat via attrition. They could have 50 cheap decoy drones for every drone carrying a payload. Also the laser is far more scalable than rockets but still easily overwhelmed and susceptible to the same attack because it cannot distinguish between decoy drones and payload drones
- brbsix 6y agoThe laser was targeting rockets fired by a Soviet BM-21 truck-mounted multiple rocket launcher. The rockets are used like artillery, not for targeting drones. Presumably if the laser is able to destroy 40 incoming rockets then it would be able to destroy much larger numbers of relatively slow drones.
- gnarbarian 6y agoThanks for the correction about the rockets. But I'm not so sure that the laser solves the drone problem. Drones could be launched closer and come from every direction staying close to the ground. You could also spread them out around the laser so the laser spends most of its time transiting between decoy targets
- soheil 6y agoWhere is the evidence? This is just some logs of sightings by the crew on the ships. No specific information or anything of interest really other than random references to hashtag tic tac.
- scottisbrave84 6y agoStop.
- CalChris 6y agoDidn't the destroyer have its own drone to go up and look?
- hindsightbias 6y agoNothing to see, move along https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Nicolas_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Nicolas_Island Where else are they going to test, Patuxant?
- snapetom 6y agoMy takeaway from this is at the end of the article where there are links to multiple other drone swarm incidents. This includes an incident at Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant and an anti-ballistic missile battery in Guam. Yikes, this isn't the first time a high-value asset has been targeted by drone swarms?
- stjohnswarts 6y agoI definitely heard about the nuclear plant. Might be time to put up one of those boards with pins and strings and find the connections and triangulate the source :)
- naebother 6y agoThe US military/intelligence apparatus is so large it wouldn't surprise me if this is yet another case of the left hand not knowing what the right is up to. Or maybe they had a vague idea, considering they didn't even attempt to shoot them down. Going off the nonchalant response, this is probably not the first time UAVs have flown over their ships. Except this time it was unplanned, and so kicked off an investigation. I'm getting UFO crank vibes from both authors social media. Also no mention of request for comment from any official in the reporting. Just building a narrative from a selective release of FIOA requests.
- NaturalPhallacy 6y agoThat's my thought. They sure as fuck weren't civilian drones. And the FOIA requests ran into a classified wall. My money is on <other unit/branch/ally> was doing it and failed to notify or something. Somebody probably got an ass chewing/punishment and that was the end of it as far as the navy was concerned.
- sunstone 6y agoGiven how long the US military has been running drone operations world wide it's a near certainty they have war gamed the scenario of the adversary's drones attack at night under a new moon. If the drones are quad copters then they would need to be released released pretty close to the target (under 10 miles say). If they are winged drones then they are most likely military in origin. The story of the drones over Colorado seems to have sunk beneath the seas. However there were so many drones and so many sightings who ever was behind that would certainly have anticipated that the drones would be detected by civilians. The fact that none of these drones have been captured (just shoot at the lights) leads me to belief these are all military in origin war gaming drone warfare 2.0.
- ironhawk12 6y agoThis feels like a classic Sun Tzu “Art of War” technique. The objective is purely psychological. First, begin with light incursions. Test the response. What does the United States do about a little annoyance? Nothing? Next, wait a bit then increase the stimulus. What if we have multiple drones doing tricks. No response? Do they have guns to shoot these down? Next, we add different types of drones. Some large enough to carry bombs. Others with scanners. Next, they come in flocks of 40-50. Too many to shoot down. Let’s be honest: China has drone superiority to America, probably by a lot. We have no idea. We have been running incursions near Taiwan for years. This would be a natural response. It can also be denied. That is the key point. If it were giant red drones with CCP emblems the United States press and public would get pissed off and a larger response would follow. Little innocuous drones? Enough to get on your nerves, can be denied, threatening and menacing yet nothing to react to. Classic Sun Tzu.
- xvector 6y agoAlso, the drones DJI releases to the public are nothing short of incredible. With this much drone engineering talent in China, you have to wonder what they are keeping under wraps, developing for the military and intelligence instead...
- randallsquared 6y agoIt sounds like these are only visible as lights. Not sure we have any real evidence that there's machinery, there. https://wimflyc.blogspot.com/2021/03/foo-fighters.html https://wimflyc.blogspot.com/2021/03/foo-fighters.html seems like a similar phenomenon; maybe there weren't any drones in the first place.
- jb775 6y agoI helped sail/transport a 32' boat down the coast of Australia years back with a friend and a professional captain/boat-transporter, it took a few weeks and we got to know the captain pretty well. He told us one time he was transporting a boat and was pretty far off the coast when he saw red lights in the distance coming towards him extremely fast. Then all of a sudden there was a car-sized vehicle hovering in front of him over the ocean...it sat there for 30 seconds or so, then accelerated away and was over the horizon in less than 10-15 seconds. The guy was kind of out-there, but I swear he wasn't making it up.
- datameta 6y agoAssuming a 3 mile distant horizon, we'd be talking about a potentially autonomous hovercraft capable of Mach 1
- cozzyd 6y agoDid they bother to use a scanner antenna and a spectrum analyzer? If drones, likely they would have measured some radio signals.
- sipu261988 6y agoUseful and authentic Contents or information, my authentic website is similar to your wesite and we request for backlink's exchange. <a> https://www.digitalsteps.in/ https://www.digitalsteps.in/ </a>
- rwhitman 6y agoThe related articles at the bottom of that post are revealing.. painting a picture as something of an epidemic of drone swarms that government agencies are unequipped to make sense of. Some at sensitive sites such as a missile base on Guam and a nuclear power plant. Mysterious drone swarms surveilling Colorado and Nebraska. All in 2019 early 2020. Another article revealing that a Turkish company has developed military "suicide" drone swarms and some opinions on how poorly equipped the US DoD is for these types of low cost drone swarms. Technology that's readily available and affordable to just about anyone with deep enough pockets, not just poor state adversaries like North Korea but also drug cartels etc. Really concerning that with all the tax dollars spent on defense research, these types of activities can take place en masse with no real strategy for countering them
- lend000 6y agoIt's pretty undeniable that something significant is going on and has been for quite some time. What is now called drones might have been called UFO's or airships in a previous decade. And you see the same old characters saying "certainly this is a covert project from another branch/country." That argument seems quite nebulous and plausible if you watch a lot of Marvel movies, but if you know the defense industry, and consider how long that argument has been used (since the Foo fighters of WW2), it falls apart. The US gov is behind the private sector in computing software and hardware by over a decade (and has been for a while), and really anything making a lot of money these days commercially is well ahead of the defense counterpart (small drones, rockets, etc.) Look to the pay rates for engineers working on TS projects and you can see why. The talent has been going to SV since the early 90's. The other countries with significantly smaller budgets? I doubt we'll find anyone from a contender country that can speak to the efficiency of their research on HN, but projecting from the much better funded and more advanced US and the efficiency of bureaucracies in general, it seems unlikely there's anything from China or Russia that can sneak up on us so easily, let alone do maneuvers described in some other incidents going back 70+ years.
- baybal2 6y ago> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36085/troubling-drone-incursions-have-occurred-over-guams-thaad-anti-ballistic-missile-battery https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36085/troubling-drone-... Looks like an unashemed intimidation operation, given that there is nowhere in Guam a civilian can bring a car sized quadcopter, and island's tiny population. It pretty much screams of somebody trying to say "we can fly our foo-drones over your missile battereys, and ship any time" Of all countries, there is only one on record with car sized, gas powered quadcopters.
- Animats 6y agoAll the Navy released are deck logs and memos. We're not seeing data from the ship's Combat Information Center, which controls the sensors. The deck log is just what the people driving the ship did, and naval tradition is to keep that brief. There's no useful data in that FOIA response.
- tryonenow 6y agoWouldn't modern laser technology be suitable for destroying small drones? I know there are research prototypes being developed against jets and missiles - drones have far smaller mass and move more slowly.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoThis seems like the way to go to me. We certainly have lasers that could do it.
- blobbers 6y agoAnyone from https://www.dedrone.com/ https://www.dedrone.com/ able to comment? It seems surprising that they took no action other than observing. The US Navy seems to get upset when other boats come near them, yet were tolerant of a UAV over their helipad?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- flemhans 6y agoIt was the military itself doing it as a test, but they couldn't disclose that since it's a classified project.
- niceairport 6y agocitation?
- flemhans 6y agoNone, speculation.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoDo you have proof of this? It could have just as easily been a rival like Russia or China.
- flemhans 6y agoOf course not, if there'd been proof, we would have seen a whole different article.
- andy_ppp 6y agoSomeone is selling some anti-drone defence systems to the navy...
- jb775 6y agoMy guess is a branch of US military was permitted to fly drones near the ships to 1) Test the drone swarm tech and get some practice 2) Measure reaction time & actions taken by unsuspecting military personnel
- bonestamp2 6y agoAgreed. Maybe they just got some Lockhead Indago drones: https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/indago-vtol-uav.html https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/indago-vtol-ua...
- NiceWayToDoIT 6y agoLet me understand this: in the age of smart phones and billions of cameras, there is no single photo of the event, but somehow there are top-secret log record included in the article? Yeah right ...
- King-Aaron 6y agoIt actually states in the article that the ship's SNOOPIE team was activated, so there likely is footage which isn't available via this FOI request. I'm not in the navy but I wouldn't presume guys on duty are able to take their personal mobile phone with them on deck to film things.
- NiceWayToDoIT 6y agoMake sense what you saying but in all articles of similar nature, there are always top-secret documents but never hard proof, (photo, video or similar) that could be analysed. Even when there are some photos/videos resolution is so low that it looks like it was recorded 20 years ago. So, my default mode is just to discard any of those news as some kind of viral trash paper frenzy... to be honest over years I read so many of those, that if real aliens (or Chinese navy-seals) would land in front of me and ask me for "direction" my heart would not skip a hart beat. It is pretty much as the story 'the boy who cried wolf' after so many information, disinformation, cover up information, misinformation... it is really hard for me to think anything else then that this is yet another NSA's social experiment. Just thought about something, you know always when foreign airplane, ship or any other vehicle invades foreign territory anywhere in the world, immediately it is in headlines. Full footage, there is even a satellite recording, everything is wide open and fully transparent. But in case of these events there is nothing or enough to be misleading. So, why to hide it from public? Maybe because it is US tech. Reason which says it would cause panic, does not add up because after pandemic, global warming and amounts of lies and fear mongering people are indifferent toward everything.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoThe correct acronym is FOIA
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- Karawebnetwork 6y agoFunny little tidbit, there'a stray "lorem ipsum" on one of the images. https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/message-editor%2F1616535229350-image14.jpg?quality=60 https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/message-editor%2F16165352...
- codezero 6y agoThis kind of emerging technology is just so fascinating and has endless opportunity to just imagine how it's all playing out. Thinking of how one might deploy a test drone against an adversary in a way that is undetectable seems remarkably easy these days - they could have a container fall off a cargo ship and deploy a vehicle sized drone from that after floating in a shipping lane for a week or two at a safe depth.
- codezero 6y agoUndetectable you say? Hah! Just like there's someone at the Air Force sitting at a desk tracking millimeter (probably smaller?) sized space debris, I am sure the Navy has someone who geeks out about every little piece of debris in the Pacific ocean and would be well aware of a new cargo container sized piece of debris that floated in a weird location then suddenly disappeared.
- lolthishuman 6y agoThis is starting to get a similar vibe from The Expanse and those “unknown stealth aircraft”
- randmeerkat 6y agoWhat was the propulsion system? Are these traditional quadrocopters, or something else?
- doggodaddo78 6y agoBall lightning, Navy gambit to get more budget, foreign UAVs, or ET UFOs. The latter two possibilities are less likely but would represent major security threats. Perhaps USN ships need better sensors that extend to scientific observation purposes?