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Quick summary after following this for a few days: FBI says they're rotary and fixed-wing drones, White House says they aren't foreign adversaries, Pentagon say
by j_timberlake 2y ago
Quick summary after following this for a few days:
FBI says they're rotary and fixed-wing drones, White House says they aren't foreign adversaries, Pentagon says they aren't USA military, all 3 insist that there's no indication of a real threat despite the drones being bigger and higher tech than retail drones.
Politicians are PO'd that something about this doesn't add up: How can anyone know these aren't a threat without knowing whose they are? Why isn't anyone bringing them down? Where do they land? Is this similar to the Chinese spy balloon?
I've seen a huge number of theories by now, and not one of them actually fits.
- keepamovin 2y agoWhy do the theories not fit? And where's the link to the FBI statement? I believe they said "include rotary and fixed-wing" not exclusively, but this is based on reports received. They haven't actually captured one. included sightings of both fixed-wing and rotary drones, Robert Wheeler, the assistant director of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, said during a Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on security threats posed by drones. source: https://www.nj.com/news/2024/12/more-than-3k-mystery-drone-sightings-reported-to-fbi.html https://www.nj.com/news/2024/12/more-than-3k-mystery-drone-s...
- j_timberlake 2y agoNo point quoting articles, just watch him say it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTotPeiMjlc&t=6767s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTotPeiMjlc&t=6767s Up to you how you want to interpret his exact words.
- keepamovin 2y agoYeah there's a point quoting, people here don't always watch videos, but thanks for the link. Article gets the quote slightly wrong, but semantically it's right: some are described as being slightly larger than um um than a commercial uh available drone um fixed Wing as well as rotary Technically you could say the rotary/fixed-wing is only invoked to describe the class of drones compared to which these reports are larger, not that the reports "include" ("some are described") fixed wing and rotary. I'm OK with either the weaker (less UFO) or stronger (more UFO) interpretations. How about you?
- xattt 2y agoBack in my day, we called “commercial fixed-wing drones” RC model planes.
- keepamovin 2y agoHeh, those things look super fun. It would be funny if some of these turn out to be that, tho I doubt it. What's weird is the authorities are saying: "we don't know what they are, but we know for sure they're not a threat." This doesn't make sense. No one is allowing them to be there, it's safer to assume they're a threat until you know for sure what they are.
- selfmodruntime 2y ago> How can anyone know these aren't a threat without knowing whose they are They are - obviously - lying. This screams secrecy to me. All 3 know that these drones are not a threat. They aren't US military because they are a 3 letter agency program. They know there's nothing to worry about it, but they won't tell you any more details. Which has been the modus operandi for secret services for decades, so I'm surprised it's such an issue?
- rjrdi38dbbdb 2y agoI think what's so surprising is that they would run a secretive program in such a conspicuous manner, not that the secretive program exists.
- cheschire 2y agoCan you think of a better way to normalize it? Think about the average persons response to online privacy these days for a good indicator about how people will feel about drone monitoring in a few years if this is normalized.
- wholinator2 2y ago[flagged]
- Gwiz462 2y agoMaybe that is why they are only being tested in the Coastal states.
- wrigby 2y agoPlease don't do this. You're not going to hit a drone at any appreciable altitude from a "high window" with a "nice rifle." One of the first rules of putting bullets downrange is to know what's behind your target, and you simply can't know that when you're shooting into the air. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire#Injuries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire#Injuries
- red_admiral 2y agoI guess the CIA/NSA are technically not "military"?
- mnky9800n 2y agoPerhaps Dr. Evil has shown up, requested 1 million dollars, or otherwise his drones will attack innocent civilians?
- otikik 2y ago> How can anyone know these aren't a threat without knowing whose they are? Because they are theirs, obviously. They just won't say it.
- ptero 2y agoNeither FBI nor Pentagon have ability to fly drones in the US airspace at will. On the contrary, they, like everyone else, have to get FAA approvals and those always leak. And usually in fact published by the FAA who needs to warn pilots of potential threats -- one could go to the official FAA website and search those NOTAMs. Ignoring FAA by the FBI or the military just doesn't happen, the price to pay is WAY too high. NSA or spooks could theoretically be behind this, but why do it where it annoys people and attracts attention and not in some desert or foreign place? Something doesn't add up.
- guerrilla 2y ago> Neither FBI nor Pentagon have ability to fly drones in the US airspace at will. And neither of those agencies ever did anything they're not "able" to do... regularly...
- tomrod 2y agoAttracting attention in one direction can be misdirection. I have no idea if that is the case here, simply felt like it's an avenue not considered.
- hmmm-i-wonder 2y agoWhile completely true, it doesn't address the fact that CIA, NSA, FBI and other gov agencies have used their control or secret ownership of 'private' companies to break federal regulations in the past. They _could_ be using some sort of cutout to confuse the ownership/control to get around regulations.
- nradov 2y agoThe FBI, NSA, and all other civilian agencies must follow FAA regulations but legally speaking the military doesn't. The military operates aircraft in domestic airspace under a memorandum of understanding with the FAA which basically states that they'll follow the regulations. This makes things easier for everyone and prevents mishaps. But if the military chooses to violate that agreement then there aren't really any enforceable legal consequences.
- pjc50 2y agoI'm reminded of https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/01/the-mystery-of-the-gatwick-drone https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/01/the-mystery-... No "official" conclusion, but the common sense position seems to be that most or all of the reported incidents were nothingburger.
- gregw2 2y ago"How can anyone know these aren't a threat without knowing whose they are?" Easy. They didn't say they don't know whose they are. They could belong to a private contractor who is paid by the military but the military doesn't own the drones nor company (plausible deniability /outsourcing.) Or they could be a friendly country (e.g. UK) red-teaming the US with our consent. I've never heard anyone apply the Five Eyes horse trading to inter-country UFO-related dynamics of operation but its fairly conceivable and has a bit of precedent, right?
- mdgrech23 2y agoyea this is the sad shitty answer - it's just a private company w/ a government contract gathering data on us
- next_xibalba 2y ago> gathering data on us A substantial leap. Given that these are flying near military installations, wouldn't the most plausible explanation be that these are test flights? What data would be gathered from low altitude that could not be aggregated from the myriad other sensors in our environments? Or from satellites, etc.? Seems like the U.S. military has taken to heart that in any near future conflicts, forces of any branch will need to be heavily augmented by drones for reconnaissance, offense, and defense. So, if that's true, I would expect any military site at which personnel are trained to be flying drones constantly. And it serves them no benefit to let everyone know what they're doing. If the U.S. public is "read in", so are all potential adversaries.
- j_timberlake 2y ago"They didn't say they don't know whose they are." The FBI explicitly said they didn't 2 days ago. There's a possibility the FBI is being purposefully left in the dark by other feds, or lying under oath at risk of prison time for perjury, but without any evidence that's just one more of MANY conspiracy theories here.
- philistine 2y ago
- jyounker 2y agoIt's easy to say they're probably no threat. The number of ways for something to be a threat is much smaller than the number of ways of something being a not a threat, therefore the probability of them being a threat is very low. It's always possible to make a just-so story about them being a threat, and those are the kind of stories that catch people's attention. The odds are they belong to a mapping company, or a drone construction company, or a university or something else completely innocuous. Why don't we know? Well because it's a big world, and people dealing with actual problems have more important shit to deal with.
- hersko 2y agoWhat? There are many recreational (small) drone rules with the FAA because they can harm people. A 6 foot drone falling hundreds of feet on someone is obviously a threat.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago1) You don't need a single theory to fit all the evidence — some sightings might be unrelated to others. 2) You don't need a theory to fit all the evidence since, undoubtedly, not all the evidence is accurate. A theory that fit most of the evidence is adequate. 3) We all know people and even photos lie. That gives us quite a bit of leeway to be dismissive of sightings and official responses as well.
- duxup 2y agoIt doesn't strike me as odd that politicians would be out of the loop at times, especially locals.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoThe most likely theory I have seen is regarding a craft from Pivotal Aero [1]. I'm not sure what the holes in that theory are. (When some John Bircher shoots one down though I suppose we'll have our answer, ha-ha, not-ha-ha.) [1] https://pivotal.aero https://pivotal.aero
- rmah 2y agoThe Chinese "spy balloon" that it turned out wasn't a spy balloon (according to the pentagon)? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66062562 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66062562
- pc86 2y agoYour assertion is not supported by your source: > Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder said on Thursday that the US was "aware that [the balloon] had intelligence collection capabilities". ... He said the efforts the US took to mitigate any intelligence gathering "contributed" to the balloon's failure to gather sensitive information. So it was a spy balloon but it was off, or it was a spy balloon and on and we outsmarted it, or it was a spy balloon and it malfunctioned at least in part. Nothing in that source suggests that it was not a spy balloon.
- left-struck 2y agoMaybe the article had a different headline and they didn’t read the actual article? I’m baffled how some could read that incredibly short article and come away with any assertion about what the pentagon thinks about the balloon other than that it can collect ”intelligence data”
- rmah 2y agoFine, here https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/09/20/chinese-balloon-not-spying-us-admits/ https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/09/20/chinese-balloon-n...
- left-struck 2y agoFrom the article you just linked ‘Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder said on Thursday that the US was "aware that [the balloon] had intelligence collection capabilities". But "it has been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or over flying the United States".’ When did the pentagon confirm it was not a spy balloon? The article is very short and the meaning is clear, it doesn’t say anything about whether the pentagon thinks it’s a spy balloon.
- axegon_ 2y agoI think the one thing no one really mentions is the fact that drones are extremely easy to build in the comfort of your living room. If you have a 3d printer, some spare parts laying around and a cheap electronics store around the corner(check, check and check in my case), you can build a drone for less than 300 bucks which is far less than the retail ones - completely autonomous, no radio link needed, takes off, does what it does and lands on it's own with no human intervention.
- creaturemachine 2y agoWe all have that same cheap electronics store, it's called AliExpress.
- axegon_ 2y agoDelivery success rate is pretty much a random number generator here. Sometimes stuff arrives on time, sometimes it shows up 6 months late, sometimes never. For me it's either the physical store, amazon or mouser.
- stronglikedan 2y ago> Pentagon says they aren't USA military But they apparently didn't fly on Thanksgiving, which is an interesting coincidence if true.
- themaninthedark 2y agoIf you are US military, your probably won't be flying on Thanksgiving... If you are a spy trying to look at the activity or capture changes at a site, you probably aren't going to be flying on Thanksgiving since no work was done...
- andrewla 2y ago> FBI says they're rotary and fixed-wing drones, White House says they aren't foreign adversaries, Pentagon says they aren't USA military Do you have sources for these? Not challenging the assertions, but all I see in the news articles is vague un-attributed paraphrasing of statements. For example you say that the "FBI says they're rotary and fixed-wing drones"; the latest I saw from the FBI was what this article said; that they had lots of reports of sightings but no further information. The pictures I've seen all look like blurry pictures of helicopters; also occasionally blurry "orbs". Does nobody have access to anything better than this? Is this even a real thing?
- j_timberlake 2y agoSkip the articles, go to the source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ETJ2d0o3Zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ETJ2d0o3Zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MPJydlIpfs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MPJydlIpfs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTotPeiMjlc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTotPeiMjlc (CSPAN links would be better, but I've already spent way too much time on this.) Would have put sources in if I'd realized I'd get this many views. I also might have mixed up what the Pentagon says vs the Press Secretary, but since they both answer to Joe, it shouldn't matter much.
- Aloisius 2y agoSo the FBI didn't actually say they were drones. The FBI said public reports and eyewitnesses said they're drones.
- noworld 2y agoSomeone just needs to shoot one down.
- pelorat 2y agoBecause they have navigation and avoidance lights on, as required by the FAA. This is dumb hysteria.
- kulshan 2y agoAP reported yesterday they are often running without any lights at all.
- briandear 2y ago“The aren’t military.” Yet there are dozens of other agencies that work with the Pentagon that aren’t military either. These are likely part of an SCI program — either a real op or a training op. Very few people would know what’s going on, so most of the agencies commenting likely are being completely honest based on their own knowledge. This is government. FAA NOTAM FDC 4/1797 Restricts the airspace until 20 December. If they were truly “unknown” then why would the NOTAM arbitrarily end on 20 Dec? If they were unknown, they’d have the NOTAM be indefinite until the situation were resolved.
- semi-extrinsic 2y agoInteresting NOTAM, thanks. This is the government clearly stating they can intercept unknown drones in the area. > UAS OPR WHO DO NOT COMPLY WITH APPLICABLE AIRSPACE RESTRICTIONS ARE WARNED THAT PURSUANT TO 10 U.S.C.SECTION 130I AND 6 U.S.C.SECTION 124N, THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE(DOD), THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY(DHS) OR THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE(DOJ) MAY TAKE SECURITY ACTION THAT RESULTS IN THE INTERFERENCE, DISRUPTION, SEIZURE, DAMAGING, OR DESTRUCTION OF UNMANNED ACFT DEEMED TO POSE A CREDIBLE SAFETY OR SECURITY THREAT TO PROTECTED PERSONNEL, FAC, OR ASSETS.
- pc86 2y agoDid the WH say "these are not foreign adversaries' drones" or did they give some mealy-mouthed nonsense like "there is no evidence that ..." or "we have no reason to believe that ..."? Because those are two very different things.
- j_timberlake 2y agoPentagon: "Our initial assessment here is that these are not drones or activities coming from a foreign entity or adversary." They can potentially claim "our initial assessment was wrong" later, but IMO they could have done that anyway regardless of their word choice here.
- Aloisius 2y ago> FBI says they're rotary and fixed-wing drones The FBI simply repeated what public reports and eyewitness have said - a rather massive difference.
- narrator 2y agoFor those who want to know the most consistent UFOlogy angle that wasn't invented last week: Over on 4chan there was an alleged leaker and follow ups back in 2023 who says that there's an underwater ET mothership off the east coast that produces 3-d printed made to order small anti-gravity drones that launch and do various tasks to monitor us. Anything that approaches the underwater mothership is destroyed before they even know they're under attack. They treat us like zoo animals, have been here for at least 100 years, and mostly ignore us except when we get trigger happy with nuclear weapons[1]. This is largely consistent with "The Crowded Galaxy" resolution to the Fermi Paradox[2]. From a UFOlogy angle, America trying to start WWIII with Russia might have something to do with all this uptick in drone activity since there was a huge amount back in the 40s and 50s when we were also at the brink with the USSR. [1] https://imgur.com/a/4chan-whistleblower-NXjWQaN https://imgur.com/a/4chan-whistleblower-NXjWQaN [2] https://botsfordism.substack.com/p/the-crowded-galaxy https://botsfordism.substack.com/p/the-crowded-galaxy
- jandrese 2y ago> Anything that approaches the underwater mothership is destroyed before they even know they're under attack. Let me guess, it is parked in the "Bermuda Triangle". It's easy to make theories when you are unburdened by evidence.
- boesboes 2y agoYup, but it only attacks military targets that are threat. Otherwise it just hides deeper. Looking forward to a spin off of ancient aliens on this haha Evidence smevidence! Aliens!
- jandrese 2y agoIf they have craft that can travel between solar systems then our military technology is not a threat. Besides, why make your presence known when you can just hide deeper from everybody? People tend to notice with multi-million dollar craft manned by people with families suddenly go missing, especially in American waters at peacetime with modern geolocation and communications technologies installed. If fully manned Navy frigates and destroyers were vanishing without warning or explanation there is zero chance of keeping a lid on that. Way too many people involved, many of which are civilians.
- darkarmani 2y ago> despite the drones being bigger and higher tech than retail drones. How does anyone know how big these are? I've heard reports like this: 1. They looks larger than normal drones. 2. The look like they are operating at a height greater than 400 ft AGL. How do they know the height? If they don't know the height, they certainly don't know the size. If it looks large, it isn't very high. If it is large and high, I would think they would get some radar contacts. If these are heavier than 55 pounds, I think we'd see the FAA jumping all over it. I also don't see why any LE would announce that they are actively figuring it out as they'd want to keep the element of surprise and track the drone back to the operators. > Why isn't anyone bringing them down? Only federal authorities can do anything to aircraft. This is in the realm of the FAA. > How can anyone know these aren't a threat without knowing whose they are? What kind of threat are we worried about here that wasn't around yesterday (last year)? > White House says they aren't foreign adversaries I don't think the military is going to reveal its methods and capabilities.