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Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'

theguardian.com

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Re: Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'

#111

Post by wahnfrieden »

boc wrote: post #77
downWidOutaFite wrote: post #54

Israel has been mounting guns and speakers on long-distance quadcopters and shooting at Gazans. Only a short time until that tech becomes widespread. Israel seems to be a proving ground for mass population terrorizing tech like this. I'm having a hard time seeing how society is not going to devolve into capitalist tech fascism as we lose all our privacy and tech becomes more powerful than our governments, aka the wil…

Wait until you hear that the US mounted hellfire missiles on a drone in 2001 and shot at trucks/people in Afghanistan. Or it is only "terrorizing" to a population when you use bullets instead of enormous bullets that also kill everything in a 30m radius?

Both are obviously terrorism

Re: Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'

#112

Post by pavel_lishin »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #99
walrus01 wrote: post #79

The idea that mystery nefarious drone operators would be sending up things with blinking red and green navigation lights on them is patently absurd. As others have pointed out in this thread, there's a lot of more mundane explanations.

What if the lights are how they are controlled and pass data, rather than an RF link?

That's as plausible as them beaming spy data directly into the operator's brains via midichlorians.

Re: Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'

#113

Post by walrus01 »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #99
walrus01 wrote: post #79

The idea that mystery nefarious drone operators would be sending up things with blinking red and green navigation lights on them is patently absurd. As others have pointed out in this thread, there's a lot of more mundane explanations.

What if the lights are how they are controlled and pass data, rather than an RF link?

Exceedingly unlikely in my opinion, I've seen pictures/videos of these mystery drones and they look exactly like commercial aircraft white, red and green navigation lights. Or the red and green lights you would see on the end of the arms on a COTS DJI/Autel/competitor type UAV.

Re: Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'

#114

Post by carabiner »

gradus_ad wrote: post #49
apcragg wrote: post #13

The photos I've seen posted look very obviously like commercial airliners and helicopters with their navigation lights on. You can even make out the American Airlines livery on the tail! https://www.app.com/story/news/local/new-jersey/2024/12/11/d...

I live in NJ. I've seen these drones. They are not commercial airliners or helicopters. They are loud, fly low and slow, and make abrupt turns unlike any planes I've seen. Their lights are also very different from other aircraft. I can see how it's tempting to chalk this up to hysteria, but they are absolutely large drones of some kind.

Ok, what configuration are these drones? Quadcopters?

Why are they only flying at night? To evade detection? Then why do they have lights?

Re: Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'

#115

Post by alchemist1e9 »

walrus01 wrote: post #79

The idea that mystery nefarious drone operators would be sending up things with blinking red and green navigation lights on them is patently absurd. As others have pointed out in this thread, there's a lot of more mundane explanations.

it seems the videos posted with blinking red and green navigation lights are actually not representative of the drone sightings authorities are investigating but instead represent a side effect of the mania with people posting videos of private aircrafts as everyone is looking up and trying to record the “drones” but doesn’t realize the aircraft have been there all along and first they are paying attention.

The real drones go dark and evade helicopters.

Re: Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'

#116

Post by [deleted] »

abuani wrote: post #83
Aeolun wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I’m not saying there’s nothing, but there’s clearly some component of hysteria.

Oh, very much so some elements of mass hysteria. It took the better part of two weeks for authorities to recognize it, then it was "nothing to see here", then FBI is investigating. It sucks that one of our state representatives is out their claiming it's Iran and stoking further tensions. My personal feeling is if it was enemy drones, our military would have already taken them down. It's hard to imagine we'd let this…

[deleted]

Re: Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'

#117

Post by dylan604 »

abuani wrote: post #96
llamaimperative wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My personal feeling is if it was enemy drones, our military would have already taken them down I think you overestimate a few things here… the military isn’t constantly monitoring all airspace across the country for drone-sized objects and shooting things down if they don’t recognize them. Perhaps they should be as we enter this brave new world of drone-everything, but they don’t right now.

NJ has some of the leading research centers for the US military, our new president's second estate, and critical infrastructure for telecommunications. Reportedly drones were flying close to all of these spots. I would fully expect our military to be monitoring these parts of the country for drone-sized objects given how effective they have been in waging our wars the past 20 years. So yeah, it's a massive intelligen…

ahem, our president-elect. he is not the new president, yet.

Re: Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'

#119

Post by BobaFloutist »

bigiain wrote: post #91
soared wrote: post #4

Bit concerning that no government agencies have figured out what’s going on, but hardly seems like there is a reason for a limited state of emergency given there is no known threat at all. My guess is a US company is gathering data and hasn’t admitted to do so without some type of licensing/etc

> Bit concerning that no government agencies have figured out what’s going on I wouldn't be betting against this being a government agency. Anywhere between local cops and black/budgetless agencies you'd go to jail for even having heard of. That, or maybe organised crime. A friend of mine used to have what turned out to be a high level drug dealer living/working a few doors up the street. They'd fly DJI drones off th…

> black/budgetless agencies you'd go to jail for even having heard of.

Well stop telling people about them!!!

Re: Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'

#120

Post by talldayo »

LinuxBender wrote: post #5

Seems like an opportunity for a training exercise. Have the FAA put a TFR in place and let the national guard interdict, ECW and such. Take control, land it in the x-ray scanner, check for explosives then take it apart and get telemetry data. The US taught Ukraine how to do this with great success. If no joy on ECW, disassemble them in the sky. If the drones were legit they would be broadcasting their ID as would the…

Some action is already being taken; supposedly the GREMLIN program is being rolled out in areas where sightings are most common: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/military-ufo-gremlin/

> If no joy on ECW, disassemble them in the sky.

I disagree, for the same reason the US doesn't send an SM-6 up to greet every plane without an IFF turned on. It's an expensive exercise in endangering human lives, not a valiant defense of homeland security. Understanding the battlespace is a crucial part of modern warfare and soldiers aren't going to blind-fire on a weird drone unless it presents an immediate, credible threat.

Take the AIM-120s off your F-16 and put a FLIR pod on it, track the drones to wherever they land. Record the platform, dazzle it if it's got cameras or EO sensors, and send a few decoys out if you want to bait it into revealing last-resort defenses against a JDAM-like weapon. Then, you destroy it. Hell, if it's an unmanned naval platform you could also just send a couple Marines out in a Chinook to lift it to the Pentagon. America's weapons are nice, but we can do a lot more than just blow stuff up.

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