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

theguardian.com

191–200 of 943 posts

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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This story is so strange. I mean the US if im not mistaken allowed a huge white ballon to transverse the country and i heard Trump say that was from China. If that's true we just allowed it fly all over our airspace (weird). Is that not a potential public safety hazard and now these things. So odd nothing is being done like one of our jet fighters going up and shooting one down into a field.

It's much more valuable to watch it, see what kind of scans are coming from it than to just shoot it down immediately. It is also a bargaining chip for those in international politics.

If you're going to shoot it down, it has the same value if you do it immediately or later (assuming any remote wiping/detonation), so either you're paranoid that it poses a legitimate threat or it's beneficial to not shoot it down immediately.

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

#192
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...

From what little I've seen on this, it kind of feels like the issue with Priuses acceleration out of control like 15 years ago. It was a huge scandal that lead to multiple Toyota recalls and even a lawsuit settlement and in the end, it seems like it was basically human error. One person messed up and crashed their Prius claiming the accelerator got stuck and it got picked up by the news. That story then primed other…

Most of the Toyota acceleration accidents were almost certainly the result of operator error. The fact that the staistical probablity increased with age gives that away.

However, Toyota got convicted because their software development process was so terrible that they were effectively criminally negligent and deserved to get absolutely roasted for it.

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

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's very clearly a helicopter in most of the photos, and the rest could easily be an airliner. At most it might be some knucklehead with an old RC helicopter in violation of FAA regs (flying at night, no remote ID). If you were some foreign adversary why would you put navigation lights on your secret reconnaissance drone?

That's my favorite part of this mass hysteria. Why would they have nav lights on?! Any lights...

i mentioned elsewhere but if you had a large octocopter (think like 8' across) you could fashion lights to it to imitate other aircraft, like nose and tail and wing markers. My DJI has a front and rear light, the rear one blinks two colors so you know which side is which, my older DJI clone had lights on all four rotors, different colors between front and back (green and red? or am i confusing boat markers, haha).

If i wanted to freak a bunch of people out i'd start my design like this, at least. Some aircraft can fly really slow (biplanes, for instance), but the videos i saw of ostensibly these aircraft they were moving too slow to be actual fixed wing aircraft of the shape the were implied to be by the lights. But who knows if the videos were doctored (cropping would fool my brain about relative speeds), or even of the aircraft we're talking about? I didn't save them so i got no idea, sadly.

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

#194
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.

And you recorded if of course!

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

#195
post #83
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…

He's the one that got elected as a Democratic candidate and switched to the Republican party about a month after he was elected.

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

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, also rep. Jeff Van Drew claiming without evidence that the drones are coming from an Iranian mothership off the coast.

Yes and where did he even get this from? Why do we have representatives literally making up stories and telling them to the American public? What is actually going on here?

Probably just made it up. He's a naked opportunist and there's no penalty in the GOP (or arguably in Congress in general) for being a shameless liar.

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

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's got bright lights on it, it's very unlikely to be espionage.

Hiding in plain sight is also a thing.

So is sowing mass hysteria and deepening distrust in authorities.

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

#198
post #87
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was 20 in 1973, that doesn't qualify as a CW relic. Not even a curio.

Relic from the Cold war, not a relic at the time of the cold war.

It still doesn't make sense. He was elected to Congress in 2018, long after the end of the Cold War. I think GP is just mixing him up with someone else.
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