Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 943 posts

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

#231

Post by coretx »

ponector wrote: post #208
potato3732842 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of reductive. I know some people who have, uh, relevant experience. The cheap drones are pretty comprehensively engineered and they're complex in the same way that a ballpoint pen is not as trivial to manufacture as it looks. But yeah, Maginot Military sounds about right.

But they engage only big drones. Like reconnaissance Orlan or Zala, maybe lancet. No one is shooting down fpv quadcopters, not yet.

Shotguns are being used for that purpose. Single buckshot from the top of a AR barrel are in vogue too. Someone should use a cheap arduino and a mike for aiming and shooting at fpv quadcopters. I really don't understand why that's not here yet. They can literally convert a toy from github.

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

#233

Post by mkoubaa »

pygar wrote: post #16

So is Iran just going to be the default bogeyman until they drum up enough negative sentiment for a war? Iran doesn't really have any military projection. It can't even move equipment and people into countries it's close to (Syria, Iraq), let alone the US. Why would they take the risk of doing this? It's obviously bullshit.

This. Blame Iran by default is getting really tiresome at this point

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

#234

Post by mkoubaa »

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…

The whole appeal of their defense industry is that they have people to test their weapons on

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

#235

Post by standardUser »

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 could be some politicians are leveraging the situation to get stricter drone laws passed. It should be unnerving to all of us that any semi-intelligent person with a few thousand bucks could weaponize a drone and send it off to wreak havoc. I'm not a drone enthusiast, but it seems like the level of regulation and enforcement has fallen way behind the access to the technology.

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

#236

Post by obmelvin »

llamaimperative wrote: post #85
abuani wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

The military isn’t allowed to shoot down drones in the US. There was a WSJ story last month about drones flying over Langley for 2 weeks. All the general could do is stand on the roof and watch

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

#237

Post by bhk »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #60
fourteenfour wrote: post #35

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.

Something tells me that if there were so much as an Iranian dinghy sitting off the coast, the military would be extremely aware of its presence. Monitoring absolutely everything that it did.

Something tells me that if there were a bus-sized Chinese spy balloon floating all the way across the continental US, the military would be extremely aware of its presence.

(As I recall they were, but they would not publicly acknowledge it until the public sightings became undeniable.)

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

#238

Post by op00to »

mcphage wrote: post #210
georgeburdell wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not commenting on NJ specifically, but there have been drone sightings near sensitive military sites recently, as reported by the military

> there have been drone sightings near sensitive military sites recently How near is "near"? There's an awful lot of sensitive military sites in the US.

New Jersey is essentially one big sensitive site. Between Picatinny Arsenal, Joint Base McGuire-Dix, NWS Earle, and all the other smaller sites, you’re about 15 miles away from any one site and if you’re near civilization you’re much closer. Add in other sensitive sites like power stations and reservoirs, and the entire state is “sensitive”. This smacks hard of manipulation and agitation. 99% of the sitings shared with me have been airplanes.

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

#239

Post by op00to »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #209
guhcampos wrote: post #65

[flagged]

I mean there were 12 drones following a Coast Guard lifeboat. Doubt the Coastguard crew mass hysteria'd themselves into thinking 12 nearby 737s were following their boat (unless they just raided some Colombian drug submarine prior to coming into port). https://apnews.com/article/fbi-drones-new-jersey-a978470fa3b... And the official government response is super odd. Police were following a drone (that is totally safe…

Can you site an actual reliable source, and not the mouthpiece of a political party?

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

#240

Post by _DeadFred_ »

op00to wrote: post #239
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean there were 12 drones following a Coast Guard lifeboat. Doubt the Coastguard crew mass hysteria'd themselves into thinking 12 nearby 737s were following their boat (unless they just raided some Colombian drug submarine prior to coming into port). https://apnews.com/article/fbi-drones-new-jersey-a978470fa3b... And the official government response is super odd. Police were following a drone (that is totally safe…

Can you site an actual reliable source, and not the mouthpiece of a political party?

If we can't trust the Coast Guard then we are screwed as a country.
Post reply on HN