Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

651–660 of 943 posts

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

#651

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 wi…

> 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?

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

#652

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 wi…

Someone just needs to shoot one down.

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

#653

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 wi…

I 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, doe…

We all have that same cheap electronics store, it's called AliExpress.

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

#654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

People like this talk a big game but the warrant will be written and they will comply. Always the online warriors that act tough but always fold.

Not just that, there are plenty of documented instances of people being shot dead for being suspected of holding a gun. Do people really think they can just shoot a cop, close their front door, and go back to living their life?

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

#655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like this talk a big game but the warrant will be written and they will comply. Always the online warriors that act tough but always fold.

Or they will end up in situation that in most cases will end in their death. Which seems so obvious that they must be suicidal. Law enforcement can bring far more force to bear than a single person can defend against.

HN has so much boot in its mouth. Authority says jump and you guys ask how high.

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

#656
post #607

People would do well to keep in mind the episode of drone hysteria which happened at Gatwick airport in 2018. Hundreds of sightings were reported over a period of several days, shutting down the airport completely. It was a massive media event, camera crews from every outlet were at the airport, but none ever photographed a drone. None of the radar systems at the airport, nor the military anti-drone systems sent late…

Have you been following this news story at all? There are probably hundreds of video clips on social media depicting the same craft. So I'm not sure what the relevancy is of your story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT9rrkYGAUU&list=RDNSOT9rrkY... 3 minutes and 7 seconds in this video is a good example of what these typically appear as. But yes it's most likely a US military drone exercise or active operation (have…

After seeing that news clip, my only question is “why do they care?”. I’m not saying nobody should care but why do we have citizens on the hunt for drones. From the look of it, the drones don’t seem to be invading citizens privacy, nor does it put them in danger. It’s pretty clear they don’t even know where exactly the drones operate, which is understandable given the conditions. And why does the mayor care? Cities can impose certain restrictions on drone operations but they cannot just ban drones. They don’t own the airspace.

This is up to FAA/FBI/DHS to investigate, if they have reasonable belief laws are being violated or safety is being threatened. Local law enforcement or state agencies can investigate as well but from a different angle (privacy violations, local ordinances, noise complaints, trespassing…).

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

#657
post #644
post #607

People would do well to keep in mind the episode of drone hysteria which happened at Gatwick airport in 2018. Hundreds of sightings were reported over a period of several days, shutting down the airport completely. It was a massive media event, camera crews from every outlet were at the airport, but none ever photographed a drone. None of the radar systems at the airport, nor the military anti-drone systems sent late…

The real story here is the apparent... and I use this term very, very deliberately... fecklessness of all the relevant authorities. Apparently... again, a deliberate choice... nobody has the authority to figure out what is going on, or nobody has the motivation, or nobody has the technical capability, or something like that. I'm not sure what the problem is, exactly, and that is in some sense now the dominant problem…

> nobody has the authority to figure out what is going on, or nobody has the motivation, or nobody has the technical capability

Well .. SNAFU? This is basically what I'd expect. In these kind of cases there's a steady stream of crank reports from the public which are 100% false positives. The authorities will have a process for routing all the UFO reports to someone who sends out form letters and otherwise ignores them. The actual airspace protection is done by radar and whatever the US calls "QRA".

There's no suggestion or evidence of any damage, so this ranks as a much lower threat than all sorts of other things like celebrity CEO assassins.

In order of decreasing likeliness:

- nothing there

- just regular commercial aircraft

- weird aircraft, but classified, hence the blank response from authorities

- eccentric hobbyist or intentional faker

- aliens

- foreign drones

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

#658

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 wi…

Because they have navigation and avoidance lights on, as required by the FAA. This is dumb hysteria.

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

#659

"a post-Chinese spy-balloon world" Noticed it because of the typo ("spy-ballon") but realized it's also a pretty funny phrase. Are we living in a spy-balloon world which is no longer Chinese? Or maybe in a balloon-world, post the Chinese spy?

I think you're the only person engaging in this with the right level of seriousness.
Post reply on HN