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

theguardian.com

661–670 of 943 posts

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

#661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can 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.

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It's kind of amazing that you can post incitement to terrorism on HN. People have been jailed for using high-power laser pointers against aircraft.

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

#662

This is the biggest mass hysteria I can remember. People are sharing video of things that are very obviously airplanes and helicopters. I'm sure there are some drones but that isn't 95%+ of what people are seeing. This is honestly terrifying, because it's baffling people can't determine what is generally regular aircraft (some of these videos are SO obviously planes coming in for a landing, with jet engine noises and…

While your concern is still totally valid, if a civilian mistakes a 747 for a drone and shoots at it with anything but a laser, they’re gonna miss lol. It will probably be out of range in fact.

In other words, if you’re within 1km (0.6 miles) of a large passenger jet, you’re absolutely not mistaking it for a drone.

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

#663
post #657
post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

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

#664
I am very certain I know what this is, and sorry, it's not aliens. I've seen this before and people were freaking TF out back then, too. That one is still labeled unexplained. It's not hard to figure it out.

I'm actually loathe to spoil it in case they're doing this as a prank (and they definitely are) because it's such a genius fucking way to throw a whole nation into full UFO panic for a few hundred bucks, and very easy to do completely undetected. (No, not drones)

I bet I'm not the only one who figured it out, especially on here.

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

#665

I am very certain I know what this is, and sorry, it's not aliens. I've seen this before and people were freaking TF out back then, too. That one is still labeled unexplained. It's not hard to figure it out. I'm actually loathe to spoil it in case they're doing this as a prank (and they definitely are) because it's such a genius fucking way to throw a whole nation into full UFO panic for a few hundred bucks, and very…

k

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

#666
Based on all the sightings and someone flying a drone next to these things, the size of these "drones" is much bigger, like the size of a car! Additionally, drones can hover for less than an hour. These "drones" stay floated for many hours on end!

These should be called UFOs, not drones. The light on them and their shape make them look like regular drones, but I think these crafts are much more than the regular drones that the media has called them.

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

#667
post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something actually patent-worthy.

How? it's just a UAV, quad version of a V-22 Osprey. Maybe I'm missing something peculiar about it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey

The wing folding mechanism is pretty novel as far as I'm aware. The idea of quad hover to forward flight isn't new or unique but the specific configuration is something I haven't seen before. NASA was working on some that tilted the whole wing not this folding design which uses fewer motors compare to the old NASA Greased Lightning test article.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXql26sF5uc

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

#668

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. You better crank out your camera and collect any proof at all,because what you are describing bears no resemblance to the sightings mentioned in the article. There is a reason why sighting…

For real, with everyone having a smartphone with high quality cameras on them there really is zero excuse for there to not be highly detailed accurate videos of this if they are legit especially with people describing them as "low and slow".

>with everyone having a smartphone with high quality cameras on them there really is zero excuse for there to not be highly detailed accurate videos of this

Absolutely not.

I understand the tendency to assume that modern tech would make it relatively easy thing to accomplish but there are considerable challenges with ground-based aerial photography/videography...at nighttime...completely unplanned and unscheduled...by an amateur. Better technology makes the field more accessible in a general way, but there is still a very large barrier of: skill, hardware, and out-right luck involved in good image capture as a medium.

Consider, if you ever look towards the beginning or end of some runways you may see a group of plane spotters setup taking photos and video of the airplanes. The typical hardware used to capture things well is a minimum of: DSLR, tripod, battery extenders (or spares), and good perch to rest during lulls (it's more physically demanding on your arms then you might imagine.) More crucially, this is for airplanes that are taking off and landing 1) in a predictable pattern 2) at routine intervals 3) captured primarily in daylight.

Add in height? Introduce increased shake. Add in darkness? Introduce exposure (hold the camera still, longer to get a brighter image). Add in inexperience? Introduce beginner mistakes. On top of those practical concerns, it's probably also pretty creepy to see these unknown objects/drones/whatever. Fear impacts our ability to react in a helpful way.

Smartphones make it simpler to capture a picture or a video, but there is profound gulf between getting something and something even remotely good.

If you're not sure what I mean, here's a simple test you can try: 1) Grab a pencil and go into a completely dark room like a basement 2) Turn off the flash on your phone 3) Holding the pencil between pointer finger and thumb stretch your hand as far from your body as you physically can 4) Take one photo of the tip of the pencil eraser one-handed.

That is considerably easier than it would be to photograph/video a moving object across the night sky, even if it is perceived as moving "low and slow". Longer exposure times mean the camera has to be held motionless for longer so the camera sensor can "soak up" more light to "expose" the photograph properly. (This is why photos at night feel like they take perceptibly longer to capture than they do in daytime - they do take longer!) Flash can help with nearby subjects, but for objects far away (thousands of feet above you) no amount of flash is going to reach the object to reduce exposure time.

Then, let's make things even worse! The object is moving which means that overexposure will turn that solid object into a blur. This is something that is easily possible[1] when taking photos of the night sky.

[1] https://photographylife.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Sharp...

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

#669
post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The military theory doesn't fit to me on the grounds that at this point they should be just admitting it. They're calling more attention to the drones than they would if they would just say "yup, those are ours". You don't hide things by parading them around in front of people. They've got all sorts of places to secretly fly things and all the permits they need to create whatever RF environment they want in the proce…

The next question after "yup those are ours" is "then why are they there", and they might not wish to answer that one.

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

#670

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…

“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.

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