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

theguardian.com

681–690 of 943 posts

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

#681

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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The FAA classifies drones as aircraft.

https://www.faa.gov/Air_traffic/Publications/atpubs/aim_html...

Damaging an aircraft is considered criminal aircraft sabotage under 18 U.S.C. 32

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32

https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...

There is nothing in there about if the aircraft is legally or illegally operated.

https://dronedj.com/2024/06/30/florida-walmart-delivery-dron...

And for more resources for drone pilots: https://www.dronepilotgroundschool.com/shooting-drone/

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Firing on drones is a good way to lose your freedoms and even beyond that one's rights to have firearms.

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

#682
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…

> fecklessness of all the relevant authorities. [...] nobody has the authority to figure out what is going on, or nobody has the motivation Some would see that as an admirable example of a small government not overstepping its bounds. The local sheriff doesn't have the authority to shoot down aircraft? And doesn't exceed their authority by shooting them anyway? Good job local sheriff. The FAA has a handful of drone r…

> Some would see that as an admirable example of a small government not overstepping its bounds.

some would see it as a government in paralysis through bloat and bureaucracy with accountability not being clearly assigned to anyone. This is more likely the case now.

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

#683
post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the Coast Guard mistook 12 American Airlines planes for drones following their boat: https://apnews.com/article/fbi-drones-new-jersey-a978470fa3b... In another article a Sheriff saw 50 drones coming in from the ocean. Here a New Jersey elected official talks about the Sheriff/Police helicopter following an unidentified drone, then pull back because they feared for their safety (so low probability it was…

Why not? The navy confused infrared lens flairs of UFOs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs

This would be convincing if the pilots who captured the video didn't see it with their own eyes.

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

#684
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…

The type of drones that are small and cheap enough to make a "swarm" lack the range to cross the Taiwan Strait. They would have to be launched from a ship or larger aircraft, which are vulnerable to existing defenses. Lessons from land conflicts in Eastern Europe have very limited relevance to naval conflicts in the Indo-Pacific.

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

#685
post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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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Why would they be interested in a random military installation in New jersey? And not omething on the Pacific coast or Hawaii or Guam or in the Philippines or Japan or Okinawa be more likely?

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

#686
post #297

The concerns about it being a foreign power seem misplaced. Shouldn’t the main concern with drones be domestic terrorism? A civilian could easily buy a small fleet of drones, equip them with small IEDs or sarin gas, and fly them into otherwise secured areas with large crowds. Are there any procedures in place to prevent this?

Wouldn't a novice likely die synthesizing the amount of sarin needed to kill a large group of people? Then attaching a disbursement mechanism to the drone to make it into a gaseous form, etc. Seems like a lot of high risk effort to maybe have it work. As for IEDs, the drones used in the Ukraine war use what look to be very effective munitions, and they seem to be only effective against a single target really. Is that…

That's not true. They have drones that can drop multiple rpg warheads or grenades. Imagine a bunch of drones each with ten grenades dropping them over Times Square. I doubt there is anything the NYPD would be able to do.

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

#687
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…

Aaahahah! The guys who are doing this are absolutely shitting themselves laughing right now, sending the whole nation into UFO panic and getting it on national news and talked about at the highest levels of government for a couple hundred bucks. No drones necessary!

It's fucking genius, and just like magic tricks, it's so simple that everyone overlooks it and jumps straight to "MUST be actual magic/Aliens/secret government program/evil communists!", and for the same reason- people want to get tricked, mesmerized, shocked, see something magical and special, to the point that they become absolutely blind to the most mundane explanations, and that's precisely why it works so well!

Not going to ruin it for them either, if you figure it out you figure it out and then you know, it's pointless telling people anyway because they will just come up with random nonsense to dismiss it because 1) they want to believe so hard, 2) they won't admit they were so easily tricked.

Sorry for being an ass, I'm just finding this situation absolutely hilarious!

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

#688
post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I’ll stop you there and say there are videos. They just happen to be of naturally-occurring phenomena and captured by inept operators who don’t subscribe to Occam’s Razor.

had to look it up, the opposite of Occam's Razor, it is Hickham's Dictum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickam%27s_dictum

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

#689
post #656

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…

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 c…

This is too funny, someone's having a laff!
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