Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

841–850 of 943 posts

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

#841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Picture this. You fly a kite in a park near a military base. Your kite blows over the fence. It is now an unidentified flying object over a military base. Now do you as base commander order jets to be scrambled to respond what could literally be a scrap of trash or some teenager with a dji drone? It is a different situation entirely compared to an actual airplane.

No need to picture a cute hypothetical set of facts that are dissimilar to that actual set of facts. These are serious military protocols not a academic exercise in a vacuum. Unauthorized flying of even dji drones near and over military bases is illegal and people get arrested for it. In fact a Chinese citizen was just arrested yesterday for flying a drone over a Space Force base. Based on reports and video evidence…

And what's the purpose of putting jets in the air, that stall around 200km/h, to "intercept" stationary objects?

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

#842
post #684
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…

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.

> They would have to be launched from a ship or larger aircraft, which are vulnerable to existing defenses.

What about a swarm of drone Zodiac rafts?

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

#843
post #837
post #828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. Many missiles exclusively use GNSS and/or INS, for example ATACMS and MLRS.

do you have a source for ATACMS using GNSS not GPS?

> do you have a source for ATACMS using GNSS not GPS?

GNSS is a general term that encompasses GPS and systems like it. GPS is the American GNSS.

https://www.gps.gov/systems/gnss/

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

#844
post #837
post #828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. Many missiles exclusively use GNSS and/or INS, for example ATACMS and MLRS.

do you have a source for ATACMS using GNSS not GPS?

GNSS is the umbrella term for satellite based positioning/navigation systems, since there’s now multiple in operation.

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

#845

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…

For those who want to know the most consistent UFOlogy angle that wasn't invented last week: Over on 4chan there was an alleged leaker and follow ups back in 2023 who says that there's an underwater ET mothership off the east coast that produces 3-d printed made to order small anti-gravity drones that launch and do various tasks to monitor us. Anything that approaches the underwater mothership is destroyed before the…

Ooh that's a fun rabbit hole, thanks! I'm going to choose to read this like /r/nosleep or SCP - all stories are "true". Suspension of disbelief is the most fun part. I want to know more about these "builds".

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

#846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the biggest mass hysteria I can remember. The biggest panic about unidentified flying objects in New Jersey since October 30 1938.

This is going to shock you, but I wasn't alive in 1938, which is why I would have no memory of it. I would venture to guess you weren't either.

[deleted]

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

#847

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…

For those who want to know the most consistent UFOlogy angle that wasn't invented last week: Over on 4chan there was an alleged leaker and follow ups back in 2023 who says that there's an underwater ET mothership off the east coast that produces 3-d printed made to order small anti-gravity drones that launch and do various tasks to monitor us. Anything that approaches the underwater mothership is destroyed before the…

Interesting to see Bob Lazar brought up explicitly here. I really like Otherhand's take on the situation. Very tenuous but interesting theory.

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang...

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

#848
post #616

Late to the thread so this will probably get buried. My spouse and I have seen these things flying for __years__ around the northern Baltimore area. They even had patterns. Recently, we have been hearing what sound like Apache helicopters at around the same time at night. This video in this article: https://apnews.com/article/fbi-drones-new-jersey-a978470fa3b... Is 100% __identical__ to what we have been seeing for l…

As I mentioned in another comment, police departments have been using drones for around 10 years. That's not to mention all the other professional and amateur use. I personally know at least a handful of people who regularly fly theirs. Most major metro areas are going to have drones flying all over the place. So what I'm saying is...why is this interesting?

If it were above board government use, wouldn't it be apparent?

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

#849
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…

Lawmakers have created endless nests of ordinance, law, etc deferring responsibility to other aspects of government. Regime change plans generally involve sabotaging resilient systems to make them become brittle. Then you force those systems to bear loads they cannot, destabilize, bring to crisis.

The problem here appears to be conflicts at a state level (safety mandates) and that at the federal level (airspace management, you don't shoot at planes and drones are small planes).

That's the gist of what I've seen with regards to these things. Paralysis and lack of proper chain of command absent disaster, is a sign of impending collapse when there is calamity.

Its unclear who owns the drones but it should be relatively simple with SIGINT to trilaterate the control signal, any decently experienced ham should be able to do that.

If there is no control signal and they are operating autonomous, they should be considered restricted/military weapons with a proper chain of command and oversight. Lawmakers have been paralyzed and unable to keep up for decades though. Its hardly a surprise.

When the costs aren't paid for proper preparation beforehand, the cost is almost always paid in lives.

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

#850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC there were multiple instances of the balloons and the one they shot down was intentionally shot down in a relatively safe area.

They shot down at least 3 including one that 100% belonged to a local club, meaning the military had no clue what they were launching missiles at. One was shot down over Lake Huron, and the pilot actually even managed to miss the balloon with his missile. It's like 99 Red Balloons meets Idiocracy. Obviously the military can shoot down whatever they want, let alone use EM tech, which is highly effective at grounding d…

1) there was a very public delay to shoot down anything even remotely above people. They just aren’t going to shoot something down over a city

From the WSJ article I mentioned: “ Federal law prohibits the military from shooting down drones near military bases in the U.S. unless they pose an imminent threat. Aerial snooping doesn’t qualify, though some lawmakers hope to give the military greater leeway”

2) as you probably know, the pilot doesn’t really guide the missile…calling the pilot an idiot just clearly shows you have an axe to grind. Also, it’s not like the seekers are calibrated to take out balloons.

3) regarding EW - the tech is obviously still evolving and not always deployed “ U.S. officials said they didn’t know who operated the drones in Nevada, a previously unreported incursion, or for what reason. A spokeswoman said the facility has since upgraded a system to detect and counter drones.”

Also, it is certainly possible to harden drones against EW as is being done in Ukraine on an evolving basis

Post reply on HN