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

791–800 of 943 posts

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

#791

Post by nostrademons »

jerf wrote: post #715
nonameiguess wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, this is yet another instance of Hacker News confidently stating very wrong things. My wife ran the operational testing program for a classified Naval aircraft capability for nearly a decade. They flew unmarked planes out of a commercial airport. People photographed them and asked questions all the time. Nobody ever answered them. Neither confirm nor deny is standard practice. If you have somethi…

"civilian areas for weeks at a time making damned sure thousands of people can get photographs and turn it into a national story " was not an extraneous part of my quote. This is not just "not answering questions", this is rubbing it everyone's face, this is running around in the airport shrieking about their secret airplanes and making sure everyone notices them and then telling everyone "oh, but no, those aren't ou…

I don’t do anything military or classified or anything, just work for a big tech company. And my employer’s standard policy for anything that leaks through public testing is “say nothing, and if they’re really persistent, issue a one-sentence statement that says nothing”. Confidential stuff I do ends up in the national news all the time, but it turns out that if you’re really boring and don’t engage in a conversation, people forget about you next week.

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

#792

Post by tlrobinson »

tigerBL00D wrote: post #691
rozab wrote: 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…

I would not write this.off as hysteria. It's important to consider motivation of potential actors. Every advanced rocket guidance system uses cameras to zero in on its targets during the final approach. You can't rely on GPS at that point. To do a good job you need to know what your target looks like and high resolution drone imagery helps a lot.

Or not even imagery collection, but testing to see what our response is like. If we're scrambling and unable to explain/contain it, that's useful for an adversary to know a little about our current defensive capabilities.

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

#793

Post by IAmGraydon »

dgfitz wrote: 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?

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

#794

Post by IAmGraydon »

Mistletoe wrote: post #618
dgfitz wrote: 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…

I guess I would say why are people concerned about this? I’d be much more concerned about ones without navigation lights.

That's what I'm saying. Drones are so common that you can buy them at Walmart, and I would be willing to bet that people reporting large drones are just not able to properly judge scale in the sky. What's next, people panicking because they are seeing cars driving around the streets?

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

#796

Post by IAmGraydon »

tummler wrote: post #703

There are people in the government who know exactly what these are, and why they are not threatening. I assume the vague non-response is because if they reveal this information, the very next question is “how do you know this”? And the answer to that question involves revelations that could very possibly lead to upheaval and civil unrest. In short, they’re at a total loss on how to respond to this phenomenon, because…

What really amazes me is that society feels that we're in such a perilous state that they've deluded themselves into believing we're all going to be saved by little green men. If you think about it, it's the same reason humans invented god, but for the antitheistic.

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

#798

Post by IAmGraydon »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #690

why would anything nefarious be running avoidance lights? this is some sort of mass hysteria with very little critical thinking involved

Yes it's mass hysteria, but most cases of mass hysteria are seeded by a real event. So I'm guessing some agency or police force ran some drones, they were spotted, it hit social media, and became a mind virus.

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

#799

Post by IAmGraydon »

seaourfreed wrote: post #742

I wonder if this is happening: "Hey US military drone manufacturers! You are allowed to test your drones at night. Don't say anything publicly. Start RIGHT after the Nov 2025 election. STOP right when Trump gets in office. Extra points if you put big lights on them." Let's keep the citizens starting at the night sky and scratching their head. It happened right after election. If they few in the day time, it would be…

I don't even know what you're suggesting. That the drones are to distract us from the fact that Trump got elected?

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

#800

Post by boesboes »

jandrese wrote: post #789
narrator wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Anything that approaches the underwater mothership is destroyed before they even know they're under attack. Let me guess, it is parked in the "Bermuda Triangle". It's easy to make theories when you are unburdened by evidence.

Yup, but it only attacks military targets that are threat. Otherwise it just hides deeper.

Looking forward to a spin off of ancient aliens on this haha Evidence smevidence! Aliens!

Post reply on HN