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

911–920 of 943 posts

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

#911

Post by F7F7F7 »

jerf wrote: post #649
ninininino wrote: post #635

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…

You want this to be a thing so badly. But in reality it’s just people mistakenly identifying commercial airplanes as drones and hobbyist trolling the believers.

At least it not uncontrollable dancing.

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

#912

Post by ANewFormation »

obmelvin wrote: post #850
ANewFormation wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prob…

Just think rationally - in one case you had completely harmless weather balloons, and the government completely freaked out, scrambled fighters and even recklessly launched missiles at them.

Here you have supposedly car sized drones operating, in large numvers, in high risk areas and the government response is nonexistent. Nearby flights have not even been diverted as they do when there's the slightest security risk in an area.

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

#913

Post by xnx »

nradov wrote: post #684
jerf wrote: 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.

Rocket

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

#914

Post by ptero »

next_xibalba wrote: post #626
ptero wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither FBI nor Pentagon have ability to fly drones in the US airspace at will. On the contrary, they, like everyone else, have to get FAA approvals and those always leak. And usually in fact published by the FAA who needs to warn pilots of potential threats -- one could go to the official FAA website and search those NOTAMs. Ignoring FAA by the FBI or the military just doesn't happen, the price to pay is WAY too hig…

Isn't airspace around all military installations exempted from this? How would you train your people to use your drones otherwise? What's more, the feds are clearly signalling that these are ours. As others point out, you can't say its not an adversaries asset unless you know whose it is. Which would suggest either they are flying these illegally, they have some kind of exemption to fly in civilian air space, or they…

There are special use airspace regions, but those are widely published so joyriders do not stumble there by accident.

I am virtually certain those UAVs fly outside of it, otherwise there would not be much public attention to that.

Agree that the signalling strongly suggests government use.

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

#915

Post by ptero »

darkarmani wrote: post #822
ptero wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither FBI nor Pentagon have ability to fly drones in the US airspace at will. On the contrary, they, like everyone else, have to get FAA approvals and those always leak. And usually in fact published by the FAA who needs to warn pilots of potential threats -- one could go to the official FAA website and search those NOTAMs. Ignoring FAA by the FBI or the military just doesn't happen, the price to pay is WAY too hig…

They don't need approval for under 400 FT AGL in class G airspace. The idiots reporting on it have NO idea how high these drones are. And the military has a bunch of carved airspace in various places. I think last time i looked (4 weeks ago), there was some reserved airspace off Cape Hatteras for the US Marines.

Last I checked (things could have changed) they do not need approvals for hobbyist use. Official government use and even sponsored research absolutely required approvals. And this is very likely not a hobbyist.

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

#917

Post by scrps »

It's planes from most of the footage I saw, at best maybe there was A legit unknown drone flown over some sensitive site (which happens) and someone hyped it into hysteria probably fueling trolls with drones to add to it.

Also iirc there is a funding bill for anti-drone programs gummed up in congress so I am sure anyone looking to get it passed isn't in a rush to quell this just yet.

The government will finally get all these local yokel politicians to put a cork in it and stop fanning hysteria when some idiot puts a bullet hole in a cessna thinking it is an Iranian drone from a mothership off the east coast.

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

#918

Post by ANewFormation »

ANewFormation wrote: post #912
obmelvin wrote: post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prob…

Just think rationally - in one case you had completely harmless weather balloons, and the government completely freaked out, scrambled fighters and even recklessly launched missiles at them. Here you have supposedly car sized drones operating, in large numvers, in high risk areas and the government response is nonexistent. Nearby flights have not even been diverted as they do when there's the slightest security risk…

Check any radiation map to see what's probably happening. Parts of New York, in the vicinity of the sightings, are showing extremely high radiation levels.

Its probably just drones searching for the source with the secrecy aimed at trying to avoid a mass panic.

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

#919

Post by AlexeyBelov »

ANewFormation wrote: post #918
ANewFormation wrote: post #912

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just think rationally - in one case you had completely harmless weather balloons, and the government completely freaked out, scrambled fighters and even recklessly launched missiles at them. Here you have supposedly car sized drones operating, in large numvers, in high risk areas and the government response is nonexistent. Nearby flights have not even been diverted as they do when there's the slightest security risk…

Check any radiation map to see what's probably happening. Parts of New York, in the vicinity of the sightings, are showing extremely high radiation levels. Its probably just drones searching for the source with the secrecy aimed at trying to avoid a mass panic.

Can you link a map?

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

#920

Post by willy_k »

F7F7F7 wrote: post #911
jerf wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You want this to be a thing so badly. But in reality it’s just people mistakenly identifying commercial airplanes as drones and hobbyist trolling the believers. At least it not uncontrollable dancing.

Hobbyists with car-sized transwing drones?
Post reply on HN