Wall Street Journal (Archive) OCT 12th 2024

https://archive.ph/ZnmUB#selection-2179.0-2179.81

U.S. Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly wasn’t sure what to make of reports that a suspicious fleet of unidentified aircraft had been flying over Langley Air Force Base on Virginia’s shoreline.

Kelly, a decorated senior commander at the base, got on a squadron rooftop to see for himself. He joined a handful of other officers responsible for a clutch of the nation’s most advanced jet fighters, including F-22 Raptors.

For several nights, military personnel had reported a mysterious breach of restricted airspace over a stretch of land that has one of the largest concentrations of national-security facilities in the U.S. The show usually starts 45 minutes to an hour after sunset, another senior leader told Kelly.

The first drone arrived shortly. Kelly, a career fighter pilot, estimated it was roughly 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour, at an altitude of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Other drones followed, one by one, sounding in the distance like a parade of lawn mowers.

The drones headed south, across Chesapeake Bay, toward Norfolk, Va., and over an area that includes the home base for the Navy’s SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval port.

Officials didn’t know if the drone fleet, which numbered as many as a dozen or more over the following nights, belonged to clever hobbyists or hostile forces. Some suspected that Russia or China deployed them to test the response of American forces.

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.

Reports of the drones reached President Biden and set off two weeks of White House meetings after the drones first appeared in December last year.

Officials from agencies including the Defense Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pentagon’s UFO office joined outside experts to throw out possible explanations as well as ideas about how to respond.

Drone incursions into restricted airspace was already worrying national-security officials. Two months earlier, in October 2023, five drones flew over a government site used for nuclear-weapons experiments.

The Energy Department’s Nevada Nuclear Security Site outside Las Vegas detected four of the drones over three days. Employees spotted a fifth.

More at link

Let me put my tinfoil hat on here:
If they wont shoot these vehicles down imagine if each carried a small tac nuke.

Or perhaps they are part of the NSA just trying out some new stuff.

quote:

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.

Sometimes we literally cannot get out of our own way.

I don’t understand- if they know these things are routinely there, why don’t they shoot them down? Perhaps use lasers tech we know they have to have if the South Koreans have them.

I know this may be an oversimplification and fairly obvious, but...

Shouldn't signal jamming these things be a priority, and feasible to accomplish?

Why isn't this taken as a security threat with immediate action to end said threat?

Treating military "restricted air space" just like our country's borders? If we don't protect them, then what the hell does it mean? Even if it is "just hobbyists," it is still giving valuable information to our enemies. Shades of Chinese "weather balloons," the world must think we are content to lie on our backs and spread our legs for the first assailant to come along.

Sure doesn't give me any confidence that the Govt. will even attempt to protect its citizens if/when the SHTF!

Who would want to shoot down drones from dear friends in China??? They ain't hurtin' nothin'... just bein' friendly ya know.

The totally depraved idiocy of our federal government is definitely on display! I can hardly wait until January 20, 2025 gets here and we have a real president again!!!

That is messed up. whats stopping them from following the drones with a helecopter?

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:

quote:

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.

Sometimes we literally cannot get out of our own way.

The relevant section of federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 32 US, makes no mention of the US military that I could find. Perhaps this is an interpretation made by DOD attorneys and/or US military JAGs. If Congress and the Administration were so inclined, they could amend federal law so that the military is specifically exempt.

quote:

The totally depraved idiocy of our federal government is definitely on display! I can hardly wait until January 20, 2025 gets here and we have a real president again!!!

This is reason #1,574,342--but just popped up to #1 on list of EO's for Trump to sign Day 1. No non-US-military drones over any US military base. Summary "execution" is required. Failure to comply will lead to loss of command that day and arrest for court-martial.

Morons. All of them. Just shoot the fuckers down and see who bitches about losing gear.

Can they not be tracked? They obviously took off from somewhere, and have to land somewhere. If you’re not going to shoot them down, at least figure out where they came from, and where they’re going.

^^^

See, now that would make sense for soldiers interested in security. But apparently no one is.

In this day and age, seems it would be simple enough to grab one and figure out where it came from.

Of course, we let a spy balloon hover over the U.S. for quite some time.

For Gods sake, grow some balls already and shoot them down!

^What it they're extraterrestrial and it triggers an intergalactic conflict?!

Then we launch a computer virus into their mother ship!

Directed EMP. Done.

Or maybe one of those signal trackers the Germans used in Hogan's Heroes?

Thor anti-drone weapon.



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