In September 2025, a wave of incursions caused major disruption.
Copenhagen Airport was temporarily closed.
Danish military bases were breached.
Drones were also spotted over a power plant, a hospital, and a ThyssenKrupp naval factory in Germany.
France and Belgium were affected too.
The countries hit seemed powerless to stop the drones.
On Saturday (1 November) and Sunday (2 November), drones were sighted on two separate occasions over Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium.
The base hosts F-16s from the Belgian Air Force’s 10th Tactical Wing.
Alarmingly, under NATO’s nuclear sharing program, the base also stores B61-series nuclear bombs.
Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken confirmed that drones entered the area near the Base in northeastern Belgium on Saturday and Sunday nights in two separate phases.
Francken said the first phase involved “small drones to test the radio frequencies” of Belgian security services. Later, “big drones” appeared, apparently “to destabilize the area and people,” he told public broadcaster RTBF.
“It resembles a spy operation. By whom, I don’t know,” he said. “I have a few ideas, but I’m going to be careful about speculating.”
As in September, Belgian forces appeared unable to bring down the drones. Francken later explained why jamming efforts failed and why the military chose not to use kinetic force.
Francken said the security services’ jammer failed because the drones had adapted.
“The jammer didn’t work because they tested our radio frequency and changed it,” he explained. “They have their own frequencies. An amateur doesn’t know how to do that.”
When asked why the drones weren’t shot down, Francken said:
“If they’re over a military base, we can shoot them down. But if they’re nearby, we have to be very careful — they could fall on a house, a car, a person. That’s completely different.”
He added that the situation also raised legal questions. “It’s not entirely clear. We have to clarify the legal grounds.”
Francken admitted that Belgium was still playing catch-up.
“We’re chasing after the threat,” he said. “We should have bought air defense systems five or ten years ago.”
Similar failures exposing the limits of counter-drone technology have occurred in recent years, affecting key U.S. military bases.
In December 2023, Langley Air Force Base in Virginia was swarmed by dozens of drones over several weeks, sparking a major security scare.
In 2024, Liberation Times obtained twenty-two witness statements and an incident report through a Freedom of Information Act request, following incursions at the base.
These statements come from members of the 633d Security Forces Squadron, who are responsible for guarding Joint Base Langley-Eustis.
Witnesses from the 633d Security Forces Squadron reported observing the so-called ‘drones’ ‘moving at rapid speeds’ and displaying ‘flashing red, green, and white lights’.
Concerningly, one witness stated that their dronebuster ‘failed to register’ one of the objects, while another was unable to use a dronebuster ‘due to not having a visual’.
Hellbound and Down 