Tag: drones

Florida bill would let homeowners use ‘reasonable force’ against drones

Florida lawmakers are considering a bill that would permit homeowners to use “reasonable force” against drones — likely sparked by last year’s uptick in sightings of mysterious unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Keith L. Truenow (R) last month, was placed on the Florida Senate’s legislative calendar on April 16.

Constituents across the U.S. have signaled discontent with the federal response, prompting more questions on where the drones originated and how they could be regulated. The Biden administration stressed that the UAVs were not a threat to national security or operated by foreign adversaries.

President Trump earlier this year said he would look into the drone spotting, but he ruled they were “not the enemy” and likely authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or belonged to hobbyists.

The Sunshine State legislation seeks to change property owners’ guidelines for unmanned aircraft that remain suspended above their own land. It has already cleared several committees despite potential conflicts with federal law.

The FAA prevents people from shooting down drones even if they are hovering above their personal property.

“A private citizen shooting at any aircraft – including unmanned aircraft – poses a significant safety hazard,” the agency’s website reads. “An unmanned aircraft hit by gunfire could crash, causing damage to persons or property on the ground, or it could collide with other objects in the air.”

“Shooting at an unmanned aircraft could result in a civil penalty from the FAA and/or criminal charges from federal, state or local law enforcement,” it adds.

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Archaeologists Found a 3,000-Year-Old Lost City That May Hold Secrets of a Royal Past

Just like scientific hypotheses are ever-evolving, so is our understanding of history. 15 years ago, researchers began excavating what they thought were the remains of a military outpost, built to guard against Roman attacks—but their recent findings prove to be much more exciting. The site in Northern Macedonia, known as the archaeological site of Gradishte, might actually be an entire ancient city. And not just any city; it may have a direct connection to the lineage of Alexander the Great.

Using advanced drone-deployed LiDAR and ground penetrating radar technologies, researchers from Macedonia’s Institute and Museum–Bitola and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt) are uncovering the mysteries of this once thriving city. The team announced their findings in a university press release.

“We’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what we can learn about this period,” Engin Nasuh—curator-advisor archaeologist at the National Institute and Museum–Bitola—said in the press release.

Ancient Macedonia was a small, initially insignificant kingdom in Greece. Fighting among major powers in the region—such as between the Athenians and Persians or the Spartans and Athenians, respectively—made it easy for Macedonia (under the heavy hand of King Philip II to stake its claim to power. The kingdom eventually expanded into an empire, most notably under Philip II’s son, Alexander the Great, but eventually fell under Roman control due to internal power struggles.

According to the release, experts initially dated the city back to King Philip V’s reign (221-179 B.C.), but later archaeological findings pushed estimates further back. A coin minted between 325 and 323 B.C. points to the city’s existence during Alexander the Great’s lifetime. But other artifacts including axe fragments and ceramic vessels have led researchers to believe humans could have inhabited the area as far back as the Bronze Age (3,300-1,200 B.C.).

Of the structures uncovered at the site, a Macedonian-style theater and textile workshop are among the most notable. Archaeologists have also discovered coins, axes and textile tools, game pieces, pottery, and even a clay theater ticket at the site, suggesting that the area was a thriving city before Rome’s rise to power, according to Nasuh.

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Trump administration weighs drone strikes on Mexican cartels

The Trump administration is considering launching drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico as part of an ambitious effort to combat criminal gangs trafficking narcotics across the southern border, according to six current and former U.S. military, law enforcement and intelligence officials with knowledge of the matter.

Discussions among White House, Defense Department and intelligence officials, which are still at an early stage, have included possible drone strikes against cartel figures and their logistical networks in Mexico with the cooperation of Mexico’s government, the sources said.

Still, the administration has made no final decision and reached no definitive agreement about countering the cartels. And unilateral covert action, without Mexico’s consent, has not been ruled out and could be an option of last resort, the sources said. It is unclear whether American officials have floated the possibility of drone strikes to the Mexican government.

If Mexico and the United States proceed together with drone strikes or other action, it would not be the first time they have launched a joint effort to take on the cartels, nor would it be the first time that American military and intelligence worked in concert with Mexico’s law enforcement and army.

But what the Trump administration is contemplating could be unprecedented both in the number of U.S. personnel involved and in the use of American unmanned aircraft to bomb cartel personnel and assets.

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Copperhead Torpedo-Like Underwater Kamikaze Drones Rolled Out By Anduril

Anduril has rolled out a new family of modular torpedo-like uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUV) called Copperhead. This includes kamikaze types designed with a particular eye toward arming larger uncrewed undersea platforms like the company’s Ghost Shark. Today’s announcement follows last week’s unveiling of the rapidly deployable Seabed Sentry submarine surveillance system that could also potentially be configured to launch UUVs, which TWZ was first to report on.

The Copperhead family of UUVs, which Anduril also refers to as autonomous undersea vehicles (AUV), currently consists of the 100 and 500-pound-class types, as well as “M” munition subvariants of each. The Copperhead-100 has an overall length of just under nine feet (approximately 2.7 meters) and is 12.75 inches in diameter, while the Copperhead-500 is just over 13 and a half feet (just over four meters) long and 21 inches wide. Exactly what kind of propulsion system either of the UUVs use is also not currently known, but the company says they can both reach top speeds in excess of 30 knots.

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US outpost not given proper air defenses before deadly attack

For three years the United States has been giving Ukraine everything it needs by way of offensive and defensive weapons in its war with Russia. Critically, this has included air defense systems, much of it taken from our own national stockpiles.

Now it turns out that our own troops may have been denied access to anti-drone air defense systems and more sophisticated radar detection months before a lethal attack on a small American outpost in Jordan on Jan. 18, 2024. The drone assault, reportedly launched by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an Iranian-backed militia group, resulted in the deaths of three American Army soldiers.

According to the Washington Post, which obtained access to the massive Army internal investigation of the incident through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the small outpost was ill-prepared for the attack on a number of levels. But this is key:

The investigation’s findings appear to have some contradictions. For instance, investigators faulted Tower 22’s leaders for failing to “visualize risk” and not appreciating the likelihood of an attack.

Yet commanders above them also failed to envision the base’s vulnerability. Four months before the attack, Army Central, which oversees operations throughout the Middle East, denied a request for an air defense system capable of shooting down drones because, investigators found, only one such system was available and troops in the United States needed it to prepare for deployments. A request for a radar system that could better detect drones also was denied, the report said.

The only counter-drone defenses at Tower 22 were electronic warfare systems designed to disable the aircraft or disrupt their path to a target, according to the investigation and previous reporting by The Post.

A spokesperson for Army Central did not respond to repeated requests for additional information, including regarding who at Army Central denied Tower 22’s appeal for an air defense system.

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Houthis Down Second MQ-9 Reaper Drone In 72 Hours

Yemen’s Houthis have claimed another shootdown of a US MQ-9 Reaper drone. The Thursday announcement, if accurate, would mark the second such Reaper drone downing by the group within 72 hours.

The country’s SABA news agency reported that the US drone was intercepted by an anti-air missile over the Hodeidah province, which has been subject of repeat US bombardment since President Trump ordered a renewed air campaign on March 15. 

Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin has offered some confirmation of the latest downing, writing on X “the Houthis shoot down 3rd MQ9 Reaper drone since March 3rd; 2nd since March 15th airstrike campaign began.”

“Another U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone was shot down by the Houthis in Yemen, sources tell Fox News. This is the third MQ-9 Reaper drone shot down by the Houthis in the last month,” she continued.

“It is the second MQ-9 drone shot down over Yemen since U.S. Central Command began daily airstrikes on the Houthis on March 15th. The U.S. military has carried out 20 straight days of bombing, and yet the Houthis continue to fire missiles.”

The Fox correspondent continued in the Thursday statement:

The first MQ-9 drone was shot down on March 3rd. Days later the White House launched airstrikes against the Houthis. The second MQ-9 was shot down on Monday. And today the 3rd one was shot down. Overnight the Houthis said the U.S. carried out 36 airstrikes on Yemen.

The Pentagon has kept silent, offering no confirmation, however. US officials have in the past acknowledged only some drone downings over Yemen, but don’t announce each one lost as they likely don’t want to give the Houthis any acknowledgement of a successful battlefield action.

If accurate, this would mark the 17th Reaper drone shot down by the Houthis since 2023. Still, President Trump is touting ‘successful’ operations in Yemen, also as a second aircraft carrier is en route from the Pacific to Mideast regional waters.

“Many of their Fighters and Leaders are no longer with us,” Trump said earlier this week on Truth Social. “We hit them every day and night — Harder and harder. Their capabilities that threaten Shipping and the Region are rapidly being destroyed. Our attacks will continue until they are no longer a threat to Freedom of Navigation.”

Trump added: “The choice for the Houthis is clear: Stop shooting at U.S. ships, and we will stop shooting at you. Otherwise, we have only just begun, and the real pain is yet to come, for both the Houthis and their sponsors in Iran.”

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CIA Flying Drones Over Mexico – Where Are The Spies?

Multiple news outlets are reporting that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is flying drones over Mexico to collect intelligence on drug cartels and fentanyl labs. Leaving aside for a moment the question of why the much bigger Department of Defense is not doing this, here are my questions. Where are our spies? Why are we reduced to taking pictures from the air to attempt to acquire intelligence on transnational terrorist organizations operating inside Mexico and, in fact, in our largest cities? Why don’t we have the cartels penetrated at every level by human sources?

It is the job of the CIA to crawl into the belly of the beast and obtain critical intelligence on the most serious threats facing this nation. It does not exist to produce lukewarm assessments saying that we have moderate confidence that North Korea remains to the north of South Korea. It exists to steal the crown jewels, to put on the desk of the President of the United States every day intelligence no one else on the planet has, and which gives the President a decisive advantage over our adversaries.

In its current incarnation, the CIA does not do that. It does not come close. It has superb personnel in most cases. Relative to its competitors it is awash in money and technical gear. It has however calcified over the years into a timid, risk-averse, bureaucracy run by people who rarely leave Northern Virginia and never met a PowerPoint presentation they didn’t like.

We were blindsided on 9/11 by a group that had been telling us about every five minutes for at least a decade they intended to attack us on our own soil. It took us ten years thereafter to track down Bin Laden principally because he had the good sense to stay off the internet and his cellphone, and we didn’t have any sources worthy of the name inside his organization.

In 2020 we were hit by a pandemic that almost certainly originated inside a Chinese bio lab that should have been at the very top of our list of collection requirements. We had no advance warning. Five years later we apparently still don’t have the intel we need to figure out what happened or if it is about to happen again.

Is DEI part of the problem? Yes, but the problem goes much deeper than that. We are attempting to conduct espionage using a bureaucracy that increasingly resembles the Social Security Administration.

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Israel Leveled Gaza — Then Killed the Drone Journalists Who Showed it to the World

Four years ago, Mahmoud Isleem al-Basos began messaging Shadi al-Tabatiby on social media, again and again, asking to join him on shoots. Al-Tabatiby, one of Gaza’s best-known drone journalists, didn’t pay much attention at first.

“But Mahmoud was persistent,” al-Tabatiby said. “So I told him, ‘Fine, I’ll meet you.’”

Twice, al-Tabatiby told al-Basos where he’d be filming; both times, al-Basos showed up and waited.

“There’s an age gap between us, but I love people who work hard and want to learn,” al-Tabatiby said. “I found that in Mahmoud.”

The two grew close, and al-Basos began joining al-Tabatiby on shoots.

Then came Israel’s war on Gaza. Al-Tabatiby, who was freelancing for The Associated Press, relocated to the south. Al-Basos stayed in the north. With movement between the two areas cut off by the Israeli military, they kept in touch.

Al-Tabatiby started assigning al-Basos shoots from afar, and the young journalist picked up work with international outlets, including Reuters and the Turkish news agency Anadolu.

Even after al-Tabatiby evacuated to Egypt a year ago, they stayed in close contact.

Two weeks ago, on March 15, al-Basos was filming preparations for a Ramadan iftar in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahia. The backdrop was a new expansion of a displacement camp opened by the London-based Al-Khair Foundation, which was paying al-Basos to film the event. Then two Israeli airstrikes hit the area. At least seven people were killed, including al-Basos.

“I was in shock,” Al-Tabatiby said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

He added, with incredulity, “We were in a ceasefire.”

Al-Basos became the fifth drone journalist to be killed by Israel since the start of the war in Gaza.

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Micro Missile-Slinging Drone-Killing Drone Concept Revealed By Airbus

Airbus has unveiled LOAD, a new anti-drone drone concept — an adapted target drone that will be armed with small air-to-air missiles, expressly designed to shoot down other uncrewed aerial vehicles. In recent years, we’ve seen a proliferation of single-use drones with explosive warheads that are designed to bring down other uncrewed aerial vehicles. However, a reusable anti-drone drone, armed with its own tiny missiles, appears to be something of a novelty.

Airbus revealed LOAD — which stands for Low-Cost Air Defense — at the DWT Unbemannte Systeme X uncrewed systems trade show in Bonn, Germany, today. The company says it wants to test fly an armed prototype by the end of the year, with a series-production ready by 2027.

LOAD is intended to be cheap and rapid to produce. Its starting point is the Do-DT25, a target drone originally developed by EADS of Germany and now an Airbus product. The company describes it as a medium-speed target able to simulate attack aircraft for short-range infrared missile training. It would also be applicable for simulating cruise missiles.

Using a target drone as the basis for a drone with a combat mission and weapons of their own is not unheard of. Previous other examples include the Kratos Air Wolf, which is based on the MQM-178 Firejet airborne target, and the larger UTAP-22 from the same company, which is based on the BQM-167A Skeeter target drone.

When adapted for LOAD, the drone is armed with miniature air-to-air missiles — two of these are shown under the wings in an Airbus concept artwork. Other reports state that it will carry three and, in the future, potentially more.

LOAD will be launched using a mobile pneumatic catapult — as used for the Do-DT25 — after which it will have an operational range of around 60 miles, providing a valuable increase in the reach of air defense networks. While the drone is intended to be cheap enough to be considered attritable, it will have the option of being recovered by parachute, after which it can be reused.

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Pentagon ‘still mystified’ as drone drama deepens

Objects exhibiting advanced technology continue to fly with complete impunity over sensitive military installations and critical infrastructure. Despite the Pentagon’s advanced imaging and sensor capabilities, the nature, purpose and origin of these enigmatic craft are unknown, raising an array of pressing national security concerns.

In interviews with “60 Minutes” earlier this month, two recently retired four-star Air Force generals and the Air Force commander overseeing North American airspace defense begrudgingly admitted that the “drones” that loitered in dramatic fashion over key military assets in recent years remain a confounding mystery.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told “60 Minutes” that, despite being “privy to classified briefings at the highest level,” the “Pentagon and the national security advisers are still mystified” by the repeated incursions.

Notably, the objects are impervious to electronic jamming efforts, indicating that they are not off-the-shelf hobbyist drones.

On their face, these incidents pose an alarming intelligence and espionage risk. In the most brazen incidents in recent years, the unknown craft displayed bright flashing lights as they hovered over sensitive facilities and assets.

Such conspicuous tactics are the opposite of basic intelligence collection tradecraft, which calls for stealth. Once exposed, any foreign surveillance operation is not only at risk of compromise, but of sparking a major geopolitical crisis.

Despite this, “dozens” of unknown, brightly illuminated objects hovered and flew with complete impunity over a critical Air Force base for 17 nights in 2023. Ditto for a series of audacious incursions over sensitive American military bases in the United Kingdom last year. In those incidents, witnesses reported dozens of brightly-lit craft “hovering” and exhibiting extreme performance characteristics while evading detection and multiple advanced counter-drone systems.

These enigmatic craft also demonstrate baffling flight dynamics that surpass any known technologies. For several months in 2019, for example, objects with bright flashing lights swarmed some of the Navy’s most advanced warships off the coast of southern California, often well over 100 miles offshore.

In the most detailed publicly available footage of one of these craft, the perplexed crew of the USS Omaha watched their infrared video display as a spherical object moved against strong winds before descending slowly into the ocean. The sphere was one of many “drones” tracked on radar swarming their ship that evening. Meanwhile, sailors positioned outside on the ship’s deck recorded multiple objects with bright flashing lights hovering and maneuvering around the Omaha.

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