Tag: drones

Are The Reported Drone Sightings In The U.S. Tied To Secret Military Activities In Romania?

Sighting of unexplained drones over the East Coast of the United States in recent weeks has created a great deal of public uproar and the U.S. government has refused to provide any plausible explanation about what is going on. This implies either some sort of cover up or blatant incompetence. Security analyst Mike Benz has pointed to a possible link between the sightings and secret military activities in Romania.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Benz wrote “The US is preparing to park a giant fleet of military drones on Romania’s Black Sea coast upon completion of NATO’s largest military base in Europe there. Could that be related to large fleets of drones potentially being tested along US coastlines this month?”

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Drones continue to buzz over US bases. The military isn’t sure why or how to stop them

A series of drone sightings over military bases across the country has renewed concerns that the US doesn’t have clear government-wide policy for how to deal with unauthorized incursions that could potentially pose a national security threat.

“We’re one year past Langley drone incursions and almost two years past the PRC spy balloon. Why don’t we have a single [point of contact] who is responsible for coordination across all organizations in the government to address this?” the recently retired head of US Northern Command and NORAD, Gen. Glen VanHerck, told CNN. “Instead, everybody’s pointing their fingers at each other saying it’s not our responsibility.”

Indeed, there have been multiple instances of drone incursions over military bases since mysterious drone swarms were spotted around Joint Base Langley-Eustis and other sensitive military sites in Virginia last year, and since a Chinese spy balloon transited the continental US in 2023.

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AI Drone Swarms And Autonomous Vessels: Palantir Co-Founder Warns How Warfare Is About To Change Forever

Billionaire venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale is urging for a shift in U.S. military strategy, criticizing the costly, failed attempts to rebuild nations like Afghanistan while championing tech-driven solutions.

Lonsdale, a co-founder of Palantir and investor in Anduril Industries, told podcast host Dave Rubin this week that he envisions a future where autonomous weaponized vessels, AI-powered drones, and microwave-based defense systems replace traditional combat, minimizing risk and maximizing efficiency. Lonsdale argued these innovations can protect American interests without spilling the blood of U.S. troops.

.@JTLonsdale Predicts The Future of Warfare: AI Drone Swarms, Autonomous Vessels, and Microwave Weapons

“We wasted a ton of money in Afghanistan. I think we had stupid adventures. I was very for our technology helping fight and kill thousands of terrorists. I was very for… pic.twitter.com/ZADkbRs9ri

— CAPITAL (@capitalnewshq) December 22, 2024

DAVE RUBIN: Do you think technology can solve our [national security] problems? Wars are going to look very, very different from now. Even from what they look like right now.

JOE LONSDALE: This is a big thing. I think we wasted a ton of money in Afghanistan. I think we had stupid adventures. I was very for our technology helping fight and kill thousands of terrorists. I was very for eliminating the bad guys. I was very against putting trillions of dollars into these areas to try to rebuild a broken civilization, which is not our job to do. We should have been building our civilization. I’m very pro-America, but part of being pro-America is fighting these wars without sacrificing American lives and keeping people very scared of us so that we don’t have to fight, and they do what they’re supposed to do. We have a bunch of companies right now that are kind of replacing the way the primes work. And so, for example, in the water, you want to have thousands or tens of thousands of smart and enabled autonomous weaponized vessels of different sorts that coordinate together. That’s what you want. And then, on the land, you know, we sent 31 tanks to Ukraine, and 20 destroyed.

For the same cost or even less, you could have sent 10,000 tiny little vehicles that are smart, have weapons on the fight, and are coordinated. There are all these new ways you can use mass production with advanced manufacturing and AI, and you don’t put American lives at risk. You turn the bad guys, and for much cheaper, you can do it.

Then the other one is really cool, just mentioned, we have the enemy also has, like, you see China where they fly hundreds of thousands of drones. It’s crazy. So we have something called Epirus, which is now deployed. It’s like a force field, but it’s a burst of microwave radiation in a cone. We can turn off hundreds of drones per shot from miles away.

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Coast Guardsman Blasts Biden Regime for ‘Making Sh-t Up’ After Vessel Tailed by Fleet of Drones

Tensions are rising among Coast Guardsmen stationed in Barnegat Light as the Biden administration continues to dismiss accounts of a mysterious swarm of drones tailing a U.S. Coast Guard rescue vessel earlier this month.

What began as a routine patrol quickly turned into an unsettling encounter, leaving many sailors demanding answers—and respect.

A member of the Coast Guard, speaking anonymously to The New York Post, expressed outrage over the administration’s flippant dismissal of their firsthand experiences.

“It’s the implication that’s insulting,” the Guardsman said. “It’s implying we’re making sh-t up, when the ones making up sh-t are down in Washington, D.C.”

The alleged incident involved a fleet of 12 to 30 drones shadowing a 47-foot Coast Guard rescue vessel during a patrol of the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the sailor, the drones appeared suddenly around 9 p.m., maintained a steady pace with the vessel cruising at 20 knots, and maneuvered in a way no commercial aircraft could.

“I’m terrible with measurements, but [the swarm] was about 80 to 100 feet above us. They had four propellers. Seven feet across. The flashing lights, like you’ve seen. The festive green, red, and white lights.”

“Commercial airplanes don’t move like that,” he said. “I’ve been out there [on the water] when planes were coming in for landings in New York, and trust me, you can tell the difference. We’re not idiots, we know what drones look and sound like.”

Despite these detailed accounts, federal officials, including White House spokesman John Kirby, dismissed the reports.

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Ukrainian Drones Pummel Russian City Over 600 Miles From Front Line

Ukraine’s drone and missile attacks deep inside Russia have already been a near daily occurrence, but now these projectiles are reaching further and further into Russia, often utilize Western-supplied weapon systems.

“Ukraine brought the war into the heart of Russia Saturday morning with drone attacks that local authorities said damaged residential buildings in the city of Kazan in the Tatarstan region, over 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the front line,” The Associated Press reports Saturday.

The regional governor said that eight drones attacked the city, with anti-air defenses only able to shoot down one. The others hit residential buildings and an industrial facility. 

No casualties were indicated by emergency services, but the attacks halted flights at Kazan’s airport, and all public gatherings were canceled due to the threat of more possible inbound drones.

The last several days have seen deadly attacks on Rostov and Kursk regions. The several waves of assaults involved US-provided ATACMS, UK-provided Storm Shadow missiles, as well as a HIMARS attack which occurred Friday.

The Russian Defense Ministry said: “These actions by the Kiev regime supported by Western handlers won’t be left unanswered.”

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Nuclear Power Plants Report Massive Uptick In Drone Sightings

The number of drone flyovers of nuclear plants for the entire year nearly doubled in one week, from December 10th to December 17th, according to data provided to The War Zone by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Between Jan. 1 and Dec.10, nuclear facility licensees reported a total of 15 drone events. As of about 1 p.m. Dec., 17, that number had jumped to 26, NRC spokesman Dave McIntyre told The War Zone on Friday in response to our query. While the timeline overlaps with a rash of drone sightings across the country and especially in the New Jersey area – including over military installations and energy infrastructure – it is unclear at the moment what, if any, connection there is to the dramatic increase in suspicious drone events over nuclear facilities.

“…before January 2024, nuclear power plant licensees voluntarily reported flyovers by uncrewed aerial systems, such as drones, to the Federal Aviation Administration; law enforcement (local and the FBI); and the NRC,” McIntyre told The War Zone. “Because reporting was voluntary, our information may not reflect the total number of UAS overflights of nuclear power plants.”

Once a flyover is reported, he added, “the NRC provides the specifics to other agencies for follow-up, including the FBI. The NRC does not investigate this type of activity once it has been reported.”

We reached out to the NRC, FBI, FAA and Department of Homeland Security for more context about these flyovers. We will update this story with any pertinent information provided.

The most recent publicly known drone sightings were over the Public Service Energy & Gas (PSEG) Nuclear Salem and Hope Creek generating stations, located at Lower Alloways Creek Township, in Salem County, New Jersey.

“Yes, drones were seen in the vicinity of Salem and Hope Creek (they’re the same site) last weekend,” NRC spokesperson Diane Screnci told us on Dec. 20. She did not provide a specific date, but a PSE&G spokesperson issued a statement saying that a flyover occurred on Dec 14.

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Police Data: N.J. Drone Sightings Concentrated Along Airport Flight Paths

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a UFO! It’s an Iranian mothership! It’s a radiation probe! Or maybe it’s really just a plane. The wave of alleged noctural drone sightings in New Jersey has led to some wild theories about what the mysterious lights in the sky could be.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R–N.J.) claimed that the drones were coming from an Iranian “mothership” in the Atlantic Ocean, then retracted his claim after the Pentagon denied it. (The Iranian navy does have a sort of aircraft carrier for drones—and publicly-available satellite imagery shows that it’s still sitting in the Persian Gulf.) The mayor of Belleville, New Jersey, claimed the drones were part of a secret search operation for missing radioactive material, although the materials have already been recovered. Rep. Nancy Mace (R–S.C.) even asked whether it could be aliens from outer space.

But there might be a simpler explanation. Gov. Phil Murphy has suggested that at least some of the sightings were just normal air traffic misidentified by over-eager drone spotters. Police documents obtained by Reason under the New Jersey Open Public Records Act back up that theory. A map of drone reports produced by the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office shows a dense concentration of sightings along the flight path of airliners leaving New York City.

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Mystery Drones Have Stalked US For Years

A sudden spike in unidentified drone sightings in the northeastern United States is unnerving residents and lawmakers alike. Similar incidents have occurred for years, however, with little apparent action from the government.

Drone sighting reports in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia over the past month have raised questions about the possibility that drones are being used to surveil or attack U.S. infrastructure.

The sightings follow several high-profile incidents in recent months, including at U.S. military facilities throughout the country and in the UK and Germany.

The White House has downplayed the incidents and denied that there is any evidence of a sustained threat to public safety.

“We have not identified anything anomalous or any national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the Northeast,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Dec. 16.

Kirby did acknowledge that drones had penetrated restricted airspace, however, including that of the Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, and Picatinny Arsenal military research facility in New Jersey.

Although such sightings are currently receiving a lot of media attention, there have been several high-profile drone incidents in the past half-decade for which the federal government has yet to formally account.

Five years ago, for example, groups of large drones began appearing off the coast of California. They stalked and surveilled several Navy and Coast Guard ships, including the technologically advanced guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt.

The incident caused alarm throughout the military and incurred a joint investigation by elements of the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and FBI. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commander of the Pacific Fleet were kept apprised of the situation.

No administration nor the Department of Defense has publicly stated what the drones were seeking to accomplish or who was operating them.

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Drone Detection System Used in Ukraine War May Be Deployed to East Coast

The state-of-the-art Robin Radar System, currently being used in the Ukraine war to detect drones, may soon be deployed to investigate the perplexing mystery drone sightings throughout the East Coast.

ABC News reports that to help crack the enigma of mystery drones spotted all around New England, officials have requested the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deploy the cutting-edge Robin Radar System.

Developed by Robin Radar USA, the drone detection radar system has its roots in technology designed to detect flocks of birds near airports to prevent collisions with aircraft. Since 2014, the company has focused on creating drone-detecting technology that not only locates drones but also classifies small moving objects, distinguishing between drones, rotary, fixed-wing, and even filtering out birds or large insects.

Kris Brost, general director of Robin Radar USA, explained that the radar works by bouncing radio waves off objects, tracking their flying patterns in real-time, and beaming data back to a laptop computer with a 360-degree, 3D view of the airspace. The system has a range of about 3.1 miles and can detect objects flying at altitudes of up to two miles.

One of the key advantages of the Robin Radar System is its lightweight and mobile nature, allowing it to be installed on police cruisers or other vehicles for use on the move. While the system cannot determine if a drone has been weaponized, it can help investigators track the drone’s movements and potentially obtain its remote identification, even if operators attempt to modify their drones to avoid detection.

The Robin Radar System has already proven its worth on the battlefield in Ukraine, aiding Ukrainian military forces in locating incoming Russian weaponized drones. Brost noted that the war in Ukraine was a turning point for the company, highlighting the compelling needs and valuable data collected from the environment.

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FAA Restricting Flight Areas …Will Shoot Them Down If Necessary

The federal government is drawing a line in the sand — or, more accurately, the air — when it comes to the mysterious drones zooming around New Jersey … restricting the areas where they can fly and promising deadly force to those presenting a threat.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced the news this week … putting the ban into effect beginning Wednesday and running through at least January 17, 2025.

According to the new rules, drones are restricted from flying within a nautical mile of specified airspace outlined in the department’s official Notice to Airmen.

These include areas around Jersey City, Elizabeth, Camden, North and South Brunswick and many more highly populated areas of NJ.

We reached out to the FAA … and they say they published “22 Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) prohibiting drone flights over critical New Jersey infrastructure” at the behest of their federal security partners.

According to the FAA, those who violate this airspace could have their drones intercepted and operators themselves could be detained and interviewed.

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