Tag: drones

UFO drones are surveilling America’s most sensitive military sites — and the Pentagon says it can’t stop them

Fleets of dozens of mysterious UFO drones are surveilling America’s most sensitive military sites, and the Pentagon admits it can’t do much to stop the aerial intruders, according to a new report.

Drones of unknown origin have been spotted flying over military bases in Virginia and Nevada over the past year, including the secret base for the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six commando unit and Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval port, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Federal laws, however, prohibit the military from shooting down the drones over the potential risks to troops and civilians.

Jamming their signals was also ruled out in high level White House meetings, according to the Journal — over concerns that it could interfere with 911 systems, WiFi network and commercial airliners.

The result is that the Pentagon has little recourse to halt the potential surveillance from foreign adversaries.

Former US Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly was first made aware of the drone sightings in December 2023, where officials at the Langley Air Force Base along the Virginia coast reported seeing dozens of drones flying over the base at night, according to the WSJ.

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Drones Penetrate North Korean Air Defenses To Drop Propaganda Leaflets On Pyongyang

North Korea has accused South Korea of using drones to scatter propaganda leaflets over its capital, Pyongyang. The incident today comes after waves of excrement and trash-filled balloons launched by North Korea into the South, which started this summer, and during a period of overall worsening tensions on the peninsula overall.

Photos released by the North Korean state news agency KCNA are of fairly poor quality, but appear to show triangular objects, perhaps broadly similar in configuration to the Israeli Harop long-range one-way attack drone. Other views suggest not so much a delta-wing platform as a swept-winged one, reminiscent of the U.S.-made ScanEagle long-endurance, low-altitude drone. It could also be the case that a variety of different drones were used for the airdrop mission.

These drones, in turn, are shown seemingly releasing small objects. The news agency describes these objects as “scattered leaflets,” or as “bundles of leaflets.”

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Protective Nets To Shield F-22s Eyed For Airbase Swarmed By Mystery Drones

U.S. Air Force officials at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia are looking at installing anti-drone nets to help protect F-22 Raptor stealth fighters on the flightline. This comes nearly a year after the base was subjected to waves of still-mysterious drone incursions, which The War Zone was first to report. It also underscores the U.S. military’s continued lag when it comes to responding to the very real threats posed by uncrewed aerial systems, at home and aboard, and particular hurdles to doing so domestically.

Langley’s 633rd Contracting Squadron put out a notice on October 4 asking for information about potential counter-drone netting that could be installed around up to 42 existing open-ended sunshade-type shelters at the base. Langley, now technically part of Joint Base Langley-Eustis, is one of a select few bases to host F-22s and is a key component of the Air Force’s posture to defend the U.S. homeland.

The 633rd “is in the process of determining the acquisition strategy to obtain non-personal services for the Unmanned Ariel Services (UAS) Netting for East Ramp Metal Sunshades,” according to the contracting notice. “The intention of the netting is to deter and ultimately prevent the intrusion of UAS’s near airmen and aircraft. This initial sunshade netting installation on the metal sunshade (bay Alpha 1) shall serve as a proof of concept for the remaining sunshades.”

The “netting should be capable of disabling a Group 1/ “Small” Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), such as the DJI Matrice 300 RTK, while remaining attached,” the notice explains. Per the U.S. military’s definitions, drones in Group 1 can have weights of up to 20 pounds, fly up to 1,200 feet, and reach speeds of up to 100 knots.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Orders Suspension of Private Drone Flights in North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene Flood Zone — Immediately Issues Clarification After Backlash

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has ordered a suspension of private drone flights in North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene flood zone, only to backtrack amid intense backlash.

The deadly storm has left a trail of destruction across North Carolina, with 94 confirmed deaths in the western part of the state alone. Hundreds remain unaccounted for, and residents are desperate for help.

However, instead of expediting rescue efforts, FEMA and the Biden administration seem more focused on suppressing the efforts of private citizens who stepped up where the federal response has faltered.

Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation took to social media to announce, Drone pilots: Do not fly your drone near or around rescue and recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene. Interfering with emergency response operations impacts search and rescue operations on the ground.”

Many on social media rightfully pointed out the absurdity of the ban.

One user wrote, “The USDOT and FAA don’t know drones are saving lives and aiding rescue efforts by flying insulin to inaccessible regions, locating trapped and isolated individuals, and providing imagery to the world.”

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Call Of Duty Comes To Life: Armed Robo-Dogs, Hypersonic Missiles, & Kamikaze Drones Deployed On Modern Battlefields

The Middle East is on the brink of a regional war as the world awaits Israel’s retaliation strike against Iran. President Biden, on Thursday morning, told reporters he was in talks with Israel about possibly striking Iran’s oil facilities. He said, “We’re discussing that.” 

It’s really not hard to imagine if conflict broadens into a regional shitstorm—the modern battlefield would be like the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare video game. Just this week, Iran launched waves of ballistic missiles, including hypersonic ones.

Iran-backed terror organizations around Israel have recently launched countless loitering munitions, or “kamikaze drones,” attacks on the country and commercial shipping in the maritime chokepoint of the Southern Red Sea.  

The newest tech entering the battlefield, already present in Eastern Europe but now being trialed in the Middle East, is armed robot dogs equipped with artificial intelligence, high-tech sensors, and rifles.

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Woman’s insurance canceled after drone flies over her home

A woman had her insurance canceled after a drone flew over her home.

According to CBS News,a woman from Modesto, California told CBS Sacramento that her home insurance company of nearly 40 years dropped her coverage because of what it spotted with a drone.

Joan Van Kuren told CBS that she’s been renovating her home for more than three years, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to have her driveway redone, her kitchen updated and bathroom renovated, among other changes and upgrades.

“It was amazing,” Van Kuren told CBS when asked how it felt to get all the projects finished. “It was wonderful because it took forever.”

Soon after, however, Van Kuren said she was notified by letter that her home insurance company of nearly four decades, CSAA, had dropped her. According to CBS, the company cited a substantial increase in hazards with clutter or unsanitary conditions, with the letter calling it an unacceptable hazard and liability exposure.

Van Kuren told the network’s reporters that she decided to contact CSAA about the decision.

“She said they flew a drone over the home,” Van Kuren told CBS. “It almost feels like someone’s looking in your windows, you know, when they tell you that they flew a drone over your home and looked at it. It’s like, whoa.”

According to CBS, CSAA told Van Kuren that there was debris on the left side of the house.

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Backyard Privacy in the Age of Drones

Police departments and law enforcement agencies are increasingly collecting personal information using drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles. In addition to high-resolution photographic and video cameras, police drones may be equipped with myriad spying payloads, such as live-video transmitters, thermal imaging, heat sensors, mapping technology, automated license plate readers, cell site simulators, cell phone signal interceptors and other technologies. Captured data can later be scrutinized with backend software tools like license plate readers and face recognition technology. There have even been proposals for law enforcement to attach lethal and less-lethal weapons to drones and robots. 

Over the past decade or so, police drone use has dramatically expanded. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Atlas of Surveillance lists more than 1500 law enforcement agencies across the US that have been reported to employ drones. The result is that backyards, which are part of the constitutionally protected curtilage of a home, are frequently being captured, either intentionally or incidentally. In grappling with the legal implications of this phenomenon, we are confronted by a pair of U.S. Supreme Court cases from the 1980s:California v. Ciraolo and Florida v. Riley. There, the Supreme Court ruled that warrantless aerial surveillance conducted by law enforcement in low-flying manned aircrafts did not violate the Fourth Amendment because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy from what was visible from the sky. Although there are fundamental differences between surveillance by manned aircrafts and drones, some courts have extended the analysis to situations involving drones, shutting the door to federal constitution challenges.

Yet, Americans, legislators, and even judges, have long voiced serious worries with the threat of rampant and unchecked aerial surveillance. A couple of years ago, the Fourth Circuit found in Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department that a mass aerial surveillance program (using manned aircrafts) covering most of the city violated the Fourth Amendment. The exponential surge in police drone use has only heightened the privacy concerns underpinning that and similar decisions. Unlike the manned aircrafts in Ciraolo and Riley, drones can silently and unobtrusively gather an immense amount of data at only a tiny fraction of the cost of traditional aircrafts. Additionally, drones are smaller and easier to operate and can get into spaces—such as under eaves or between buildings—that planes and helicopters can never enter. And the noise created by manned airplanes and helicopters effectively functions as notice to those who are being watched, whereas drones can easily record information surreptitiously.

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DNC Convention Features Former CIA Director Who Was in Charge of Drone Programs that Killed Thousands

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta (2009-2011) was among the featured speakers on the final day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago on August 22 when Kamala Harris accepted the party’s nomination as its presidential candidate.

In his remarks, Panetta reinvoked the supposed glory days of the Obama administration when he gave the order to U.S. Special Forces to assassinate Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

Panetta said that Harris would fit the bill as a “tough commander-in-chief to defend the USA against tyrants and terrorists.”

According to Panetta, Harris “knows a tyrant when she sees one” and “will stand up to them”—unlike Donald Trump, whom Panetta suggested had coddled dictators such as Vladimir Putin and effectively told them “they could do whatever they want.”

Panetta said that Trump is intent on “bringing back a new era of isolationism in U.S. foreign policy,” which the U.S. “foolishly and dangerously adopted in the 1930s.”

Quoting from Ronald Reagan, Panetta emphasized that “isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical government.”

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‘There is a risk of a nuclear incident at the Kursk nuclear power plant,’ warns IAEA, blames Ukraine for drone strikes on plant

As the expanding frontline inches within just a few kilometers of the Kursk nuclear power plant in Russia, there are fears there could be a major nuclear disaster.

“There is a risk of a nuclear incident at the Kursk nuclear power plant,” said Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), after visiting the facility in Kurchatov, in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, on Tuesday.

He added that he had seen evidence of drone strikes during his visit to the plant.

“I was told today that there have been several cases of drone attacks on the site (the site of the Kursk nuclear power plant), on the facilities. The fact that there is fighting a few kilometers away from the nuclear power plant raises great concerns and anxiety about the security system,” Grossi added.

He stressed that under no circumstances should a nuclear power plant be the target of military action, nor should it be used by either side for military purposes. The director general also said that the security systems of a plant must be fully operational under all circumstances.

Grossi noted that the IAEA delegation was shown the traces of the Ukrainian attack on the Kursk nuclear power plant. Based on the evidence his team gathered, he said there could be no doubt that Ukraine carried out these strikes and where they came from.

Putin also announced on Thursday that Ukraine had attempted a drone strike on the Kursk nuclear power plant.

Grossi, who said that he had visited the reactor hall, the engine room, and the control room of an operating power plant unit — as well as the spent nuclear fuel storage — found that the Kursk plant was operating at what is very close to “normal” mode.

He stressed that the IAEA is responsible for maintaining nuclear safety and security in nuclear installations worldwide. He said that he had accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to visit the Kursk nuclear power plant with his team to assess the situation personally and to find solutions together with his Russian counterparts. Earlier in the day, the IAEA director general was received by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

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How Israel’s quadcopters traumatise, maim and kill Palestinians in Gaza

In the course of more than ten months, Israel unleashed an array of weaponry in its genocidal war on the Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave, killing and wounding thousands. One of the most deadly weapons in Israel’s arsenal is the quadcopter. 

A drone with four propellers, the quadcopter follows its targets in different spaces, including narrow alleys of streets, tents, and inside houses. The 1.6-metre Quadcopter is electronically controlled remotely. It can easily take off and move vertically and horizontally for military or civilian service. It weighs about ten kilograms only. 

Usually, the Israeli army deploys quadcopters for intelligence purposes to facilitate its mission on the ground. Nevertheless, the Israeli army have equipped these drones with explosive devices, transforming them into deadly suicide attacks.

Dozens of quadcopters have so far killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians by launching guided missiles. 

“Quadcaptors have killed about 1,000 Palestinians, including 350 women and 150 children, during the current genocidal war,” the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza noted in a recent press statement. 

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