Last year’s mystery drone swarms are back in the headlines. After the change of administration, the FAA suddenly came clean and took responsibility for the ones hovering over the east coast. That, everyone thought, was the end of it, even though nobody explained why the FAA didn’t simply fess up in the beginning. Now, it turns out that the swarms dramatically “loitering” over and around “key military assets in recent years” are still a “confounding mystery.”
Drone controversy continues
The Pentagon is concerned about drone like “objects” that have been “exhibiting advanced technology.”
What really makes them nervous is how they “continue to fly with complete impunity over sensitive military installations and critical infrastructure.” There’s nothing anyone can do to stop them and they might not be drones.
The Defense Department has hauled out all their “advanced imaging and sensor capabilities” to use against the drone attacks. They still don’t know what they really are or who’s flying them.
Maybe even “what’s” flying them. “The nature, purpose and origin of these enigmatic craft are unknown, raising an array of pressing national security concerns.”
After the big shake up in the Pentagon there are a whole bunch of unemployed generals. “Two recently retired four-star Air Force generals and the Air Force commander overseeing North American airspace defense” sat down with “60 Minutes” earlier this month to talk about the “drone” threat.
They “begrudgingly admitted” that the “drones” that “loitered in dramatic fashion over key military assets” in recent years “remain a confounding mystery.”
National security mystified
Also on the panel to talk about the drone threat was Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker. The Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee verified that the “Pentagon and the national security advisers are still mystified” by the “repeated incursions.”
He’s been “privy to classified briefings at the highest level.” The NSA is stumped.
The intelligence community is really spooked because if China or Russia is behind the sophisticated drone technology we’re in deep trouble. If it’s not the Russians, Chinese or any of our other traditional enemies then things are even worse.
One thing the panel agreed about is that “the objects are impervious to electronic jamming efforts, indicating that they are not off-the-shelf hobbyist drones.” They might not even be off any human production line.
Everyone aboard the USS Omaha at the time will never forget catching infrared video footage of an unknown craft behaving more than a little odd. The “spherical object moved against strong winds before descending slowly into the ocean.”
They still call it a drone but aren’t really sure. What they can say is that it was only “one of many” they tracked “swarming their ship that evening.“
