Off topic, but in Reader View the page seems to apply a Caesar Cipher with shift one on the content after a couple of seconds to make reading annoying.
Do you have Adblock extensions? For another data point, I’m using iOS/safari through a Pi-hole and see the article fine. I wonder if it’s triggered by certain extensions.
I used to work for the Denver post - them and quite a few other newspapers have been bought out by a venture (vulture) capital firm that lays off most of the staff and then makes nonsensical moves like this to dry and drive short term revenue. Absolutely brutal loss of historied local news organizations.
It’s a huge shame this is happening, but more of a shame that no at the paper successfully innovated to survive the switch to digital.
Seems like this is the new norm and while I do feel the skies should be free to an extent I know this would concern me if it were happening over my head.
Just out of curiosity, why would it concern you? I live in a semi-rural tourism-heavy town and get a fair few drones in the vicinity of my house due to a major tourist site nearby, and it never really bothers me unless they fly low enough for the sound to get annoying.
They might be using cameras on my home or family. They might be testing some kind of radar or other tech that has a health impact. They might be a competitor assessing my crops. More broadly their very presence is a trespass on my right to live and be left alone on my own property.
I totally agree.
Infact the FAA owes me money if they allowed drones below 400ft.
This is a taking of my property. I own up to 400 feet.
If these drones want to follow the roads that is fine with me.
Don't tread on my private property.
The article is just a grid pattern nearby, but I was imagining something like a drone hovering over your place indefinitely. I'm uncomfortable with the use of high precision cameras, especially infrared or heat cameras pointed at my house. It's technically legal， sure, but knowing when I leave and return, where I am in the house, etc. I could just imagine it feeling like an invasion of privacy. Also, imagine a stalker using one of these.
No reason to be concerned as long as local laws are being followed, which it sounds like is the case. Below 400ft above ground is fair game for everyone, as normal air traffic does not fly that low, making it perfectly safe.
Perhaps I'm wrong to frame it as a privacy issue, but I have a large problem with allowing people to be harassed for lawful actions. If the law says I can do something, and I do it, I shouldn't be required to explain why I did it.
I have no problem with people not wanting drones flying over their properties, and I have no problem with a collective decision that people's privacy should supersede the right to fly drones in public airspace (indeed, I'd probably agree with it). But that should be enforced by a change in law, not by an demand that someone justify their supposedly legal actions.
Because growing, selling, and possessing cannabis is illegal under US federal law, and if you are a organizer, manager, or supervisor deriving substantial income from such an operation conducted with 5 or more other individuals, you can be charged wih a felony with a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence for a first offense, and if the operation handles enough product or makes enough money, the minimum sentence moves up to life without possibility of parole.
There's a current federal law that prohibits initiating prosecutions for cannabis operations that are permitted under state-level medical marijuana laws, but that doesn't negate the offense, it just means any charges that would be covered by the prohibition (which violations not strictly with medical marijuana laws.are technically not) are delayed as long as the policy is in effect.
> They have legal cannabis in Colorado.
No, they have a situation in which some cannabis trade is prohibited by only one of the two applicable sovereigns.
I know neither farming nor IR technology so let me ask: is there really publicly available technology that allows a person to identify a crop at a few hundred feet at those speeds in the dark from a drone?
If it's an indoor grow, then the tried and true method is to look for unusual heat sources. E.g. a house with a roof that's bright in IR, where all the neighboring roofs are dark. If it's an outdoor grow, I have no idea.
With satellite remote-sensing (for example Landsat) it was designed to identify different types of vegetation using wave-lengths, including ones not visible to the human eye. I imagine if you're much closer it could be possible to identify plant-types.
My god this has to be one of the worst news sites I've ever seen. Do these publishers have no shame? I got two full screen video ads with audio on mobile and it dragged my brand new Pixel phone to a crawl.
> He urged people not to try to shoot the drones down, both because their batteries can cause intense fires and also because shooting a drone is a federal crime.
Shooting an inanimate object hovering over your property is illegal? ... on the federal level? I suppose it would have to be, but...
Edit:
Now I know: "Under Title 18 of the United State Code 32, the sabotage of an unmanned aircraft could carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison." [0]
I mean, same reason why you can't shoot down an airliner flying 30,000 feet above your house with a homemade Stinger missile or whatever--the airspace is not your property
Your ownership of the air rights above your property is limited, but the exact height at which your rights stop isn't always clearly defined. For sure everything above 500' is not yours, but depending on other factors that number may be lower.
This sounds like a commercial operation. They're obeying the law, staying below 400ft, and operating in a rural area. It seems like the news articles are doing their best to make this sound bad when there's nothing nefarious going on.
The article states that small drones must be flown during daylight hours according to the regulations. These drones are flown at night, which means they would be in violation of those rules.
These drones don’t sound like small drones, and the article points out that these are likely over 55 lbs, and therefore subject to different regulations.
The article also suggests that these are not small drones and thus likely not covered under the regulations mentioned.
Also, from the article: "they emerge each night around 7 p.m. and disappear around 10 p.m.". 7-10 p.m. isn't night, it's evening. Yes, in the US it's (probably?) dark by then this time of the year, but maybe they're following some regulation that is defined in terms of time of the day, and not the amount of daylight?
14 CFR § 1.1: "Night means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac, converted to local time."
Please note that sputnik is a Russian propaganda outlet 100% financed by the state and known to peddle disinformation. Sometimes they mix good content in to seem serious/relevant, bit even then it often has a spin. In short: you should take everything on sputnik with a massive chunk of salt and I'd recommend to always look for alternative articles.
He urged people not to try to shoot the drones down, both because their batteries can cause intense fires and also because shooting a drone is a federal crime.
“It becomes a self-generating fire that burns until it burns itself out,” he said. “If you shoot a drone down over your house and it lands on your house, you might not have a house in 45 minutes.”
Maybe. In a related note, if you shoot my car until it crashes, it may catch fire and burn everything around it. People probably shouldn't do that either
6ft hovering drones? Hovered over a town all night? These are unusual drones. You have to put engineering effort in to keep a drone up for more than 30 minutes and 6ft is really big for a hovering drone.
Right? At that point you’re trading off between useful payload and batteries. I’m wondering if maybe they’re witnessing a loiter pattern, and misrepresenting is as a hover. These likely aren’t aerospace Engineers giving quotes here.
A 6ft fixed wing drone could fairly easily achieve what’s described in the article if it was really a loiter, not a hover. A multirotor would be an engineering feat.
30 ft wingspan powered glider drone made from composite materials would be even more energy-efficient. Multirotor drones have low energy densities and waste it rapidly.
Other aspects to consider are that the “drones” are replaced by others as batteries deplete or that the drones aren’t really there as long as people believe.
It’s possible that someone is doing this as a hobby for artistic, conspiracy theory “reconnaissance“ or benign data gathering-purposes or conducting some sort of investigation or intelligence gathering.
A 6ft wingspan fixed wing "drone" is easy enough to build for several hours of flight endurance. It won't be able to exactly hover, but it could fly circles at slow speed, making the impression of barely moving if positioned high enough up.
Whatever they’re doing out there, it sounds like a lot of fun. Considering that they seem to be following the letter of the law, I’m fairly certain this is some sort of commercial operation. I can see a defense contractor using a large multirotor craft to test some new payloads, like night vision optical or IR sensors. If the 30 minute hover is to be believed, they must be a multirotor of some sort.
Slightly OT, but I suggest reading the book "Army of none" by Paul Scharre to anyone who wishes to learn more about autonomous aircraft, drones, and the impact of AI on warfare.
Could it be new Thz radars being tested? They could fit in a large drone easily and be used for close flight formation(they have collision detection) and also to scan nearby terrain(they penetrate vegetation cover).
https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/industrial_strength/archive/2017...https://www.foxtechfpv.com/77ghz-millimeter-wave-obstacle-av... (similar stuff costs about 300$, but these drones have probably something much more powerful and heavier, for military or government agencies)
https://www.i-micronews.com/radar-to-spot-the-bad-guys-from-... (China is developing something similar too)
“We mounted a prototype on a drone and recently conducted test flights in Shaanxi province,” Li said. “A typical application of the radar in the future can be drone-based to help with large-scale detection of explosive-carrying terrorists or the placement of improvised explosive devices. This will be much more efficient and safer than deploying a lot of security personnel to do the same work.”
Lots of people are seeing the drones. If you start and land dark it's probably pretty easy to have the drones in your line of sight without being seen yourself.
It may currently be legal, but this isn't an acceptable long term framework. If you're flying below the regulation ceiling, you should need a line of sight operator and landowner approval. Above that you should need a transponder and rough flight plan – just like regular aviation. At no point should an operation be opaque to local law enforcement.
If there is no property being damaged, no law being violated, why does law enforcement need to be involved at all?
Law enforcement doesn't have to have an answer or info about every single event.
If I'm driving a car down the highway, law enforcement doesn't need to know where I am going or why. I'm not breaking any laws and not infringing on anyone's rights.
As a pilot I can go fly my plane at any altitude I wish as long as I am not entering any controlled airspace. I don't have to ask or tell anyone what I'm doing.
So why do they need to know why I'm flying my drone and where I'm going?
> As a pilot I can go fly my plane at any altitude I wish as long as I am not entering any controlled airspace.
Well, no. That’s not true. Firstly there are rules about the altitude you can fly at when it’s greater than 3000’, and second you are required to file a flight plan any time you are flying IFR.
That's not for security or some sense of needing to know what someone is doing. It's so that ATC can effectively route and deconflict traffic. If a UAS is ever operating IFR it must do the same.
It was a general statement that applies to the scenario being discussed in the article.
If you want to get pedantic, you're also required to file a flight plan if there is some restriction in place requiring such for the area you are flying in. For example a TFR, or operation in an ADIZ or SFRA/FRZ(Washington DC). Or if you are flying internationally.
They specified "controlled airspace". Those rules you are talking about are controlled airspace. The previous comment clearly doesn't explicitly mean class A. It's too complicated to say anything but controlled airspace because that varies all over and can frequently extent up to class A.
And why are you bring up IFR? Most private pilots are flying VFR, even if they are IFR certified. But even in controlled airspace you don't have to file a flight plan. I can take off from a class C, fly through uncontrolled space and am not required to talk to anyone again. I don't have to say anything until I decide to land.
This is pretty common among pilots too. I'm not sure why drone pilots should be held to higher standard. Really they should be held to lower.
> This is pretty common among pilots too. I'm not sure why drone pilots should be held to higher standard. Really they should be held to lower.
Drone pilots have to be held to a higher standard, because they have no skin in the game.
If a plane pilot flies like an idiot, they might hurt other people in the air... But they are very likely to also get themselves killed in the process.
This creates an incredibly strong incentive to not fly like an idiot.
A drone operator flying like an idiot is far more likely to get other people killed, than they are to get themselves killed.
If drone pilots could only operate them, while wearing a suicide vest that explodes if the drone crashes, I'd be more open to holding them to a lower standard than pilots.
> A drone operator flying like an idiot is far more likely to get other people killed
IF something catastrophic happens. Issue is that a 2lb drone is much less likely to do damage than a plane. You seriously can not compare the two. The danger levels of the two are nothing alike. If they were, I'd agree with you, but these things have magnitudes of difference in danger.
Sure but once a law is broken, what recourse does anyone have in the submitted article? The answer can't be to call the Feds... Cars have license plates, planes have N-numbers. If drones are too small to have a visible registration number, they need a transponder. Again, this is only when you're flying high and out of visible range.
Drones over 249g are required to be registered have a registration number affixed.
Your point is valid, in that every other motor vehicle that operates on public property has a requirement to be able to be positively identified to a owning entity. But there is no requirement that this be identifiable from great distance.
A drone in the air does create a unique challenge that a transponder would help resolve. But just like any other form of identification, it's an 'honor system' in that I could just put any vessel ID number on my boat, could steal a tag, or transmit a fake transponder ID if I were engaging in illegal activity. A trivial matter if I am advanced enough to be conducting operations with unmanned aircraft.
So I'm not sure that resolving someone's curiosity about my legal activity is a compelling enough reason to require me to attach a broadcasting identification device to my drone, or otherwise identify myself or my aircraft to law enforcement 'just because they should know'
I'm not sure why everyone thinks a transponder code is an ultimate solution. A transponder code is easier to fake or hide than a license plate number. If you are doing a ham operated, you just transmit another number. If it's a store bought and you have zero tech savviness, you just don't register it (which is going to happen quite frequently, just because people don't know, will forget, or just not care enough and there's not enough police force or need to crack down on this. Resources needed elsewhere).
Transponder codes aren't just going to be used by lawful citizens, but specifically lawful citizens that are careful and read the instructions (and have bought a drone with proper instructions or they independently looked them up). With how few people read instructions, I don't think this is a good solution.
Transponders also use a lot of power.. assuming you are looking for 'real' aircraft to see them. Most of the hobby class drones don't have the payload capacity for extra battery. Even a Cessna can't pull of a transponder if the alternator goes bad (for very long).
The N number is there for when the drone crashes into something/someone. They had dropped the requirement for a while - looks like it is back on again.
If it turns out that this was used to prepare for a terrorist attack then law enforcement would look pretty negligent not having looked into this. I think if you do something on this scale it’s just common courtesy to inform the public what you are doing.
Pulling the terrorist card is pretty cheap and probably why the downvotes. LEO cannot be expected to be prescient of every crime or we will become a surveillance state much worse than we already are.
I agree that common courtesy would dictate that you inform the public, but it's not a requirement and not something that should become law.
That’s exactly my point. Be courteous and tell people what you are doing so they don’t have to be concerned. It’s this kind of behavior that triggers creation of laws because some people are jerks that push things too far. I watched this with camera drones in national parks. First they were fun but then idiots had to fly them all the time, over crowded areas, lose them in protected areas, wild fires and airports and now we have restrictive laws.
I doesn’t seem to be acceptable that somebody is flying pretty heavy drones every night without anybody knowing who or why.
It is at night, and even if you don't have a transponder you have a visible registration number and a license that will be revoked if you can't behave.
If they're non-government/military and are operating legally I think they would most likely have a 107 waiver filed, at least to allow night flying. That does mean they'd still need to be under the weight limit but I think the number of non-107 authorizations, which would allow heavier drones, is very small.
Also I'd be surprised if a University research program had the resources to field 17 drones of this size.
To catch a drone, or drone operator, use another drone.
Any chance the drone activity is related to Kim Jong-un's promised Christmas present? NE Colorado has, or had at one time, a few Atlas or Minuteman missile silos.
Likewise. This article caught my eye, because it describes a phenomenon similar to one I've observed locally over the past year. I'd be curious about how well this meshes with what you've seen.
We have a fleet of (at least) 30 drones operating in a similar manner over Indiana. All of them reliably following paths between fixed waypoints. Upon reaching their waypoints, they tend to loiter place for a bit, change elevation, then move to the next point on their route. They typically come out around 7 pm, and disappear around 5 in the morning. They never fly in poor weather conditions.
The bulk of them seem to be Delta-wing aircraft, with lights at each point of their triangular bodies, and another array of three white, rectangular lights beneath them which will often flash, be disabled, or even on in lieu of the lights at their wingtips. I've estimated them to be between 6 and 15ft in wingspan.
They have a forward-swept vertical control surface with a red light at its apex, that I've variably seen at the top, and the bottom of the craft.
I've seen them fly forwards, backwards, and taxi side to side in rotating triangular formations of four, with one at the epicenter. They typically fly around 50mph.
They first appeared in the large numbers around south-central indiana July of 2018, but operate at lower densities across much of the southern half of the state.
I've always attributed it to the nearby naval warfare research center, due to the lack of public comment on the part of our local government, or regulatory bodies.
> ... the nearby naval warfare research center, ...
I'd be interested in more details (either here or via e-mail to my username at gmail) as to where you've seen these flying. I'm basically in between Bloomington and Crane (which is, I assume, where you're referring to) and have several friends who work at various levels in law enforcement in the area and even more friends who work at Crane.
This is the first I've heard of anything like this in the area, though.
If this is such a high concern, why don't they go on a fox hunt? HAM is pretty popular in rural areas and HAMs love fox hunts. With the frequency and length that these things are up, they should be able to close in on the operators fairly quickly.
well it came from initials of Hertz, Armstrong & Marconi all of whom were instrumental in radio wave research. I think that counts as an acronym but when it is a common word it is often written in lower case
138 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 167 ms ] threadFYSA wasn't able to replicate the reader view issue with uBO on Firefox, both desktop and mobile.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850005
https://i.imgur.com/4TbI3s7.png
It’s a huge shame this is happening, but more of a shame that no at the paper successfully innovated to survive the switch to digital.
https://i.imgur.com/yQGb6Nq.png
Well unless you care about privacy, the potential for stuff crashing on you/your property, and/or noise pollution.
I have no problem with people not wanting drones flying over their properties, and I have no problem with a collective decision that people's privacy should supersede the right to fly drones in public airspace (indeed, I'd probably agree with it). But that should be enforced by a change in law, not by an demand that someone justify their supposedly legal actions.
Myabe law enforcement feels left out of the game.
People robbed of illegal property usually do not report such losses to the authorities.
>People robbed of illegal property usually do not report such losses to the authorities.
Because growing, selling, and possessing cannabis is illegal under US federal law, and if you are a organizer, manager, or supervisor deriving substantial income from such an operation conducted with 5 or more other individuals, you can be charged wih a felony with a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence for a first offense, and if the operation handles enough product or makes enough money, the minimum sentence moves up to life without possibility of parole.
There's a current federal law that prohibits initiating prosecutions for cannabis operations that are permitted under state-level medical marijuana laws, but that doesn't negate the offense, it just means any charges that would be covered by the prohibition (which violations not strictly with medical marijuana laws.are technically not) are delayed as long as the policy is in effect.
> They have legal cannabis in Colorado.
No, they have a situation in which some cannabis trade is prohibited by only one of the two applicable sovereigns.
Shooting an inanimate object hovering over your property is illegal? ... on the federal level? I suppose it would have to be, but...
Edit: Now I know: "Under Title 18 of the United State Code 32, the sabotage of an unmanned aircraft could carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison." [0]
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights#United_States
> If it doesn't move, try shooting it.
This is my 12 word guide to Texas.
https://sputniknews.com/us/201912241077783862-its-not-santa-...
This sounds like a commercial operation. They're obeying the law, staying below 400ft, and operating in a rural area. It seems like the news articles are doing their best to make this sound bad when there's nothing nefarious going on.
The article states that small drones must be flown during daylight hours according to the regulations. These drones are flown at night, which means they would be in violation of those rules.
Also, from the article: "they emerge each night around 7 p.m. and disappear around 10 p.m.". 7-10 p.m. isn't night, it's evening. Yes, in the US it's (probably?) dark by then this time of the year, but maybe they're following some regulation that is defined in terms of time of the day, and not the amount of daylight?
Night is after sunset in common English: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/8954/the-exact-time-...
Also for the FAA:
14 CFR § 1.1: "Night means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac, converted to local time."
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-swede...
https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/10/kremlins-sputnik-newswi...
https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&ar...
http://infowar.cepa.org/files/?id_plik=2083
He urged people not to try to shoot the drones down, both because their batteries can cause intense fires and also because shooting a drone is a federal crime.
“It becomes a self-generating fire that burns until it burns itself out,” he said. “If you shoot a drone down over your house and it lands on your house, you might not have a house in 45 minutes.”
So these are really vehicles of arson?
Other aspects to consider are that the “drones” are replaced by others as batteries deplete or that the drones aren’t really there as long as people believe.
It’s possible that someone is doing this as a hobby for artistic, conspiracy theory “reconnaissance“ or benign data gathering-purposes or conducting some sort of investigation or intelligence gathering.
> large-scale detection
> terrorists
sigh...
Law enforcement doesn't have to have an answer or info about every single event.
If I'm driving a car down the highway, law enforcement doesn't need to know where I am going or why. I'm not breaking any laws and not infringing on anyone's rights.
As a pilot I can go fly my plane at any altitude I wish as long as I am not entering any controlled airspace. I don't have to ask or tell anyone what I'm doing.
So why do they need to know why I'm flying my drone and where I'm going?
Well, no. That’s not true. Firstly there are rules about the altitude you can fly at when it’s greater than 3000’, and second you are required to file a flight plan any time you are flying IFR.
If you want to get pedantic, you're also required to file a flight plan if there is some restriction in place requiring such for the area you are flying in. For example a TFR, or operation in an ADIZ or SFRA/FRZ(Washington DC). Or if you are flying internationally.
And why are you bring up IFR? Most private pilots are flying VFR, even if they are IFR certified. But even in controlled airspace you don't have to file a flight plan. I can take off from a class C, fly through uncontrolled space and am not required to talk to anyone again. I don't have to say anything until I decide to land.
This is pretty common among pilots too. I'm not sure why drone pilots should be held to higher standard. Really they should be held to lower.
Drone pilots have to be held to a higher standard, because they have no skin in the game.
If a plane pilot flies like an idiot, they might hurt other people in the air... But they are very likely to also get themselves killed in the process.
This creates an incredibly strong incentive to not fly like an idiot.
A drone operator flying like an idiot is far more likely to get other people killed, than they are to get themselves killed.
If drone pilots could only operate them, while wearing a suicide vest that explodes if the drone crashes, I'd be more open to holding them to a lower standard than pilots.
IF something catastrophic happens. Issue is that a 2lb drone is much less likely to do damage than a plane. You seriously can not compare the two. The danger levels of the two are nothing alike. If they were, I'd agree with you, but these things have magnitudes of difference in danger.
Your point is valid, in that every other motor vehicle that operates on public property has a requirement to be able to be positively identified to a owning entity. But there is no requirement that this be identifiable from great distance.
A drone in the air does create a unique challenge that a transponder would help resolve. But just like any other form of identification, it's an 'honor system' in that I could just put any vessel ID number on my boat, could steal a tag, or transmit a fake transponder ID if I were engaging in illegal activity. A trivial matter if I am advanced enough to be conducting operations with unmanned aircraft.
So I'm not sure that resolving someone's curiosity about my legal activity is a compelling enough reason to require me to attach a broadcasting identification device to my drone, or otherwise identify myself or my aircraft to law enforcement 'just because they should know'
Transponder codes aren't just going to be used by lawful citizens, but specifically lawful citizens that are careful and read the instructions (and have bought a drone with proper instructions or they independently looked them up). With how few people read instructions, I don't think this is a good solution.
The N number is there for when the drone crashes into something/someone. They had dropped the requirement for a while - looks like it is back on again.
I agree that common courtesy would dictate that you inform the public, but it's not a requirement and not something that should become law.
I doesn’t seem to be acceptable that somebody is flying pretty heavy drones every night without anybody knowing who or why.
For the most part neither of those things are requirements for regular aviation.
Additionally, transponders aren't needed for a lot of flying either.
Looks pretty comfy to me. How much does an abandoned farm house in Yuma County go for these days?
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9191659,-102.240448,419m/dat...
> New swarming drone technology could help find lost hikers, study wildlife
CU Boulder Today, Sept 16, 2017
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2017/09/06/new-swarming-drone...
Edit: Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles (RECVU): https://www.colorado.edu/recuv/
Edit 2: This has been a fun topic to research! Here’s a link to the list of equipment used by the Integrated Remote and In-Situ Sensing (IRISS) team:
https://www.colorado.edu/iriss/content/equipment
https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/part_107_waiver... ?
If they're non-government/military and are operating legally I think they would most likely have a 107 waiver filed, at least to allow night flying. That does mean they'd still need to be under the weight limit but I think the number of non-107 authorizations, which would allow heavier drones, is very small.
Also I'd be surprised if a University research program had the resources to field 17 drones of this size.
Any chance the drone activity is related to Kim Jong-un's promised Christmas present? NE Colorado has, or had at one time, a few Atlas or Minuteman missile silos.
They seem to just loiter for several hours at a time.
We have a fleet of (at least) 30 drones operating in a similar manner over Indiana. All of them reliably following paths between fixed waypoints. Upon reaching their waypoints, they tend to loiter place for a bit, change elevation, then move to the next point on their route. They typically come out around 7 pm, and disappear around 5 in the morning. They never fly in poor weather conditions.
The bulk of them seem to be Delta-wing aircraft, with lights at each point of their triangular bodies, and another array of three white, rectangular lights beneath them which will often flash, be disabled, or even on in lieu of the lights at their wingtips. I've estimated them to be between 6 and 15ft in wingspan.
They have a forward-swept vertical control surface with a red light at its apex, that I've variably seen at the top, and the bottom of the craft.
I've seen them fly forwards, backwards, and taxi side to side in rotating triangular formations of four, with one at the epicenter. They typically fly around 50mph.
They first appeared in the large numbers around south-central indiana July of 2018, but operate at lower densities across much of the southern half of the state.
I've always attributed it to the nearby naval warfare research center, due to the lack of public comment on the part of our local government, or regulatory bodies.
> ... the nearby naval warfare research center, ...
I'd be interested in more details (either here or via e-mail to my username at gmail) as to where you've seen these flying. I'm basically in between Bloomington and Crane (which is, I assume, where you're referring to) and have several friends who work at various levels in law enforcement in the area and even more friends who work at Crane.
This is the first I've heard of anything like this in the area, though.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/the-s...
and as a ham we don't capitalize it, its not an acronym.