> ... the “mystery drone” wave also elicited serious expressions of concern from at least two U.S. senators and attention from Colorado’s governor and state public safety agency.
What concern?
> ... absence of evidence of criminal intent, or of a proximate threat to military assets or other critical infrastructure. Once the aerial activity stopped, it appears that both federal and state agencies quickly dropped the matter
And rightly so. Interesting oddity, but pointless use of federal investigatory resources.
It don’t see why you’re puzzled. It sure sounds very concerning to me. It was concerning enough to many people that they reported it, including law enforcement personnel. Given this, it makes complete sense someone might choose to investigate.
Because whomever was flying the drones might do it again. If they can ascertain who it was and what they were doing, they'll be able to rule out any malicious future intent to their actions.
I'm not sure anybody really wants a number of unidentified flying objects (in their literal sense) in the air at night with noone knowing where they came from or what they might be doing. I don't consider that "unfounded" concern, think it's quite valid on the spectrum of concerns actually.
Seems like a reasonable use of resources to get to the bottom of it (albeit, perhaps not their full-time work). Not every investigation will succeed, and the outcomes can often be that nothing can be done. You can only get to that by doing the work though.
If no law was being broken then investigation sounds like harassment to me. While it could be annoying there are a lot of thing that are annoying that are no illegal. I'd love to take away the power tools from my neighbor but they are not doing anything wrong and should not be subject to official inquiry just in case they could be.
Agree with that, however this is a case with very little precedent - there needed to be an investigation to get to the conclusion nothing was wrong as it obviously did concern a lot of people.
For me, that's part of the role of these bodies, ensure that something that looks sketchy actually (or potentially in this case) isn't. It's unchartered territory for people to have random flying things buzzing over the skies at night (and feel it's an entirely valid thing to be concerned about), whereas an annoying neighbour with some tools is well established.
> Agree with that, however this is a case with very little precedent - there needed to be an investigation to get to the conclusion nothing was wrong as it obviously did concern a lot of people.
Anything that isn't specifically illegal is legal by default.
They determined no illegal activities were conducted by flying a fleet of drones in a low-population rural area so...
> They determined no illegal activities were conducted by flying a fleet of drones in a low-population rural area so...
And they determined that by investigating (which is what we're discussing here). I'm not arguing about it's legality, just that they determined its legality by investigating something reported by genuinely concerned people.
I have to disagree. You sound like the person in the video linked in one comment. She called the drones creepy. Why are they creepy? You don’t say creepy but you call them “unidentified flying objects” the article clearly states they are drones. We just don’t know who flew them and that bothers you. Also you think it is a good use of public resources to drive around and identify people not committing crimes flying drones after the fact. Why do you fear drones so much? I mean if they were flying into your yard hovering by a window I could see being upset but some guy flying drones in formation way in the sky and people freak out, why? It could be as simple as a drone enthusiast taking it to the next level.
As I type this I feel my tone will come across as negative but I honestly hope you can bring some discussion to my questions. I have only ever played with cheap drones my kids own. Awesome fun. But slowly the drone world is being chipped away with more regulation some good but some implemented by people out of fear. If you are in my area and you see a drone in the sky it’s just me having fun and probably if you watch long enough I will put it in a tree. I don’t want the police searching around and bothering me especially after it was confirmed by the FAA that no crime was committed. Otherwise it sounds like harassment for something they don’t like.
Sure, I'll dive in with a few responses. I'm always tech forward, but never been a "small government" person, so that's my stance. I have a small toy quadcopter myself which because of the UK's 250g rule now, I'm annoyed I can't use freely.
But just because we use and understand these things doesn't really mean it's accepted. It's not that I'm playing devil's advocate, but on HN we do need to understand we don't live in a tech utopia and need to bring other people along with us, not force new tech on them.
> She called the drones creepy. Why are they creepy?
I don't find drones creepy myself, but you've got to remember these are still novel to most people. There's accepted rules about most vehicles (manned or unmanned, large and small) that are just not clear to a lot of people when it comes to drones. If you've even seen one flying in person at all.
If I'm not aware really of what they are, having an ALTA 8 or something come buzzing through the night sky is going to be creepy - this is a flying machine being operated by a random (potentially unlicensed, if they're flying at night and no one knew who it was) person. I don't see how that's not creepy to most people.
> Also you think it is a good use of public resources to drive around and identify people not committing crimes flying drones after the fact.
I know it'll get short shrift here, but yeah, I do. In this instance it transpired it wasn't illegal and probably completely fine, but if a number of people report seeing random stuff in the air that spooks them, I'd hope that someone at least goes and tries to find out what it was. Even just to work out and explain to people what it was.
Admittedly, it's not the best use of their time, but I don't see it as an invalid use of their time.
I don't believe you normalise people to drone usage simply by just flying them around.
> Otherwise it sounds like harassment for something they don’t like.
Diff'rent strokes, but if it's not bothering me, I'd have though having someone official tell someone complaining that actually it's all fine would be better?
> I'm not sure anybody really wants a number of unidentified flying objects (in their literal sense) in the air at night with noone knowing where they came from or what they might be doing.
I do.
I also want unidentified cars driving on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. At night. And unidentified boats on remote lakes and in remote parts of the ocean. At night. And unidentified pedestrians, swimmers, skydivers, bicyclists, kites, campers, photographers, robots, lawn mowers.
Sure, all those things are normal happenings - they're not really cause of concern for most people. We're not at that point for drones yet, at all. Of course a boat skimming on a lake at night is fine, a pedestrian walking down the road at night is fine, a lawn mower (provided it isn't being an absolutely nuisance) going at night is fine.
What isn't fine for a lot of people is something completely unknown just buzzing around when they don't have the context of what it is or what it could be doing.
I'm not saying "ban it", just it's valid for people to report something like that happening and have an expectation they'll be taken seriously.
Let's not over estimate the frequency with which people have seen or come into contact with drone flight here, we've had boats for millennia, cars for over a century. Heck, even micro scooters have been around for decades.
Personally, I don't want random, unidentified things I've got no clue about flying around where I live at night. The military helicopters that go past every day are annoying, but I know what they are and know it's all good. And one day "oh, it's just Dave's flying drone swarm" will be just as accepted. Today is not that day.
It’s not concerning, or even worth trying to solve the mystery, to you that we can’t identify a fleet of flying drones that are not from our military and that seem to be slightly more advanced than current consumer drones.(hovering silently for hours in high winds/storms). That’s just not worth your time? The drones could have been doing any number of nefarious things, but let’s not worry about it right? It could have been a foreign adversary for crying out loud.
First, who's "we"? Do you work in national defense?
Second, how do you know they can't identify it, when there are several emails being withheld from the FOIA request?
To me, that's a dead giveaway it's a CIA project or something.
Third, if a foreign adversary has the capability to maliciously land and take off from rural airports in Nebraska then US national defense has bigger problems than some quadcopters doing formation flying.
A major British airport was put out of action for days in Dec 2018 because of a drone or drones flying around. So yeah it'd be nice to find out who was flying these even if they didn't disrupt any airports or military installations this time.
There isn't even evidence there ever was a drone(that wasn't controlled by the police).
> The lead investigator from Sussex Police questioned whether there had been a drone at all.[18][19] Giles York, Chief Constable, later said police thought that original sightings were of an unauthorised drone, but it was possible that later sightings may have been of a drone used by Sussex Police
Maybe it would be more convincing if you could see something, anything other than pure black - buildings, a tree line, whatever. As it is, it's literally a white dot on a black background - I couldn't even see any image noise in the black (although I am on mobile).
Why? It's western Colorado. There's nothing out there except land. The sky at night is black. Something flying in the night sky will be flying above tree lines requiring the observer to be looking up. I honestly don't know why you'd be expecting a full on feature film production level of equipment to be available to someone that happens to notice a drone flying and trying to capture it. There's a reason certain activities take place in the dead of night. Avoiding being seen is one of them. What's the confusion? I get it's "disappointing" to not see everything, but if everything could be seen in the footage there'd not be mystery/intrigue.
The objection several posts up was "there are all these reports, but nobody captured video?" And then somebody pointed out that in fact witnesses did capture video, but it's as predictably terrible as one would expect given that smartphones are terrible for filming remote airplanes at night.
If it's just one that's not particularly weird. There are really powerful lighting systems available now in packages small enough to be put on a cargo quad that put out a LOT of light. On an octocopter like the Alta X or other cinema style drones they could stay up for a while just carrying the light. There's also some companies with tethered systems that could stay up indefinitely.
A larger 'swarm' could be any number of even non defense companies testing.
Yeah, I really don't understand this. There are also people on nextdoor claiming that they spotted "the Colorado drones" in my neighborhood which is nowhere near north west Colorado. At this point I think people are just seeing anything in they sky and assume its "the drones" spying on them. The news also says that they are not violating any laws currently and that we need more regulation of drones. And then local law enforcement says they do not know who it is but its not them. I really doubt this because it is not legal currently to fly a UAV at night without special permission. Also the area it is reported to be happening is near a bunch of ICBM missile silos. I suspect it some military thing and when it made the news they just let people think whatever they want in part because it will get people to be in favor of more regulation.
I fly small tinywhoop quadcopters around my house. Its a 21gram palm sized quad with fpv camera. Some people have a hysteria about drones and assume that you must be spying on them. If they could see what I see in my camera they would realize you cant see much detail of a person unless you get pretty close.
“The FAA is also currently withholding some key documents, citing FOIA exemptions.” You missed the part about the secret documents that the FAA won’t release. So now there is more to it then they let on.
Yeah no. The whole website is a 'conspiracy theory' saga, with endless pointless citing of 'official documents' and quotes from clueless people.
A legitimate article could simply say "There were some curious drones flying around, which the military doesn't claim. The FAA knows something they aren't telling." Then we'd all know the score without scrolling through 100 pages of obfuscated rambling.
Just to balance out things a bit: most of the sightings were dismissed as either aircrafts, stars or other lights [1]. It may be worth reading the actual released documents rather than take the cherry picked quotes from them. My 2c.
Edit - Just to be clear: this is not about drones being spotted, there may have been small drones flying at night. This is about reports of drones with a large wingspan flying in formation around a 'mothership'. These sightings have been investigated and dismissed [2].
The articles you point to note that the sightings were investigated on Jan 11-13, and the investigators found nothing. It doesn't prove that the previous sightings were an invention. The War Zone (OP) article also says that reports of sightings ended around mid-January.
I don't know what people saw out there. But I don't think one three-night investigation is enough to completely discredit all of those very detailed reports, especially given (1) how close together they are in time, (2) that reporting dropped off in multiple states at a similar point, (3) that there are matching descriptions from people who were quite far apart, and (4) that some were from pilots and others using night vision.
It could still be imagination, I just don't think your links provide enough to conclude that.
If you would read the second link I posted carefully you would find out that the investigations started in November, field investigations went from the 6th of January to the 13th.
If there was an activity of large groups of drones flying in grid patterns - let alone ones with a 6 feet wing span - these would have been easy to confirm.
Add to this that there is no video or photographic evidence of any of these activities. Of 90 reports in a couple of months none of the witnesses had a phone on them to shoot anything that's not a single light in the sky?
I think that this is a text book example of social media fueled collective hysteria at its best. Specifically your points 1, 2 and 3 are signs of the phenomenon - about your 4th point: even more reason to expect any form of firm evidence.
I’ve tried to photograph large planes and Navy dirigibles in the sky. Every picture, even the ones that were of vehicles just a few hundred feet above me (where I can hear the engines) turned out to look like specks unless I digitally blew it up. And this is daytime. At night even close up objects just produce a bright speck, or a collection of specks.
Exactly. There seems to be barely any concrete evidence (photos, videos) of any drones at all, let alone large mothership drones controlling swarms of smaller drones. Despite it being likely that every single person who thinks they saw a drone probably had a high resolution video camera in their pocket.
I understand the hacker community has always been into UFO's and 40 years ago this forum would be talking about aliens.
But what they were still stands at what we knew they were when first reported, hysteria. (aka stars, planes and maybe, perhaps an occasional domestic DJI drone)
Go have a look at the drones being used by independent militant groups (with some state help) around they Middle East, they are much more interesting and real.
Was thinking what a fabulous method to generate publicity in lead up to a motion picture. Perform this event multiple times across the country before a reveal when a trailer is dropped; would be good for any dystopian future or alien invasion movie
Maybe this is the equivalent of the flash mobs in malls some years back?
Instead of people being physically present, they all have drones and fly them in a formation? Bored, smart, rich kids will definitely be able to pull this off.
The amount of hysteria over drones (Particularly incidents like this) is really concerning to me, because it plays right into the hands of regulators and lobbyists in the US trying to justify unnecessary Remote ID legislation under the guise of "safety".
The recently released proposed rules for Remote ID raised a huge amount of concern in the model aircraft world, because it proposed restrictions that would effectively kill the hobby:
- All drones/RC aircraft must have a GPS-based tracking ("Full remote ID") on the aircraft, connected to a ground station and relayed to a subscription third-party service. These "Full remote ID" aircraft can be flown past line of site.
- Aircraft not constructed by a single manufacturer (For example, handmade RC planes) are not allowed to use full remote ID, and instead must use "limited" remote ID in which GPS can be on the ground station, but the aircraft must disable itself past 400ft from the ground station.
- Aircraft with limited remote ID can only be flown in a dedicated "FRIA" flying site.
- FRIA sites are "legacy" and after a short period, no new sites will be created. The stated intention of the FAA is to phase these sites out completely, meaning after a certain period all planes must comply with full remote ID, effectively killing hand-built model aircraft.
The end result of this regulation is _not_ safer airways: It's an airspace <400ft owned by commercial entities such as Amazon who are able to comply with the requirements of the Remote ID tracking and single-manufacturer requirements. It's an example of regulatory capture that will genuinely make the world worse for us by increasing noise pollution and drone traffic at low heights. Meanwhile, the model aircraft and drone hobby will have a large barrier to entry that pushes away the innovation of millions of engineers who got their start as kids flying affordable DIY planes.
As a RC enthusiast who flies for recreation and enjoyment, this is really alarming. Especially because I am someone who enjoys constructing my own aircraft.
For what it's worth, the craft I make are in the "Ultra-micro" category which are only a couple ounces flying weight.
Also contributing ammunition here is there are plenty of actual situations created by random clowns. Anyone can make or buy something off the shelf and be in the air minutes later, with no accountability or training, causing trouble with privacy, aviation airspace, public gatherings, or emergency scenes. The FAA attempted to license operators but it doesn't stop the "anyone" part.
As usual, a few bad actors ruin it for everyone else trying to do the right thing.
> As usual, a few bad actors ruin it for everyone else trying to do the right thing.
This framing is reminiscent of a lazy schoolteacher engaging in collective punishment. The few bad actors are not the ones ruining it for everyone else - let's keep the responsibility for the overbearing and inept response on the FAA itself.
The issue is without some form of radio ID it's pretty tough to catch bad actors that don't strike in one place multiple times. Right now to find someone they either have to be stumbled upon while doing it or with the device, be dumb and brag about it, crash and have it traced back to them via video on the quad, or get caught with radio direction finding equipment.
To apply that to your classroom example instead of being easily identifiable the kids are anonymous, very fast, and appear and disappear quickly. In that case is it that weird to try to make a way to differentiate everyone?
Quads/drones/UASs are in a pretty tough to regulate sphere because they fly and can do a lot of damage it's not that wild for governments to try to get a handle on them.
DJI, who makes the majority of consumer drones, has already implemented broadcast-based radio ID, but that's not what the FAA proposal suggests and is not the part of the regulation that is being criticized.
In fact, the FAA has explicitly stated that they don't want to use a radio-broadcast system like ADS-B (the equivalent for general aviation). The solution being proposed involves a proprietary internet-based system that has privacy/security implications among other issues -- The system would send the location of any user to a third-party company, would require a subscription, etc.
The solution does very little to alleviate the concerns you are discussing and many more reasonable proposals have been suggested which DO involve radio ID. My favorite solutions involve a combination of a radio beacon broadcasting GPS and registration # in the style of ADS-B for larger drones/aircraft, and for smaller aircraft an app-based system where users "check in" with a flight plan. But keep in mind that the outrage is not over any regulation by the FAA, it's that their proposal completely disregards existing industry standards like those put out by DJI and creates an expensive, hard to enforce system that favors large corporate interests.
Let's keep in mind that there are millions of drones in the US (1.1 million registered with the FAA, and many more that have not been registered because they are <250g or custom-built.) and have not had a single incident involving injury or death. Every single incident involving a drone has involved the concern of violation of someone's privacy or violation of an airspace, and even in those incidents there has been a lot of hysteria involved in the media response. In my opinion this absolutely does not justify preemptively building an expansive surveillance infrastructure around technology that has, so far, proven to be very safe.
I do think requiring a specific 3rd party subscription is silly and over the top. I was generally defending the broad idea of drone regulations which I've seen a lot of reflexive push back to.
And ADS-B style is probably the best and easiest option. It can be an easy add on to existing quads and probably done pretty cheaply. Places with airspace concerns can easily setup a base station to listen to their local area.
> Every single incident involving a drone has involved the concern of violation of someone's privacy or violation of an airspace, and even in those incidents there has been a lot of hysteria involved in the media response
They haven't yet (at least in a mass event, several have fallen on crowds etc) but violations of airspace, especially around airports, don't have to actually cause injury because the threat of an airliner engine eating one somewhere between their commit speed and their rudder authority speed or any time really during take off and landing requires airports be extremely cautious about drone sightings.
I agree, I think there's a much smaller pushback from the more dedicated community about the method for tracking and the limits around DIY aircraft -- If it was a plug-and-play transmitter that you had to pay for and register, I think that would be fine. It could be integrated into the RC receivers on your plane, powered via 5v servo cable, or part of your transmitter. But this odd system involving a proprietary cloud and "phone-home" style telemetry doesn't sit well, especially because it's specified in a way that makes it impossible for any DIY aircraft to comply.
Thank you for collecting that list, I stand corrected. I've heard that original statement echoed several times in the RC community -- But I think sometimes people are separating out incidents from gas RC aircraft, RC helicopters, commercial operation etc. in a way that might be a little disingenuous.
The same argument is deployed against gun control too and it's still only partially true. If the system is simple enough every flight controller manufacturer will eventually implement it and the bar to run one without a beacon gets much higher. It means catching anyone without it is suddenly in trouble. Finally it reduces the pool of potential miscreants to people intentionally setting out to be troublesome and raises some technical hurdles presuming the system is deeply integrated.
Speed limits don't stop bad actors either but that doesn't me we get rid of them.
The analogy here would be not speed limits as such, but rather cameras that enforce them. And there is a lot of contention around those - in some locations, enough so for voters to use the local initiative process to remove them.
> The few bad actors are not the ones ruining it for everyone else
Except you are wrong.
We had dipshits taking pictures of fires in California with their drones--IN THE MIDDLE OF ACTIVE FIREFIGHTING ZONES. It was sufficiently bad that the firefighters grounded their aircraft.
Except dipshits disrupting fire operations are still not directly impacting other drone operators... I wasn't saying that all regulations are unnecessary, just that the fallout from bad regulation needs to be ascribed to the FAA itself rather than absolving it as some blameless reflexive entity. Others have summarized the specific issues with the FAA's proposal better than I can.
- Flite Test (A large RC community) has collected a lot of stories & comments but suggests reaching out to a local government representative: https://ftca.flitetest.com/
- If you are a member of a local AMA (Model aircraft association), communicate with the AMA leadership about your concerns since so far they've been relatively passive and haven't voiced any concerns.
I, like many others, put a comment on the FAA proposal, but that comment period is over and the pandemic has slowed down a lot of the public progress of this legislation. It's hard to answer your question, since it feels like the FAA is proceeded as planned despite tens of tousands of concerned comments.
It seems pretty obvious that if this is real and not mass hysteria the first most plausible explanation is a secret military project, no? The Government doesn’t tell folks when they are testing new spy planes and stuff, etc.
I can't remember where I read it and can't think how to look it up, but as I recall the military do generally submit flight plans to the FAA even for classified experiments. They used not to, but after a few crashes changed their processes.
Would appreciate confirmation or contradiction from someone who knows better.
These drones had Denver area defense contractor written all over them. I would guess Lockheed or Raytheon or Boulder based lab or company. They would not coordinate because 1. every project they do is classified 2. probably is some sort of mass surveillance tech that they would rather not advertise 3. Probably not sponsored directly by the military or deemed a weapons system, so no need to go through the hassle of testing on a military range (lets just drive a few hours outside town). 4. Didn't want to go through the hassle of dealing with the FAA and know that if the FAA seriously got involved they could just pull strings. 5. Don't care if they bother a few farmers and consider most of the area to be "empty"
Clearly the drones stopped because it was a limited term contract.
Former defense contractor at (Relatively) small company here, this is a reasonable and common sense explanation, especially from what I know from being inside the defense industry. It’s not even far fetched at all. I don’t think this goes to the level or being conspiracy or fringe at all.
Why is that a "conspiracy?" It makes good sense, just sign an NDA with a farmer to use their property. What is the alternative? For every single test travel down to a missile range having days of turnaround.
A conspiracy would be more like they are testing remote monitoring drones on unsuspecting farmers and are not supposed to be spying in the United States because they are under government contract. But there would be no need for something like that for some tests.
> For every single test travel down to a missile range having days of turnaround.
Or just use Lockheed's test facilities in the desert in California, which are far more remote and have better weather.
There's a reason aviation companies operate in SoCal, and not Colorado.
As with the death of Fahim Saleh, HN is trending towards shadowy, dramatic reasons that just don't make sense in the face of numerous mundane explanations.
There are a lot of space/satellite companies in the Denver area, but not many drone companies. As you may know, design of a satellite is different from design of a quadcopter drone. Satellites are launched by rockets, powered by solar panels, and orbit earth. Drones fly in the atmosphere using rotors to move air, controlled by humans on the ground. So it would seem odd to associate satellite-building engineering operations, often completely civil, with clandestine drones.
Correct me, but Lockheed has four divisions. I just saw an ad for Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR). Just because a sensor goes on a spacecraft, doesn't mean it can't be tested on a drone.
The projects you listed may not be top secret but I'm sure they still fall under ITAR. Either way if a defense contractor was out testing stuff on drones, then I doubt they would coordinate with anyone.
the fact there were multiple sightings in rural areas and not one was destroyed by buckshot should mean something.
I grew up in the country, I don't see any teen/young adult spotting one of these over their farm/ranch and resisting the urge to grab a 12 gauge and take a shot.
>the pattern of multiple “drones” flying a grid type pattern and remaining airborne for several hours at a time in less than optimum flying conditions (high winds and storm-like conditions). The number of drones reported operating at one time range from between 2 and 16 and appear to be approximately 6 feet width and length. Flight time has been 2 to 3 hours continuous.
that isn't amateurs, nor does it look like any small business/start-up. That smells like defense contractor.
This reads like a UFO hysteria report. "10 ft drones that make no sound and hover in the air for hours at a time"
Do drones like this even exist that are available to civilians? Even $30,000 commercial grade drones are only a few feet wide and have sub hour flight times.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 147 ms ] threadWhat concern?
> ... absence of evidence of criminal intent, or of a proximate threat to military assets or other critical infrastructure. Once the aerial activity stopped, it appears that both federal and state agencies quickly dropped the matter
And rightly so. Interesting oddity, but pointless use of federal investigatory resources.
Starting an investigation while the activity is on-going in an attempt to ascertain potential threats: fine.
Continuing an investigation for unfounded “concern” and curiosity’s sake after the activity stops and there was no crime committed: wasteful.
I'm not sure anybody really wants a number of unidentified flying objects (in their literal sense) in the air at night with noone knowing where they came from or what they might be doing. I don't consider that "unfounded" concern, think it's quite valid on the spectrum of concerns actually.
Seems like a reasonable use of resources to get to the bottom of it (albeit, perhaps not their full-time work). Not every investigation will succeed, and the outcomes can often be that nothing can be done. You can only get to that by doing the work though.
For me, that's part of the role of these bodies, ensure that something that looks sketchy actually (or potentially in this case) isn't. It's unchartered territory for people to have random flying things buzzing over the skies at night (and feel it's an entirely valid thing to be concerned about), whereas an annoying neighbour with some tools is well established.
Anything that isn't specifically illegal is legal by default.
They determined no illegal activities were conducted by flying a fleet of drones in a low-population rural area so...
And they determined that by investigating (which is what we're discussing here). I'm not arguing about it's legality, just that they determined its legality by investigating something reported by genuinely concerned people.
Sure, I'll dive in with a few responses. I'm always tech forward, but never been a "small government" person, so that's my stance. I have a small toy quadcopter myself which because of the UK's 250g rule now, I'm annoyed I can't use freely.
But just because we use and understand these things doesn't really mean it's accepted. It's not that I'm playing devil's advocate, but on HN we do need to understand we don't live in a tech utopia and need to bring other people along with us, not force new tech on them.
> She called the drones creepy. Why are they creepy?
I don't find drones creepy myself, but you've got to remember these are still novel to most people. There's accepted rules about most vehicles (manned or unmanned, large and small) that are just not clear to a lot of people when it comes to drones. If you've even seen one flying in person at all.
If I'm not aware really of what they are, having an ALTA 8 or something come buzzing through the night sky is going to be creepy - this is a flying machine being operated by a random (potentially unlicensed, if they're flying at night and no one knew who it was) person. I don't see how that's not creepy to most people.
> Also you think it is a good use of public resources to drive around and identify people not committing crimes flying drones after the fact.
I know it'll get short shrift here, but yeah, I do. In this instance it transpired it wasn't illegal and probably completely fine, but if a number of people report seeing random stuff in the air that spooks them, I'd hope that someone at least goes and tries to find out what it was. Even just to work out and explain to people what it was.
Admittedly, it's not the best use of their time, but I don't see it as an invalid use of their time.
I don't believe you normalise people to drone usage simply by just flying them around.
> Otherwise it sounds like harassment for something they don’t like.
Diff'rent strokes, but if it's not bothering me, I'd have though having someone official tell someone complaining that actually it's all fine would be better?
I do.
I also want unidentified cars driving on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. At night. And unidentified boats on remote lakes and in remote parts of the ocean. At night. And unidentified pedestrians, swimmers, skydivers, bicyclists, kites, campers, photographers, robots, lawn mowers.
What isn't fine for a lot of people is something completely unknown just buzzing around when they don't have the context of what it is or what it could be doing.
I'm not saying "ban it", just it's valid for people to report something like that happening and have an expectation they'll be taken seriously.
Let's not over estimate the frequency with which people have seen or come into contact with drone flight here, we've had boats for millennia, cars for over a century. Heck, even micro scooters have been around for decades.
Personally, I don't want random, unidentified things I've got no clue about flying around where I live at night. The military helicopters that go past every day are annoying, but I know what they are and know it's all good. And one day "oh, it's just Dave's flying drone swarm" will be just as accepted. Today is not that day.
Second, how do you know they can't identify it, when there are several emails being withheld from the FOIA request?
To me, that's a dead giveaway it's a CIA project or something.
Third, if a foreign adversary has the capability to maliciously land and take off from rural airports in Nebraska then US national defense has bigger problems than some quadcopters doing formation flying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatwick_Airport_drone_incident
> The lead investigator from Sussex Police questioned whether there had been a drone at all.[18][19] Giles York, Chief Constable, later said police thought that original sightings were of an unauthorised drone, but it was possible that later sightings may have been of a drone used by Sussex Police
Here’s an amateur video... https://www.denverpost.com/2019/12/31/drone-video-yuma-count...
Funny the video quality is very UFO-alike : it could be anything.
You're exaggerating now. My point was simply that the imagery is entirely unconvincing, and could be trivially faked.
The news crew video was a little better as they had some sound of the propellers lending some credibility. I just can’t seem to track it down.
A larger 'swarm' could be any number of even non defense companies testing.
https://www.stratusleds.com/module
Stratus Light in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvDXjC-_7uo
AirMast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nllC9LGnUMQ
I fly small tinywhoop quadcopters around my house. Its a 21gram palm sized quad with fpv camera. Some people have a hysteria about drones and assume that you must be spying on them. If they could see what I see in my camera they would realize you cant see much detail of a person unless you get pretty close.
A legitimate article could simply say "There were some curious drones flying around, which the military doesn't claim. The FAA knows something they aren't telling." Then we'd all know the score without scrolling through 100 pages of obfuscated rambling.
Edit - Just to be clear: this is not about drones being spotted, there may have been small drones flying at night. This is about reports of drones with a large wingspan flying in formation around a 'mothership'. These sightings have been investigated and dismissed [2].
[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884xv3/the-colorado-myste...
[2] https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/publicsafety/news/updates-i...
I don't know what people saw out there. But I don't think one three-night investigation is enough to completely discredit all of those very detailed reports, especially given (1) how close together they are in time, (2) that reporting dropped off in multiple states at a similar point, (3) that there are matching descriptions from people who were quite far apart, and (4) that some were from pilots and others using night vision.
It could still be imagination, I just don't think your links provide enough to conclude that.
Eg: https://twitter.com/justin_fenton/status/385040854920204288?...
Reality: https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2013/09/27/eye-in-the-sky-nav...
But what they were still stands at what we knew they were when first reported, hysteria. (aka stars, planes and maybe, perhaps an occasional domestic DJI drone)
Go have a look at the drones being used by independent militant groups (with some state help) around they Middle East, they are much more interesting and real.
Link to get you started - https://twitter.com/N_Waters89/status/1255821485979176962
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isVtXH7n9lI
Instead of people being physically present, they all have drones and fly them in a formation? Bored, smart, rich kids will definitely be able to pull this off.
The recently released proposed rules for Remote ID raised a huge amount of concern in the model aircraft world, because it proposed restrictions that would effectively kill the hobby:
- All drones/RC aircraft must have a GPS-based tracking ("Full remote ID") on the aircraft, connected to a ground station and relayed to a subscription third-party service. These "Full remote ID" aircraft can be flown past line of site.
- Aircraft not constructed by a single manufacturer (For example, handmade RC planes) are not allowed to use full remote ID, and instead must use "limited" remote ID in which GPS can be on the ground station, but the aircraft must disable itself past 400ft from the ground station.
- Aircraft with limited remote ID can only be flown in a dedicated "FRIA" flying site.
- FRIA sites are "legacy" and after a short period, no new sites will be created. The stated intention of the FAA is to phase these sites out completely, meaning after a certain period all planes must comply with full remote ID, effectively killing hand-built model aircraft.
The end result of this regulation is _not_ safer airways: It's an airspace <400ft owned by commercial entities such as Amazon who are able to comply with the requirements of the Remote ID tracking and single-manufacturer requirements. It's an example of regulatory capture that will genuinely make the world worse for us by increasing noise pollution and drone traffic at low heights. Meanwhile, the model aircraft and drone hobby will have a large barrier to entry that pushes away the innovation of millions of engineers who got their start as kids flying affordable DIY planes.
For what it's worth, the craft I make are in the "Ultra-micro" category which are only a couple ounces flying weight.
As usual, a few bad actors ruin it for everyone else trying to do the right thing.
This framing is reminiscent of a lazy schoolteacher engaging in collective punishment. The few bad actors are not the ones ruining it for everyone else - let's keep the responsibility for the overbearing and inept response on the FAA itself.
To apply that to your classroom example instead of being easily identifiable the kids are anonymous, very fast, and appear and disappear quickly. In that case is it that weird to try to make a way to differentiate everyone?
Quads/drones/UASs are in a pretty tough to regulate sphere because they fly and can do a lot of damage it's not that wild for governments to try to get a handle on them.
In fact, the FAA has explicitly stated that they don't want to use a radio-broadcast system like ADS-B (the equivalent for general aviation). The solution being proposed involves a proprietary internet-based system that has privacy/security implications among other issues -- The system would send the location of any user to a third-party company, would require a subscription, etc.
The solution does very little to alleviate the concerns you are discussing and many more reasonable proposals have been suggested which DO involve radio ID. My favorite solutions involve a combination of a radio beacon broadcasting GPS and registration # in the style of ADS-B for larger drones/aircraft, and for smaller aircraft an app-based system where users "check in" with a flight plan. But keep in mind that the outrage is not over any regulation by the FAA, it's that their proposal completely disregards existing industry standards like those put out by DJI and creates an expensive, hard to enforce system that favors large corporate interests.
Let's keep in mind that there are millions of drones in the US (1.1 million registered with the FAA, and many more that have not been registered because they are <250g or custom-built.) and have not had a single incident involving injury or death. Every single incident involving a drone has involved the concern of violation of someone's privacy or violation of an airspace, and even in those incidents there has been a lot of hysteria involved in the media response. In my opinion this absolutely does not justify preemptively building an expansive surveillance infrastructure around technology that has, so far, proven to be very safe.
And ADS-B style is probably the best and easiest option. It can be an easy add on to existing quads and probably done pretty cheaply. Places with airspace concerns can easily setup a base station to listen to their local area.
> Every single incident involving a drone has involved the concern of violation of someone's privacy or violation of an airspace, and even in those incidents there has been a lot of hysteria involved in the media response
They haven't yet (at least in a mass event, several have fallen on crowds etc) but violations of airspace, especially around airports, don't have to actually cause injury because the threat of an airliner engine eating one somewhere between their commit speed and their rudder authority speed or any time really during take off and landing requires airports be extremely cautious about drone sightings.
> have not had a single incident involving injury or death
That is... very wrong. Don't do an image search on "drone injury" unless you have a strong stomach.
Drone cuts off tip of photographer's nose: https://www.brooklynpaper.com/drone-strike-our-photographer-...
Drone injures Australian triathlete: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26921504
Drone injures bystanders in Virginia crowd: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/drone-crashes-into-virgi...
RC plane kills spectator at football game: https://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/15/archives/fan-hurt-by-mode...
RC helicopter kills 19-year-old: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/nyregion/remote-controlle...
Speed limits don't stop bad actors either but that doesn't me we get rid of them.
I was just thinking about this some more today.
I think the analogy would be drone use laws are equivalent to speeding limits.
proposed drone RF ID is equivalent to vehicle registration + real time monitoring of vehicle location and speed.
Except you are wrong.
We had dipshits taking pictures of fires in California with their drones--IN THE MIDDLE OF ACTIVE FIREFIGHTING ZONES. It was sufficiently bad that the firefighters grounded their aircraft.
So, how do we set up a system to deal with that?
I, like many others, put a comment on the FAA proposal, but that comment period is over and the pandemic has slowed down a lot of the public progress of this legislation. It's hard to answer your question, since it feels like the FAA is proceeded as planned despite tens of tousands of concerned comments.
What’s the evidence that these were not birds?
Would appreciate confirmation or contradiction from someone who knows better.
Clearly the drones stopped because it was a limited term contract.
A conspiracy would be more like they are testing remote monitoring drones on unsuspecting farmers and are not supposed to be spying in the United States because they are under government contract. But there would be no need for something like that for some tests.
Or its aliens.
Or just use Lockheed's test facilities in the desert in California, which are far more remote and have better weather.
There's a reason aviation companies operate in SoCal, and not Colorado.
As with the death of Fahim Saleh, HN is trending towards shadowy, dramatic reasons that just don't make sense in the face of numerous mundane explanations.
NASA's Orion spacecraft
NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) weather satellite series
NASA's MAVEN
NASA's JUNO
NASA's OSIRIS-REx
NASA's InSight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_Space#Civil_Sp...
There are a lot of space/satellite companies in the Denver area, but not many drone companies. As you may know, design of a satellite is different from design of a quadcopter drone. Satellites are launched by rockets, powered by solar panels, and orbit earth. Drones fly in the atmosphere using rotors to move air, controlled by humans on the ground. So it would seem odd to associate satellite-building engineering operations, often completely civil, with clandestine drones.
Satellite detection tech of drones could be a thing...
The projects you listed may not be top secret but I'm sure they still fall under ITAR. Either way if a defense contractor was out testing stuff on drones, then I doubt they would coordinate with anyone.
I grew up in the country, I don't see any teen/young adult spotting one of these over their farm/ranch and resisting the urge to grab a 12 gauge and take a shot.
that isn't amateurs, nor does it look like any small business/start-up. That smells like defense contractor.
Do drones like this even exist that are available to civilians? Even $30,000 commercial grade drones are only a few feet wide and have sub hour flight times.