[houseoftechno]

UFO drones are surveilling America’s most sensitive military sites — and the Pentagon says it can’t stop them
By Ronny Reyes
Oct. 13, 2024 New York Post
https://nypost.com/2024/10/13/us-new...ilitary-sites/

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.

The base is home to the F-22 Raptor fighter jets — one of the American military’s most advanced stealth warplanes.

The drones continued to appear over the course of 17 days, with officials suspecting that they might have been deployed by Russian or Chinese agents to spy on American military assets.

Because snooping does not constitute an imminent threat, the military is prohibited by law from shooting down the drones.

A directed jamming attack also had the potential to interfere with commercial aircraft near the peak of the holiday travel season, one FAA official warned.

Analog tactics were also unsuccessful as local police aiding in the investigation would lose sight of the drones during the midnight chases, the WSJ reports.

The drone sightings ended on Dec. 23, with officials still unsure as to where they came from and who was operating them.

Given the complexity of the operation and number of drones flying in coordination, authorities had ruled out the possibility that amateur drone pilots were behind the sightings.

A clue, however, arrived the following month when a Chinese student studying at the University of Minnesota was caught flying a drone near the Langley base on Jan. 6.

The student, Fengyun Shi, 26, had gotten his drone stuck in a tree, which he appeared to abandon when he flew to California the following day.

The drone fell from the tree the same day, finding its way to the FBI, who found the drone had photographed Navy ships docked at the base.

Shi was arrested a week later as he was about to board a one-way flight trip to China, with prosecutors charging him with unlawfully taking photos of classified naval installations, the first such case involving a drone, according to the WSJ.

Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard dismissed Shi’s claim that he was just a student on vacation flying a drone for fun, with Shi pleading guilty to the espionage charges on Oct. 2.

“If he was a foreign agent, he would be the worst spy ever known,” Shi’s attorney, Shaoming Cheng, told the WSJ.

Along with the incidents in Virginia, US officials have confirmed that similar swarms of drones had been recently spotted near the Edwards Air Force Base, in Nevada.

The Defense Department has yet to publicly state who is behind these apparent surveillance drones.

Mystery drones swarm U.S. military base for 17 days, leaving Pentagon puzzled
Oct. 13, 2024 Newsrael

U.S. officials are baffled by a series of unidentified drones that have flown freely over sensitive national-security sites, including military bases, without any clear indication of who is operating them or how to neutralize the threat.

Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, a senior commander at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, decided to investigate reports of a suspicious fleet of drones himself. He climbed onto a squadron rooftop, joining other officers overseeing some of the country's most advanced fighter jets, such as the F-22 Raptors.

For several nights, military personnel reported a mysterious breach of restricted airspace over an area housing a significant concentration of national-security facilities. The unusual sightings typically began about 45 minutes to an hour after sunset, according to a senior officer.

Shortly after Kelly arrived, the first drone appeared. A veteran fighter pilot, he estimated its size at around 20 feet and its speed exceeding 100 miles per hour, flying at an altitude of approximately 3,000 to 4,000 feet. More drones followed, creating a sound reminiscent of a parade of lawn mowers as they flew by.

The drones moved south across Chesapeake Bay toward Norfolk, Virginia, an area that includes the home base of Navy SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval port in the world.

Officials remain uncertain whether the drone fleet, which numbered as many as a dozen or more in subsequent nights, is the work of savvy hobbyists or potential adversaries. Some speculate that Russia or China might be testing the U.S. military's response capabilities.

Current federal law prohibits the military from shooting down drones near U.S. military bases unless they pose an imminent threat, and mere aerial surveillance does not meet that criterion. However, some lawmakers are advocating for expanded military authority in this regard.

The drone sightings have reached President Biden, prompting two weeks of White House meetings since their initial appearance in December of last year. Officials from the Defense Department, FBI, and the Pentagon's UFO office, along with outside experts, have convened to explore possible explanations and response strategies.

Wow. Just, wow. What utter incompetence.

[HIGHTECHDUDE]

Some video of the UAP's over Langley AFB, VA...

[Tony76]

Lets see that Area 51 footage...

[Bletch]

And guess what, they are most likely of Chinese origin

[Soulconsumer]

This guy from Newsnation is full of it, he is working with Uri Geller as well and that guy was debunked decades ago.

[William May]

If you think the Feds and the CIA are just standing by helplessly, farting, then you are delusional. I guarantee that EVERY one of those drones has been tracked, and they know their origination point, and their flight paths as well. Just because they say they are helpless and "just can't do nothing" is not only preposterous, it is something only the Russians and Chinese will believe, which they apparently do. Wait and see what ACTUALLY happens.

[William May]

The Raytheon Missile Systems plant is adjacent to the Learjet factory on the same patch of land at Tucson International Airport. We were told never to even approach their fence lines, as they said they have sensors that can see an intruder up to 50 feet from the fences surrounding their plant. We had 2 Learjet Factory cats, (one named "Pratt" and the other named "Lambert" (After the paint manufacturers who made paint for Learjets) who patrolled our factory for mice and rats, and who were VERY good at their jobs doing it, too. If you ever saw them, they usually had a rat in their jaws.

The cats actually had "scan" badges that identified them as working for Learjet. I have a pic of one of them that I was petting one time.

I was working very late one night, when the security people at Raytheon brought over one of our cats they had spotted and captured on their property. They brought it back to us since it had an official Learjet badge on it's collar.

There was no doubt in our minds that if they could spot, track, and capture a cat, (in the dark) then humans had no chance against whatever security systems they had.

Just because someone says "Aw Shucks, we are just witless" doesn't mean they really are. It just means it's what they want you to BELIEVE they are. Witless and incompetent bunglers.

"Yup! Shucks! We just don't have ANY clue about what those Chinese drones are doing! We are just puzzled and confused!"

[kellyhound]

VanHerck, who led the military response to the Chinese balloon, ordered jet fighters and other aircraft to fly close enough to glean clues from the drones.

He recommended that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin authorize a full menu of electronic eavesdropping and spycraft to learn more, though the Pentagon is limited in what it can do on U.S. soil.

“If there are unknown objects within North America,” VanHerck said, the job is “to go out and identify them.”

Solving that mystery, even for the world’s pre-eminent superpower, proved easier said than done. Local police were among the first to try.

For two nights, starting on Dec. 6, Hampton, Va., officers chased the drones, by patrol car and on foot, relaying momentary sightings along with information from Langley over police radios: One was seen in the area of Marshall Street or Gosnold’s Hope Park.

Three more appeared to land but returned to the air before officers could reach them. Another looked like it landed offshore. Police finally gave up.
Gen. Kelly, now retired, said the Pentagon was stumped, too.

U.S. officials didn’t believe hobbyists were flying the drones, given the complexity of the operation.

The drones flew in a pattern: one or two fixed-wing drones positioned more than 100 feet in the air and smaller quadcopters, the size of 20-pound commercial drones, often below and flying slower. Occasionally, they hovered.

They came from the north around 6 p.m. to traverse the base, which sits on a peninsula at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, and continued south, beyond the reach of radar. They repeated the pattern and then disappeared, typically by midnight.

Langley officials had called on U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships to keep a watch out for the drones with little luck.

They were much smaller than military aircraft and didn’t always show up on radar. Military personnel had to recalibrate their radar systems, which were set to ignore anything that resembled a bird.

Analysts learned that the smaller quadcopters didn’t use the usual frequency band available for off-the-shelf commercial drones—more evidence that the drone operators weren’t hobbyists.

Langley officials canceled nighttime training missions, worried about potential collisions with the drone swarm, and moved the F-22 jet fighters to another base.

Base residents shared their sightings at the local Starbucks and posted blurry photos of the drones on private Facebook groups.

Intelligence officials spotted a vessel floating in international waters off the coast of Virginia and suspected a connection. Coast Guard crews boarded the vessel but found no computers or other gear to support the hunch.

On Dec. 23, the drones made their last visit.
In January, authorities found a clue they hoped would crack the case.

On Jan. 18, federal agents arrested Shi as he was about to board a flight to China on a one-way ticket. Shi told FBI agents he was a ship enthusiast and hadn’t realized his drone crossed into restricted airspace. Investigators weren’t convinced but found no evidence linking him to the Chinese government.

They learned he had bought the drone on sale at a Costco in San Francisco the day before he traveled to Norfolk.

U.S. prosecutors charged Shi with unlawfully taking photos of classified naval installations, the first case involving a drone under a provision of U.S. espionage law.

The 26-year-old Chinese national pleaded guilty and appeared in federal court in Norfolk on Oct. 2 for sentencing.

Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard said he didn’t believe Shi’s story—that he had been on vacation and was flying drones in the middle of the night for fun. “There’s significant holes,” the judge said in court.

“If he was a foreign agent, he would be the worst spy ever known,” said Shi’s attorney, Shaoming Cheng.

“I’m sorry about what happened in Norfolk,” Shi said before he was sentenced to six months in federal prison.

U.S. officials have yet to determine who flew the Langley drones or why.

20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour, at an altitude of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet.

Clearly not a hobbyist or operated by a foreign student like the drone in the story above.

Actually it's nothing new about UAP's above nuclear and military intallations. Going on for decades.

More lights spotted over Langley, two days ago.


The smaller drones that sound like lawnmowers are drones operated by people but the bigger ones are a mystery to which some people say it's of military origin (ours or foreign), Extraterrestrial as they want to know if we are capable or planning to destroy earth/mankind or some secret black budget operation where we're testing stuff with the help of crashed ufo's or even with the help of aliens.

Why would a spy drone have blinking lights attached to its wings anyways.

Interesting comments as well.

[houseoftechno]

“If there are unknown objects within North America,” VanHerck said, the job is “to go out and identify them.”

Identify them, my arse. The RUE should be to blow the drones out of the sky.

[William May]

Originally Posted by houseoftechno ↗

Identify them, my arse. The RUE should be to blow the drones out of the sky.

I think they should use the Ukrainian approach, and hit them with shotguns. Not going to be any related civilian casualties if they do that.


Also, when they find the wreckage, they can trace them to their source of purchase.