
Who’s Behind Those Mystery Drone Swarms? An Investigation - dankohn1
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/whos-behind-those-mystery-drone-swarms-an-investigation.html
======
reeddavid
What a mystery. The article mentioned winged drones that could "make round
trips of about nine miles". A range like that would make for a fairly narrow
search area for a base.

Then again this NY Times article
([https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/us/drones-FAA-colorado-
ne...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/us/drones-FAA-colorado-
nebraska.html)) said "local officials were studying the flight path of the
drones and coordinating across county lines to figure out where they were
coming from."

If they're crossing county lines, that seems like a long distance.

The pattern sounds predictable based on the reporting. Could a sheriff
helicopter track them to where they land? Could a photographer team up with a
searchlight operator to get a clear close-up photo of a drone, maybe identify
the drone make/model, then start to identify the types of equipment (e.g.
photo, lidar, other sensors) for clues?

The other puzzling part of this is that if a well-funded entity wanted to test
in secret, they could probably find unpopulated areas to test over. Unless the
testing relates to features of a populated area.

------
lazulicurio
Another, less-nefarious (than military exercises), option: animal surveys[1].

> Another benefit of drones over current methods is that the industrial grade
> drones offer thermal or infrared technology, which means surveys could be
> done at night, when deer are typically more active

[1] [https://www.ckwri.tamuk.edu/news-events/tpwd-joins-ckwri-
stu...](https://www.ckwri.tamuk.edu/news-events/tpwd-joins-ckwri-study-use-
drones-deer-surveys)

~~~
vstuart
I believe this is the most reasonable answer. This is purely speculative, but
it is a temporal chain of events.

If you look back (web) for Robert Bigelow and NIDS, Colm Kelleher, prions,
surveillance, etc. ... you'll find (pre-Skinwalker) a report by NIDS that
concluded cattle mutilations were a covert surveillance for prions, present in
cattle as "mad cow disease" (note Britain and BSE epidemic).

[http://www.lesconfins.com/RapportNIDS2.pdf](http://www.lesconfins.com/RapportNIDS2.pdf)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy)

Prions -- infectious, pathological (fatal with no cure), virtually
indestructible, naturally-occurring proteins - are present in wild game as
chronic wasting disease. Do any search on game hunting, annual reports ... and
there's much discussion on CWD, deer, elk ... There are also numerous
governmental websites / reports on prion prevalence in domestic / game
populations.

Aerial surveillance -- infrared at night -- is a facile approach to tracking
game populations ...

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25443854](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25443854)

Again highly speculative, but the incidence maps for cattle mutilations /
prion prevalence / those mystery drone sightings overlap.

Cattle mutilations:

[http://www.ufonut.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/mute_map.jp...](http://www.ufonut.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/mute_map.jpg)

[https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/screen-s...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/screen-shot-2017-09-21-at-11-46-26-am.png)

[https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP._9db02KOHWEJuvkVTsauiwHaFS](https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP._9db02KOHWEJuvkVTsauiwHaFS)

Prions:

[https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/distribution-chronic-
wasti...](https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/distribution-chronic-wasting-
disease-north-america-0)

Drones:

[https://www.earthfiles.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/01/DroneM...](https://www.earthfiles.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/01/DroneMAP_04SLIDE_ColoNeb.jpg)

[https://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2020/01/07/8dd58f1c-...](https://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2020/01/07/8dd58f1c-5ced-4dca-8294-95bd5eaeedba/thumbnail/620x349/9b9861d89bc77a346a98f6e410aee25f/drones-02.png)

Given the potential risk to domestic herds, humans, and economies (and the
consequences of rumor and panic), it makes sense that these events connect as
clandestine, molecular epidemiology surveillance efforts.

------
cedivad
6-foot wide drones are very expensive and there aren't that many people that
can afford risking 50-100k in one go for whatever this is, so I'm guessing
it's the military, which would be long overdue.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/us/drones-FAA-colorado-
ne...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/us/drones-FAA-colorado-
nebraska.html)

~~~
walrus01
I know people who build ardupilot based wing systems that have 2 meter
wingspans, and flight endurance times in the 1:45 to 2:30 range, all up cost
under $4000 per craft. Using fairly normal NCR18650GA batteries and pixhawk
cube black flight controllers.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=mfd+believer+1960&oq=mfd+bel...](https://www.google.com/search?q=mfd+believer+1960&oq=mfd+believer+1960&aqs=chrome..69i57j33.4412j0j4&sourceid=chrome-
mobile&ie=UTF-8)

~~~
cedivad
You are right, I thought this was quadcopters not fixed wing. I also built ~3
meter wingspan "drones" in the past for less than $2000/100km range, fun
times.

------
rebuilder
The TL;DR seems to be: Some entity is flying drone swarms in Colorado and
Nebraska. You need a number of permits to do so, but none of the entities that
have such permits and the right kind of drones are admitting it's them.

So, either someone is lying or someone is flying without a permit. Or, and
this is my addition, someone is flying the drones who doesn't need a permit,
somehow.

~~~
ethbro
> _Or, and this is my addition, someone is flying the drones who doesn 't need
> a permit, somehow._

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth." \-- Sherlock (Arthur Conan Doyle)

Assuming nymag did their research correctly (it seems a pretty simple series
of steps), then the most logical conclusion is that someone has a non-public
permit. Which points to military or military-adjacent.

~~~
nannal
Military makes little sense though, why conduct testing or operations in one
of the worlds most heavily populated metropolises when you clearly have
alternate options?

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Maybe you want to test feasibility of using your assets for combat in urban
areas.

~~~
nannal
US Military has urban areas at its disposal, could this not be done around
fort bragg for example?

~~~
lb1lf
I feel one step short of donning a tinfoil hat, but maybe the drones are used
for monitoring someone/something in the area where they are being observed?

~~~
LyndsySimon
I’ll take another half-step: perhaps these drones are being used to make
someone with ties to that area believe they are being monitored by them in an
effort to see how they react.

The sustained media coverage would help with that.

------
8bitsrule
Why doesn't someone take a receiver to these drone-sighting sites and end the
mystery by looking at what they're doing?

------
Simulacra
Yes it’s illegal to shoot them down but...what other means might there be to
discover who and what is going on?

~~~
sneak
How is shooting one down going to tell you any of that?

~~~
93po
You can see the components it's made of, or whether they're using one of the
established fixed wing drone manufacturers. Look at sales records to see who's
buying those drones or components in Colorado, get a search warrant, and then
bust them for owning these drones.

------
newnewpdro
If the DEA were developing swarms w/IR sensing to canvas areas for things like
like grow operations I'd expect them to stay mum about it exactly how this is
playing out.

------
semerda
Curious why no one has used a telescope to check out the drones. This be a far
simpler and cheaper solution than dispatching planes or landing on them. Would
it not work?

------
ur-whale
TL;DR: the article doesn't answer its own question.

------
WMCRUN
Why can’t someone rig up a DJI drone with an adhesive base, land it on the
mystery drone, leave the camera engaged, and figure out where they go?

~~~
o-__-o
Weight, there is an inverse relationship to lift for single wing (*copter)
crafts. Once that dji lands, the drone would need to add power which either it
doesn’t have or will kill its battery before ending its mission. The DJI won’t
know the direction the drone is going so it can’t “add lift” in a meaningful
way. Also you have no idea of the blade configuration and you may not even be
able to land atop these things!

A better option is to outfit the DJI with a thermal or nightvision lens and
have it track the drones. Also a DJI is probably a bad choice if the drones
are industrial in nature and larger than the DJI (thus faster and longer
lasting power source).

I’ve thought about being that rogue drone operator for 5 years now, but the
one thing that always stops me is forensic analysis. Shoot one of those drones
down, do some part analysis to see who manufactured it and when, where it was
sold etc and you whittle your search area down to a few thousand people. Not
hard for the FBI/DHS/FAA/FCC to figure out who you are. Let me say this
differently, if this where a question of national security the drone operators
would be found within days

------
pdelbarba
What's the interval they've been flying at? Has any been keeping track of how
often they're spotted?

------
aaron695
It's hysteria

Stars, satellites or planes in the distance. The strangest things would be
weather balloons.

We have moved form Aliens to drones. Same happened at Gatwick Airport.

