At times like this it's helpful to use a simple, three point framework: [1] What do we know? [2] What is noise? [3] What is the boring explanation?
For [1], we know there are likely _some_ drones. We know drones are a very hot topic for defense at the moment and that countries are heavily investing in this area. We know that these systems need very heavy testing for coordination, surveillance, etc. and we know that other countries have conducted these in urban areas. We also know that these drones have been seen often nearby military installations. We know that our government is claiming to have no idea what these are, but has declared them safe and does not intend to take them out. We know that Ukraine (backed by the US) has used drones pretty successfully against Russia. We know that Israel has used drones successfully against targets across the region. We also know that the US is deploying pretty heavily in PACOM, and we can see that there are a wide array of large value contracts regarding drones being handed out to defense contractors.
For [2], there is SO much noise. A congressman immediately blaming Iran (a country an entire ocean away that is incurring heavy regional losses). The news and mass hysteria online that it's aliens. People confusing helicopters and planes for drones, but with just enough actual drone footage in the mix to false flag. Pretty much everyone looking at the skies which will greatly increase incidence. Just enough counter culture online that these are kids drones, regular planes, helicopters. Lots of varying narratives coming from different branches of military and law enforcement.
That's all very interesting, but if you subtract [2] from [1] you get a very boring explanation, [3] that these are likely our own drones being tested. I've seen this boring explanation get dismissed as technically the US has testing sites, but these are typically for bombs, and drones are best utilized in populated areas or for surveillance (both of which are hard to test in the desert). I also see dismissals of this as "the military would have said something by now," but they have: they've declared these "safe." If they were testing out new functionality on cutting edge tech they wouldn't admit to it, no matter how many likes a tweet gets or how many videos get posted online.
There is also no way a state government, governor, or law enforcement would know about this (yeah, even the FBI) because drone programs in the US are coordinated by intelligence agencies that are very secretive and don't like to share information among themselves.
The problem with the "secret testing over civilian areas" idea is that it's self-contradicting.
So you think the military and intelligence has technology that is so secret they won't admit to it, but they're so uninterested in protecting that they're testing them willy nilly over populated areas??
The other contradiction is risk: so you have an aerial technology test and you do it over US civilian populations and military bases over long periods in large numbers, not caring about risk of an object crashing, nor of triggering a mistaken response or misinterpretation by US or another nation, and without a NOTAM to protect aircraft?
None of that scans.
The other point is this is not limited to New Jersey and the United Kingdom.
> So you think the military and intelligence has technology that is so secret they won't admit to it, but they're so uninterested in protecting that they're testing them willy nilly over populated areas??
The explicit purpose of most advances in drone technology over the last ~20 years is not to be the biggest baddest weapon in the sky, but to be a hard to catch camera that sees everything and knows everything. That is also the biggest drone program that I am aware of and the explicit purpose of Maven.
> The other contradiction is risk: so you have an aerial technology test and you do it over US civilian populations and military bases over long periods in large numbers, not caring about risk of an object crashing, nor of triggering a mistaken response or misinterpretation by US or another nation, and without a NOTAM to protect aircraft?
The latter part of your question is the answer to the former. If we conduct tests abroad, we risk a response or the tech getting stolen. We need somewhere to test it, so we test it here. There is pretty low risk of these crashing, and civilians would not have the technology needed to down these drones (this capability would be pretty thoroughly tested in unpopulated areas).
We do issue NOTAMs when drones are in airspace, these are low flying and so do not warrant any notice.
That's fair about NOTAM's if they are low flying, how do you know they're low flying?
Your answer sounds official. Is this an official answer from someone in the military or IC? You say "these drones" - do you know unequivocally what they are?
How does the purpose of the Maven drone program you mention resolve the contradiction of testing a classified program that cannot be acknowledged, over civilian areas willy nilly? What is the purpose of a secret surveillance platform that is now an international news story? That goes against how such platforms are protected. So many contradictions.
These were also spotted in the UK over multiple bases (RAF Lakenheath, etc). Even if this were a test of our own technology, there's a lot of risk, and a lot of unknown and concern among officials who are in the dark, which creates more risk. It does not scan.
I don't really think you've provided answers that resolve these questions. I think it's legitimate that everybody has questions and there's a lot unknown. You seem to be saying you have the answers. Is that how you feel? Is that what you're saying?
All of the media sightings I have seen about these so far has been low flying. I don't deny that we have very high flying drones but I doubt they would be tested without NOTAMs (over CONUS).
> Your answer sounds official. Is this an official answer from someone in the military or IC?
Not official - I have not been part of the IC for about a year now. I can't talk about my background there without doxxing.
> How does the purpose of the Maven drone program you mention resolve the contradiction of testing a classified program that cannot be acknowledged, over civilian areas willy nilly?
I don't think I can answer this without doxxing or leaking, but there are a lot of public communications on MSS, its goals, what it involves, etc. and its recent expansions.
> These were also spotted in the UK over multiple bases (RAF Lakenheath, etc). Even if this were a test of our own technology, there's a lot of risk, and a lot of unknown and concern among officials who are in the dark, which creates more risk. It does not scan.
I haven't seen any reports of these; my gut reaction would be to suspect these are not drones and just regular aircraft. I wouldn't rule out drone tech (UK is in FVEY) but don't think it is likely.
I'm not saying it is necessarily ethical or a correct thing that these programs have such infrequent and limited oversight. I'm just quoting the reality (at least up to last year).
> You seem to be saying you have the answers. Is that how you feel? Is that what you're saying?
I'm just applying a framework that typically works for me and my existing knowledge of these programs. I'm not actively in the IC and can't definitely say I'm 100% right, but I don't see any other explanations at this point.
If you are looking for 100% answers there are probably entire chatrooms and threads dedicated to this on chatsurfer by now :)
100% answers? I'm the one asking the questions, you're the one who seems confident. I just wanted to understand from what basis your confidence arises.
I can't accept the blanket "trust us, we're the IC", because it's not credible. More so because how credibility has been surrendered by officials in IC on this topic through historical deception on UAP/UFO/NHI. Even more so when there's a motivation to lie to protect the secret that you don't control your skies, when that's your mandate.
There has to be a reckoning with truth if we hope to advance, and I actually see the Pentagon statement as +ve progress on that. In the larger context of this story, it's a bit of an acapella solo atop a harmony of voices from military saying "We don't control our airspace. There's unknown objects arising from non human intelligence." People include: Ryan Graves, Tim Gallaudet, Luis Elizondo, Chris Mellon, Jay Stratton, David Grusch, Karl Nell.
It's disappointing that with your IC "frameworks" you didn't even realistically consider "other explanations"; maybe such possible blindspots have been part of the problem institutionally, which is sad - because those are the ones who should be on top of it.
Or maybe you're just being a good soldier and still have NDAs, or never knew. Anyway, if you're interested I encourage you to go down that UFO/NHI rabbithole! Fascinating stuff. I bet you'd do great work on it, too, with you analytic skills. Give it a try maybe :)
There's plenty in this comment to get you started. So...go for it! :) And the UK stuff can be searched easily, for example: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-air-force-drone-sightings-uk... and if you're keen on rabbitholing here's two more to suck you in :)
> So you think the military and intelligence has technology that is so secret they won't admit to it
It’s more like “does not have to disclose anything so chooses not to”.
When you are in the long game of keeping your information and intentions secret, you don’t reveal anything if you don’t have to. They do need to test low flying aircraft in populous areas. They don’t need to say anything about it.
It’s like when you’re a kid, and your friends are trying to get you to admit who you have a crush on. If you actually want to keep it secret, you have to provide the same response to every question they ask, otherwise you are revealing information. If you say “no” truthfully to some questions but then refuse to say “no” untruthfully to other questions, then they can just pepper you with enough questions to triangulate what they want to know. Or you can just say “no comment” to everything but people take that worse.
Fort Dix, which is an airforce base, is in New Jersey. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was them. There was an incident some years ago when a very strange supersonic noise blasted out from that area and the government was very quiet about it.
I haven't been highside in almost a year now so I don't purport to know the actual operation behind this, BUT I would place my money on testing surveillance systems and on-device tracking modules. CDAO has been investing very publicly in these areas alongside the Maven program and TF Lima. They need a lot of good data on populated areas to make this work; they also can't risk testing this in warzones where a downed drone will both [1] leak advances in technology we have made since Reapers and [2] expose the on-device models they have in place. Could even be a vendor trying to evaluate their models; there is nothing particularly illegal about these drones.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Fort Dix, is in fact, Joint Base McGuire–Dix–Lakehurst, or as the DOD has recently taken to calling it, JB MDL. Fort Dix is not an army base unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning tri-force base hosted by the Air Force and including units from all six service branches.
I feel like you already have decided that this is safe and then are using "boring" explanations to back that narrative. This is easy cause nothing bad has happened in a while so it's less cognitive dissonance to go with that narrative.
Have you even tried coming up with boring explanations on how this could be not safe?
Also why specifically boring explanations? Plenty of incidents have dramatic explanations. How do you know when to pick what? Is the idea most incidents have boring explanations? And what happens when there is a black swan and you fuck up because you only relied on boring explanations? Shouldn't you be doing some sort of probability distributions instead?
If the military proclaimed these drones safe and are not shooting them down like crazy, these drones are likely reasonably safe, and are not an enemy that the US military, arguably the top one in the world, would fight.
A possible bad explanation: the US military actually would love to shoot down these drones, but cannot, because e.g. they are known to contain smallpox virus, dangerous radioactive contaminants, etc. These would be released at the slightest attempt to sound alarms or interfere. Someone caught them unawares and is now enjoying impunity.
A worse version: the US military and/or government is complicit, actually overrun by aliens / reptiloids / crackpots, and is allowing an invasion.
Etc.
Which version looks more plausible, any of these, or that the US military is testing something that can fly, but keeps the lips tight?
A spokesperson said that there was no proven harm done or something to that effect, as i particularly noted this oddball statement for what it was.
Please do go back and confirm.
I also think that any threat actor would attempt to dampen down alarm. GIVEN Putins proclivity and capabilities in convincing a cerain percentage of decadent western nations (tm) populations of certain scenarios in world power mongering, i dont see a brazen foreign drone surveillance campaign as out of the question.
Mind you, i did not allege that this is such, but that dismissal of such is currently impossible and unwise.
I believe they very explicitly said they pose no threat and also explicitly ruled out foreign entities and adversaries.
I talked about this in another comment but Putin/Russia and Iran could never be contenders for this. If it was a foreign entity it would pretty much be limited to China in terms of capability & readiness.
Without referring to anything specific about this case, things usually have boring explanations because what makes an explanation boring is that it is expected and empirically likely.
“The most likely explanation is the most boring one” is practically a tautology, because “boring” practically means “likely” in regards to explanations of events.
The DoD has very publicly stated that these are safe; I know Americans have a lot of distrust in their military but when it comes to matters of national security and defense the intel community is more or less omniscient.
Knowing the current capabilities of the military, there is also no possibility that this is not safe and yet cannot be handled after this long, which kinda rules out any boring explanation.
When it comes to matters of UFOs, drones, and lights in the sky, it has only ever been a boring explanation. I think people want very much for it to be fantastical, but often times the boring reality is still very dramatic if you step back and consider we're talking about secret testing of highly advanced drones.
By the same definition every helicopter, plane, kid flying a drone, even car on the road is not “safe.”
It’s the same way I can call a system reliable when it is 3 9’s, but that doesn’t imply 100% guaranteed uptime. Or a statistician can reject a hypothesis that has a low enough p-value but still more than 0. Or how health systems and procedures are considered safe above a threshold, or how we consider condoms safe sex while understanding they are not 100% effective.
I’m finding it frustrating that when it comes to UFOs, people tend to isolate the most remote possibilities.
Ever heard of submarines and ships. the Congressman said he heard from a good source there was an Iranian "mothership" on the East Coast. I guess you claim he's being lied to, or making it all up?
With everything intel-coded you can quickly figure out what is actually happening by applying the three point framework:
[1] What we know: Iran does not have a strong drone program, and it is almost impossible to get a ship that close to our shores without it being blown to literal bits by our 3 navy's.
[2] Noise: Congress has almost no insight into what the DoD does outside of hearings and oversight committees; Jeff Van Drew is on none of the committees that oversee any of our drone programs or space command, nor do these meet on a frequent enough cadence for them to have weighed in intel already. He's also a gun nut pro-lifer who has voted with Russian interests in the last two votes, and I doubt he would receive many markings or special briefings from intel agencies. The Pentagon (which currently directly oversees TF Lima, is where CDAO is based out of, and collaborates closely with SPACECOM) has also very publicly shot down these claims.
This release just links Iranian technology to UAVs used against Ukraine; they are nowhere near the capabilities of top military powers. The only country that can claim the #2 spot on the list is China.
To give you an idea of the comparison, Iranian drones are not even close capability wise to a Reaper. The Reaper is damn near EOL as it was developed in 2007(!) and is basically caveman technology compared to what we are currently running.
they are nowhere near the capabilities of top military powers
Russia is a top military power, and they use Iranian drones.
BTW, I didn't say they were number 2, I said they were battle tested unlike other top programs, like China'. Iran's drones are currently actively being used in two wars (vs Ukraine, vs Israel).
I don't think there are Iranian drones in NJ, but it isn't because they don't have a capable program. It's because it makes no sense.
Russia is not a top military power when it comes to technology, and probably not manpower after bleeding out in Ukraine.
There are plenty of advanced drone programs that are "battle tested." They are successful and so you do not hear about them :)
I maintain the Iranian drone program is incapable. They are very similar to the Ukrainian drones, botched together and little more than big model airplanes with explosives inside. They neither have the capability to get a ship onto our shores, nor to launch drones undetected, nor to pilot them undetected, nor to evade our defenses and intelligence network.
Whatever these drones are they're smart enough to vanish once we try to tail them. It's likely not simply Iranian tech. Remember China and Iran are allies, and sharing technology. If China wanted to prove something to the USA, they could easily let Iran do it, simply to cause less of an "International Incident" if the truth comes out of what's going on. My hunch is that it's a Chinese Technology Demonstration, and the "mothership" might be nothing more than a cargo container on a cargo ship. That would go totally unnoticed by our military sensor arrays.
"He made it up" certainly seems more likely than Iran, what, retrofitting one of their old Kilo class D/E subs to be a drone mothership that's just lurking off the coast?
How much time did he get on fox news? How many new followers on social media?
This is the game they are playing. The attention game. Just like the kid who misbehaves so people pay attention to him. This is what social media has done to our society.
But there's also a reason CNN (and most MSM) have lost all credibility. People finally realized which side has indeed been lying basically nonstop for the past 10 years.
For [1], we know there are likely _some_ drones. We know drones are a very hot topic for defense at the moment and that countries are heavily investing in this area. We know that these systems need very heavy testing for coordination, surveillance, etc. and we know that other countries have conducted these in urban areas. We also know that these drones have been seen often nearby military installations. We know that our government is claiming to have no idea what these are, but has declared them safe and does not intend to take them out. We know that Ukraine (backed by the US) has used drones pretty successfully against Russia. We know that Israel has used drones successfully against targets across the region. We also know that the US is deploying pretty heavily in PACOM, and we can see that there are a wide array of large value contracts regarding drones being handed out to defense contractors.
For [2], there is SO much noise. A congressman immediately blaming Iran (a country an entire ocean away that is incurring heavy regional losses). The news and mass hysteria online that it's aliens. People confusing helicopters and planes for drones, but with just enough actual drone footage in the mix to false flag. Pretty much everyone looking at the skies which will greatly increase incidence. Just enough counter culture online that these are kids drones, regular planes, helicopters. Lots of varying narratives coming from different branches of military and law enforcement.
That's all very interesting, but if you subtract [2] from [1] you get a very boring explanation, [3] that these are likely our own drones being tested. I've seen this boring explanation get dismissed as technically the US has testing sites, but these are typically for bombs, and drones are best utilized in populated areas or for surveillance (both of which are hard to test in the desert). I also see dismissals of this as "the military would have said something by now," but they have: they've declared these "safe." If they were testing out new functionality on cutting edge tech they wouldn't admit to it, no matter how many likes a tweet gets or how many videos get posted online.
There is also no way a state government, governor, or law enforcement would know about this (yeah, even the FBI) because drone programs in the US are coordinated by intelligence agencies that are very secretive and don't like to share information among themselves.