WHAT IS GOING ON WITH ALL THOSE DRONES? PART ONE
This will be our last week of blogs before our Christmas vacation; we will be back On January 13th.
However, in some weird way I suppose it is appropriate to lead off this week's blogs with the story that seems to be preoccupying everyone's attention: the drones flying all over New Jersey, and now, elsewhere around the country as well. As I write this, there are now reports coming in from Europe (the United Kingdumb, as one of our regular UK contributors likes to call it). I suppose there is something fitting about seeing strange objects in the sky this season. After all, according to the myth of the season, a fat man dressed in red with a big white beard flies around in a sleigh led by reindeer delivering presents to the worthy, and in some versions of the myth, lumps of coal to the unworthy. Perhaps that's the point. But we'll get back to that, because in a weird sort of way it highlights today's high octane speculation.
Indeed, they are so preoccupying the attention both of the lamestream propatainment media and its digital-internet media counterpart, that I talked about it briefly in last week's News and Views from the Nefarium, so consider this a "revision and extension of remarks."
First, however, consider the following articles (shared by T.M., V.T., and B.W., among many others):
New Jersey sheriff sent its own drone to follow mystery aircraft - what happened next was petrifying
So let's dive in, using our usual methodology of assuming all these reports to be true and accurate statements of what is going on, and, for the sake of argument, barring and excluding the idea that the media are lying (yet again). Granted, such an assumption today - after the covid planscamdemic, after the 2020 election non-fraud, Russiagate, Kamalarkey's outrageous "polls", &c &c - seems more than a teensy-tiny-bit counter-indicated. Nonetheless, making such an assumption raises issues of its own.
For example, consider the first story linked above, that the drones are now forcing shut-downs of an airport in New York, and that New York governor Kathy Hochul is demanding the federal government step in and do something, like provide some clear answers to what is going on, and who is behind it. Minimally, this story contradicts the narratives being promoted by the federal goobernment up to that point, namely, that they had no idea was was going on nor who what behind it nor what the purpose was, except that they appeared to be completely harmless, just like the quackcines were safe and effective. That "response," such as it was, was nonsense to anyone with an ounce of common sense; drones flying in the skies having an unknown origin and purpose certainly constitute a potential threat to air traffic and to airports. Having assured everyone that there was no threat, we now have the first strike against the promoted narrative thanks to Governor Hochul. Not only are they a potential safety hazard, they have managed to appear near some of the world's busiest international air hubs:
“This has gone too far,” Hochul said in a terse statement Saturday, in which she noted the runway of the Orange County facility was shut down for an hour because of the unidentified aircraft.
Stewart Airport services both commercial and military flights and is adjacent to a New York Air National Guard base, where the 105th Airlift Wing is stationed.
The unidentified drones — which have been hovering over New Jersey for nearly a month and have been seen in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts — were also recently spotted flying over LaGuardia International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport.
And if those drones pose a safety danger to Newark International, John F. Kennedy International airport is not that far away and in fact is sort of "between" Newark and LaGuardia, so one might as well throw that into the mix as well. Note also the crucial detail that the affected airport - Stewart - is near a military base.
What, then, may one take away from this story? The drones are real, and they're a potential air safety threat, capable of disrupting air traffic. Now imagine cells of "drone fliers" spread around the country near major air traffic hubs and airports, and you have...
... a problem, and a big one if the activities were to be somehow coordinated on a national (or even international) basis. Hundreds of flights, in the air, unable to land, or on the ground, unable to take off? That's a real mess, and a real crisis.
This brings us to the second story linked above, the story about the alleged crash of one of these drones. One notes a decided absence of any details in the story, other than that one of the machines supposedly crashed near the New Jersey town of Hillsboro. The article is accompanied by a picture, which could be of anything, but which, in context, we're supposed to believe is a picture (probably from a drone!) of the crashed drone, being attended by the members of an emergency response team in firefighting gear. Again, the article is significant because, like the story about Governor Hochul's call for some answers from the federal goobernment, this story also puts paid to the earlier narrative that the government did not know what the "drones" were nor where they were from nor who was behind them. Actual physical wreckage from one such drone would provide many clues as to who was behind at least some of the sightings, depending on the size and type of drone. Such wreckage might provide clues to the manufacturer, the point of sale, and to the kind of expertise needed to fly it. The lack of any details about this story is suspicious, and by parity of reasoning, so is the lack of any further investigation or disclosure of those details. One implication that emerges from this story is the impression that this particular wreck was not all that sensational. Drones, like other kinds of aircraft, can, and do, crash.
It is this last point that brings us to the last two stories, because these last two stories tend to indicate two things, namely (1) that the phenomenon is not homogeneous, that is to say, we may actually be looking at more than one type of phenomenon, that involving "just your plain ole everyday drone," and (2) a completely different phenomenon involving something much more exotic with much more exotic properties. In the latter case, the last two articles indicate the last type of phenomenon: not only are some of the drones alleged to have been seen emerging from the sea, but the ambiguously-worded report comes from local law enforcement:
The Ocean County, New Jersey Sheriff’s Office reported that 50 drones suddenly emerged from the ocean last night, prompting the Coast Guard to conduct a full-scale investigation.
Investigators spotted 13 drones off the coast, each with an estimated wingspan of 8 feet.
The Sheriff’s department launched its own “industrial-grade” drone in pursuit, but it was dramatically outpaced by the mysterious drones, which “disappeared into thin air.”
Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardy said his officers saw 50 unmanned aerial vehicles, “coming off the ocean.”
But what does "coming off the ocean" mean? Did the drones appear from the direction of the ocean? Or, as stated earlier in the article, did they suddenly emerge "from the ocean?" And howsoever one answers that question, one is not dealing with the typical commercially-available drone, for if they are coming "from the direction of the ocean" then that implies an ocean-going launch platform - a ship - from which to be launched and controlled. And if that's the case, then we are dealing with a sophisticated actor, with lots of money and access to assets the normal local drone-flier does not have. And if the drones are "emerging from the ocean", that is to say, are going from an underwater submersible to an airborne mode of operation, then one is dealing with a very exotic technology, one that cannot be bought at your local drone supply store. In the first case, one is dealing with a monied and capable actor, and in the second and more extreme case, not only a monied and capable actor, but one with technological sophistication and access to technologies that are extraordinary and most likely highly classified. (And while we're at it, what did that Coast Guard investigation uncover? Where's the report?)
So the question becomes, who are these actors? Indeed, is there more than one group behind this, and if so, are the objectives of the operation different, coordinated, or opposed to each other for each group? who might they be? Here is where we leap off the end of the twig of high octane speculation and plunge like Wile E. Coyote into the canyon below.
But for that speculation, we'll have to wait for part two on Wednesday...
See you on the flip side...
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