Droning on and on about Drones, Drones, Drones!
My Hot Takes on the Recent US Drone Fiasco
Let’s talk about all these drones! A lot of people have been asking my opinions on what they are, so I thought I would do a broad overview of things to consider when you are trying to draw your own conclusions. These are only my opinions, of course, so feel free to disagree with me or leave a comment!
The Evidence
To start, let’s consider what people are seeing and, most importantly, how we hear about it. Back in October a series of drone sightings appeared in restricted airspace over Langley Airforce Base, Virginia with no explanation. That story made the news, but it seemed to quietly fade away as quickly as it appeared.
There is so much talk of UAP these days, that a report of unknown drones infiltrating a military base doesn’t raise many eyebrows. People are far more concerned with the cost of groceries, elections, mass shootings, and who is the latest contender on The Golden Bachelorette.
There have been some very unusual drone images captured. However, there are also a lot may in fact be very banal shots: airplanes flying from far away, ordinary public drones, commercial drones, stars, and whatever else.
Another thing to consider is that many of these videos are fanning the flames of the event and creating a media blitz to get viewer responses. When something like this is trending, people trying to boost their likes and follows are naturally going to jump on the train and start sharing videos.
Some of these videos may come from legitimate news organizations that can verify the authenticity, but quite often people are taking them from other youtube channels and social media personalities who cannot verify where or when the video was taken--despite sometimes inserting a date and location over the video. Some videos can end up being something that was not even filmed in New Jersey or wherever they say it is. It may actually be a video from 2012 from some other state or even another country.
I am not pointing fingers at anyone in particular, but from past experience, people should be aware that this type of mix up happens quite often in the paranormal community. The reasons behind it can range from someone innocently not knowing they are posting something bogus or incorrect to people who intentionally deceive in the interest of boosting their own public interest.
With all that out of the way, I do think that there is definitely something unusual about many of the drone sightings over the U.S. right now. People can be easily confused about what is anomalous and what is not, but that is not meant to imply that people seeing things are stupid.
If this flap of sightings was normal, it would not be carrying on for weeks and weeks. The government would not be issuing statements and deploying the FBI. On the contrary, if this was a normal sighting or hoax, there would be maybe a handful of incidents that would be easily swept into the old news bin. If it was normal, there would not be hundreds or thousands of reports--some explainable, some not so much.
Does that mean it’s aliens??
Let’s not jump to conclusions, but I’ll talk more about that later. For now, here’s a list of some of the most interesting details and some things I think are worth considering when making up your own mind:
The reports about these drones say they have been flying in restricted airspace.
This is highly unusual but seemingly has been verified by reports that airbases and airports have been shut down due to drone activity. What is most disturbing is the U.S. government’s strangely calm response to vehicles being in military or restricted airspace.
They keep repeating that the drones are presenting no danger, but the evidence would seem to contradict that statement completely. They are able to infiltrate our most guarded areas with impunity. How is that not a threat?
This response indicates two possibilities:
1. The government or some part of the government knows what they are and what they are doing, but they are keeping their mouths shut.
2. The government has no idea what they are, but they don’t want to indicate to the public that they have no control over what is happening by not knowing.
Many of the drones have been described as having FAA approved lighting.
This I find very interesting for a few reasons:
It indicates they are man-made and either abiding by or planning to abide by U.S. laws.
It could explain some of the misidentifications of witnesses who see something they think is a drone but is actually a commercial aircraft.
If they are not made by U.S. citizens or citizens of this earth, it could indicate that they are trying to disguise their machines to blend in with other machines in the sky.
This aspect could explain a lot about intentions no matter where these things may be originating, whether it is our own government, a commercial experiment, a foreign entity, or extra-terrestrials/non-human intelligences.
Is it the size of a car or the size of a Hot Wheels? Image from NBC News
Some have been described as the size of cars.
This one is difficult to verify as actual truth. Even if there is visual evidence of this, it is hard to verify the size and distance of anything in the sky, even when it is against the horizon.
The woman in the report linked says she saw about fifty car sized drones, and another man says he saw one the size of bus. While I want to respect what these witnesses saw, unless I can talk to them personally and gather more information, I still wouldn’t put too much stock in these claims until there is hard evidence. They could be truth, but they could also be either misidentified or simply made-up rumors of attention seekers.
Some have claimed when the drones are approached for further investigation, they disappear or quickly leave the area.
I also would not put much stock in these claims without more evidence. This sounds like classic eye-witness UFO behavior, but given that many of the drones described in these sightings do not appear to behave this way, there is a good chance this may just be rumors.
I am not discounting anyone who may have witnessed this first hand, but I am saying, when there is a mass media frenzy, be cautious about filling your evidence cup with every drop that comes your way. Claims like this could just be based on a quote from someone’s youtube channel and nothing else.
They seem to be emerging from somewhere out over or in the Atlantic ocean.
This is very interesting. It seems to come mostly from a report of someone in the coast guard claiming to see 50 or so drones coming in off the Atlantic ocean and following their ship.
I would say this claim is more credible because it comes from military professionals, but do your research before accepting it as fact. It should be verified by multiple news sources before you start believing it.
Also, until we have verifiable footage of these things rising up out of the water somewhere and flying directly to New Jersey or wherever, this claim is still only speculation.
That said, USOs (unidentified submersible objects) are a thing and can’t be ruled out. One of the most common traits of unidentified objects that make them unlikely to be human technology is that they are trans-medium. This means they can seemingly transition from moving through air, water, and space with ease.
There have been some claims of seeing orbs in conjunction with the drones or separately.
The orb claims are again something I’m not sure I fully buy yet. Because of the media frenzy surrounding this, I have suspicions many of these claims may be thrown in there because they are a piece of the larger phenomena, and I am not convinced that these drones are non-human yet. People could also easily be showing orb footage from other times and places or even making orb videos on After Effects to play on their Tik Tok.
I won’t rule out that people may be indeed seeing orbs, though. Even if it is not related directly to the drones then perhaps it is only because more people are looking up more often. There is stuff going on in the sky all the time that most people miss simply because we are busy with our lives and phones.
The drones make little or no noise.
This is another UFO trope that could come more from the lore than from witness sightings. They could be valid since most man-made drones are extremely noisy which would make a silent one very unusual to see.
However, depending on the witness and where the sighting takes place, keep in mind things like distance to the object and surrounding noise pollution. Is it really silent, or are people who want them to be UFO’s projecting that attribute onto their unusual sighting?
Some appear unusually shaped compared with most military or commercial drones.
This could be true, and there have been many pictures that do indeed seem unusual. I am no drone expert, so please refer to someone who is if you want to know more about what is and isn’t human technology.
I came across this video by Chris Lehto which is a pretty good summary of different human drone shapes. He is a former F-16 pilot who now spends most of his time studying these phenomena, so he is a pretty solid resource if you are interested in claims and sightings from a military experienced perspective.
If they are unusual, it makes me think of a few possibilities:
They are experimental technology that is being kept secret or undiscussed for unknown reasons. This could be government vehicles or commercial companies.
They could be technology being built by another country, most likely China at this point, and we are only now starting to see their work over our skies.
They are made by non-human intelligence. When something shaped like a jellyfish is caught on camera flying through a military base in Iraq, whoever is making these things has seemingly unlimited imagination as to what shape they can be.
Possible Explanations
There are a few different theories floating around about what these things are, but in all honesty, I don’t know that the general public will ever get the real answer. I have my suspicions that we are looking at the work of human beings experimenting with unrevealed technologies, but until someone gives me solid evidence for any explanation, I would never commit to just one. Here my thoughts on some explanations I have heard so far:
There was radioactive waste that went missing in transit somewhere in New Jersey that government drones are hunting.
This one I heard directly from a New Jersey mayor on “News Nation” (red flag #1), but a lot about this theory still did not add up for me.
If the radioactive waste is so dangerous and important to find, would a hunt for it not look more like what we saw with the recent manhunt for the murderer of the United Healthcare CEO? Would we not see a lot more boots on the ground trying to find where the truck that transported it went rather than being focused on what’s in the sky?
News Nation tends to get a lot of mileage from UFO stories which makes me suspicious that they use it to draw a large portion of their audience. This made me suspect this story could be poorly researched or planted disinformation. Later, I found this ABC report debunking this theory.
The Chinese are testing the U.S. response to their new technologies.
This is a distinct possibility, and given the government’s military response so far, a very discomforting one. If it is indeed our adversaries who seem to be so easily flying circles around our defenses, what are we going to do when they start threatening us with demands?
This technology could be man-made or reverse engineered non-human technology if you want to speculate on those claims. But either way, if the military can’t seemingly control them or explain them, that could be a problem.
Commercial defense contractors, the U.S. Government, or some “shadow government” are testing the public’s response to new technologies or technologies meant to appear as “unusual.”
This theory sounds more like science fiction than practical real-world fact, and I am loath to even mention it. It is the type of thing conspiracy theorists use to convince people to be scared of their own government or a deep state.
It is not out of the realm of possibility that some sort of “psy-ops” mission could be going on, but I have a hard time giving this notion much credit. It may be possible if a deep state of actually intelligent people were up to something. However, it is hard for me to see the motivations of real world people who are elected officials with families to actually have the interest or ability to pull something like that off. Unless, of course, they are literally being driven by a cult mentality or something of that nature.
Again, not saying it’s impossible. Based on what we have heard in the hearings, there must be some group of people at the Pentagon who seem bound and determined to hide anything they know about UAPs from congress and the public. Maybe it’s them?
The government broke a treaty with the aliens that has been ongoing for quite some time. Now the alien orbs are showboating while the government is hopelessly chasing the aliens with the best tech they have to get the situation back under wraps.
This may be one of the craziest theories that we 1) have some sort of agreement with a higher intelligence in writing somewhere and 2) the military industrial complex would be trying to address the broken treaty using drones and airplanes to chase orbs.
I don’t really buy this theory, either, but I do like the idea that if there has been a presence here with some form of communication with our government, they would have the agency to say, “Look, you can either work with us, or we’re going to just start showing up prime time over whatever cities we want, bitches.”
This is all the result of a handful of legitimately strange sightings exacerbated by misunderstood sightings of normal aircraft and a media frenzy.
Based on the number of sightings, I don’t want to wave my hand and say there is no there there. However, I think this theory may be the most likely explanation for a lot of the sightings we are hearing about.
Again, there may indeed be some very strange claims that are legitimate mysteries, but until I see something with my own eyes and have some people in very high positions of authority showing me evidence, I will forever be suspicious of anything that comes to me through the internet.
Too much on the internet can be easily manipulated. Too much content is made to drive numbers by triggering immediate emotional reactions with very little time for thought or analysis. Even some of the most thoughtful and intelligent content will often come with a triggering headline that may or may not be the creator’s actual thesis once you start watching or reading.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you were to ask me whether I think you should worry about all these drones, I would say, “Yes.” Stay vigilant about what is being said, who is saying it, and how it may be beneficial or harmful to people in power. That could be useful information later on if things escalate, and we start to get more suspicious information directly from our government. This could all blow over in a couple of weeks and become another footnote in the canon of ufology, but stay vigilant and use your critical thinking skills nonetheless.
On the other hand, if you are asking me whether I think you should worry about an alien invasion, I would say, “Eh, probably not.” I could always be wrong, but if it actually is aliens with malicious intent, I think we would have been wiped out ages ago.
Whatever the UAP congress has been discussing actually are, they have likely been here for decades at least. What they are up to is a mystery that I cannot answer, but if you want my honest opinion, most evidence I’ve heard from reading books and interviews on the topic for years points to the entities being concerned primarily with two things: the preservation of the planet and the evolution of our species. So even if the whole phenomenon is at the very least just a made-up mythology, I’d say those are pretty important things to consider no matter what kinds of drones you are seeing.
Sterling Martin is a writer, artist, and designer living in Chicago, IL. His background includes drawing, writing, theatre, teaching, improv & sketch comedy, and whatever else he can get his hands on to be creative. You can find him on the internet at:
Instagram: @sterfest.art
Website: sterlingmartin.design
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