Mysterious drones NBC news

sawman · Thursday at 10:25 AM

MARK (LI) said:
We have seen, on this forum information of industrial facilities that have electronic devices to jam drones and render them powerless to prevent them from flying over....that can't be done with these things?

It can and because they haven't done so tells us that they know full-well what's going on. Just sit back to see how they "spin" the story.

Droning on and on... · Thursday at 12:30 PM

Felix le Chat said:
Agree 100%. My DSLR has an optical zoom equivalent to 90x... and at a push, a digital zoom that quadruples that, which means I can get crystal clear shots of craters and meteor gouges on the surface of the moon. Isn't it odd that the only stills and footage on display look as though they've been taken by an epileptic with an old 2mp Vivitar point-and-click?

I'm a bit skeptical.

Shooting craters on the moon that are fixed in the sky are one thing. Tracking an object in the night sky moving fast and changing direction with 90x magnification is another matter entirely.

Near impossible for a human to do, which likely explains why we don’t have any images like this, even though it's near certain there are observers that have the photographic equipment.

Jim622 · Thursday at 12:39 PM

You would think someone would have a tripod set up in their backyard, ready to go.

AMann · Thursday at 12:45 PM

Well, we can all sleep soundly now, because a US Government agency has officially confirmed that the first government officials were officially wrong when they officially said the drones were coming from "Iranian Motherships." Turns out, they were officially just seagulls with nav lights and 5G Wi-Fi. Good to know our tax dollars are hard at work clearing up these pressing mysteries!

hank970 · Thursday at 1:20 PM

Droning on and on... said:
I'm a bit skeptical.

Shooting craters on the moon that are fixed in the sky are one thing. Tracking an object in the night sky moving fast and changing direction with 90x magnification is another matter entirely.

Near impossible for a human to do, which likely explains why we don’t have any images like this, even though it's near certain there are observers that have the photographic equipment.

I'm more than a bit skeptical. Image quality at 90X digital zoom would be lousy. Too few pixels. Even worse at night, when electronic noise would be a problem.

The Moon isn't motionless in the sky. It's moving at a rate of 15 degrees per hour. That doesn't sound like much, but at 90X magnification, it wouldn't stay in the visual frame very long. Shooting the Moon at higher magnifications is also problematic, because you're also magnifying atmospheric turbulence -- refraction and blurring caused by strata of varying densities of air moving in different directions. The only way to get really sharp photos of details on the Moon is to shoot many images, preferably using some kind of tracking device to follow the Moon's movement across the sky, and then use a dedicated stacking software like Registax to eliminate the bad shots and align and merge the good ones, forming a composite image.

mavic3usa · Thursday at 1:30 PM

One thing everyone will learn for the event is basically nobody has the authority to shoot these down. Many folks are surprised that the government can't just shoot down a drone and many are often surprised the police cannot do so either. I heard a congressman try to compare an officer shooting someone in an "emergency" situation and he implored law enforcement to take a leap and determine this is an imminent threat and on the basis this needs to stopped immediately before something bad happens, go ahead and shoot to eliminate the threat. I thought I was going to hear the panel start to laugh but they managed to hold it in.

Only the military can shoot down an aircraft and only with orders from the highest levels. Now that everyone knows this, let's start prosecuting those who do so. Let's stop focusing on the ordinary citizen using a shotgun who think they are protecting their property from a low level invader so we apply some type of low level gun charge or property crime. Instead let's implement the federal law regarding interfering with an aircraft.

mavic3usa · Thursday at 3:22 PM

This is the endgame: "Nothing nefarious, not hostile, no known threats, in fact we can't even confirm these are even drones because they all appear to be ordinary aircraft so we don't know what everyone is talking about. What we do know is we need new drone laws and tougher drone laws; this situation show how powerless we are to do anything about it....if it were truly enemy drones." That's the paraphrase and now we know why this is happening.

Droning on and on... · Thursday at 4:20 PM

hank970 said:
The Moon isn't motionless in the sky. It's moving at a rate of 15 degrees per hour.

Like I said, motionless. Let's not pick nits

Chip · Thursday at 5:48 PM

mavic3usa said:
This is the endgame: "Nothing nefarious, not hostile, no known threats, in fact we can't even confirm these are even drones because they all appear to be ordinary aircraft so we don't know what everyone is talking about. What we do know is we need new drone laws and tougher drone laws; this situation show how powerless we are to do anything about it....if it were truly enemy drones." That's the paraphrase and now we know why this is happening.

DHS has a Fact Sheet explaining the overlapping jurisdictional authority. Drone surveillance and anti drone technology may only be used to protect fixed sites. Excerpt and link are below:

FULL DOCUMENT

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/dhs_cuas-legal-authorities_fact-sheet_190506-508.pdf

Good time for the feds to clean up the Fact Sheet and get rid of this outdated verbiage.

mavic3usa · Thursday at 6:29 PM

Without broader exceptions to the 1st and 4th amendments, their drone usage is completely hamstrung for what they would like to truly accomplish. Non-federal agencies (outside of approved special task forces) have almost no legal authority for what law enforcement agencies would like to use drones for but I think their legal authority is pretty good at this point; my only concern is what it will turn into one day.

This is exactly what drones should be used for in a law enforcement capacity:

MARK (LI) · Thursday at 7:01 PM

Now the word is that they are not drones, but manned and they are being flown legally

mavic3usa · Thursday at 8:09 PM

Pretty sure now that the crazies have come out, probably 90% of the incidents are indeed manned flights. That's what happens after a month and no answers.

Droning on and on... · Thursday at 8:10 PM

MARK (LI) said:
Now the word is that they are not drones, but manned and they are being flown legally

Which, for me, demands an explanation of these other reports of large numbers flying in from off-shore, coast guard ships being followed, etc.

They may be bogus. Exaggerated. Fine. Get the details, report it to the public.

At this point, there's too much claimed observation of funny stuff by too many people, some of them authorities.

I haven't forgotten all the lies and misdirection when those Chinese balloons were intercepting sigint floating over sensitive areas. Kirby stood at that podium and lies his a** off during that incident.

Jim622 · Thursday at 9:37 PM

I can't help thinking this is a distraction.

mavic3usa · Thursday at 10:32 PM

LOL I heard one guy say something along the lines of "Now that people have heard about these mysterious objects, a bunch of people are taking their personal drones to the sky at night to go looking for other drones."

Wow, I guess Firehouse Technologies made a killing lately selling all those strobe lights. So all these personal drones are all of a sudden saddled with multiple red white green and blue strobes lights and last year at this time, the sky was dark and this year the entire night sky is lit with 3-mile strobe lights of all colors blinking all over the sky? And they are all modified Mavic drones so instead of 45 minutes, these drones buzz around for hours? That's the state of hobby drones in NJ? That is beyond ridiculous.

No individual person can put a 6-foot drone in the sky BVLOS at night in NJ around an airport. That's just crazy talk. I guess it's coming out on both sides now which doesn't help either side. The situation is getting so out of hand. How convenient.

sawman · Thursday at 10:40 PM

Jim622 said:
I can't help thinking this is a distraction.

Exactly. What's going on at the West coast, southern border, or elsewhere that they don't want attention on?

mavic3usa · Thursday at 10:53 PM

And finally there is this video which I find very interesting:

mavic3usa · Thursday at 11:43 PM

Sorry to keep posting these, this is my last one because my feed is blowing up on this fast moving story. Based on what I hear in this short 2 minute clip, I don't see how the Mavic 4 Pro with it's superior camera and long life extended battery can make it anywhere near the US this month. If this is a manned aircraft, the pilot should arrested:

MARK (LI) · Thursday at 11:56 PM

I live on south shore of Long Island....my wife and I just came home ( about 11:45) ...wifey looked at her facebook thing to read reports of drones flying over the bay just south of us...I went and looked, but they are gone now....I will be on the lookout tomorrow evening....I have a good Nikon DSLR camera, but I don't expect that I would get any good shots in the dark

hank970 · Friday at 12:37 AM

Droning on and on... said:
Like I said, motionless. Let's not pick nits

Not picking nits. Why don't you share one of your 90X Moon photos with us so we can judge its quality for ourselves? Be sure to include EXIF data so we can see exactly how you achieved your miracle shot.