![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/drone-300x167.jpg\")
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Seems someone is taking an unhealthy interest in Langley Air Force base.<\/p>\n
A mysterious fleet of drones entered restricted airspace and swarmed a U.S. military base along the Virginia coast for 17 days late last year, stumping the Pentagon, according to a new report.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
My first thought was a stream of Amazon-purchased jobbies…nope, this is serious stuff. Seventeen DAYS? Over Langley, Norfolk, and the rest of that area?<\/p>\n
Kelly described the first drone he saw as roughly 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour, at an altitude of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet. As many as a dozen or more drones followed, flying across Chesapeake Bay, and then traveling toward Norfolk, Virginia, and through a space overlooking the base for the Navy\u2019s SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, the world\u2019s largest naval port, according to the Journal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
20 feet long? That isn’t exactly hobbyist material. But Biden and company weren’t sure. How many hobbyists can launch 340 feet worth of drone at one time?<\/p>\n
The report said officials could not determine if hobbyists or adversaries \u2013 such as China or Russia \u2013 were responsible for the drone fleet. Reports of the matter reached President Biden and resulted in two weeks of meetings at the White House in December 2023, the Journal reported.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Langley\/Norfolk\u00a0 isn’t the only area being visited.<\/p>\n
Two months before the drone fleet emerged in Virginia, five mysterious drones reportedly breached restricted airspace over a government nuclear weapons experiment site in Nevada.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Whatever happened to “you fly over restricted air space, you are in trouble?”\u00a0 Is this a symptom of “we have all the gee-whiz high-tech stuff at our disposal, but this is low\/slow lo-tech” like we ran into with the Chinese balloon. Or just “we have nothing obvious to respond with” – well, why not? Heck, a Huey with a competent door gunner should be able to handle stuff like this.<\/p>\n
Oh, and further on Las Vegas:<\/p>\n
Four of the drones were detected by the Energy Department\u2019s Nevada National Security Site outside Las Vegas, while the fifth was spotted by employees, according to the Journal. The facility has reportedly since upgraded its detection system, but officials have not determined who was behind the breach.\u00a0 Fox News<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’m so glad they can see it coming… that’s pretty open country there – what prevents them from taking them down?<\/p>\n
In the years since Russia entered Ukraine, the weather balloon fiasco – is no one paying attention?\u00a0 Gotta be some duck-hunters in the audience – are we so limited by Patriots and the sexy gee-whiz stuff that we can’t handle something functionally equivalent to a nice Cessna?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"