Mysterious Drones Swarmed Langley AFB for Weeks

https://www.twz.com/air/mysterious-drones-swarmed-langley-afb-for-weeks

by peutetre • 2 years ago

159 105 2 years ago

twz.com

yinser• 2 years ago

Glass half full thought: someone is red teaming US installations and we’ll be more secure for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

whartung3• 2 years ago

Years ago, somewhere in Northern California, there was attack of (I think) power substation.

Someone was shooting at parts of the station. As described it was a very well run, very knowledgeable operation. The shooting was quite precise.

Far as I know it’s unsolved.

And I, too, thought it was some kind of red team style thing to test who knows what. It was very direct action, seemed a bit much for an exercise. But it can also be thought of what the attack didn’t do, how far they didn’t press even with the evidence that they probably could have.

dgacmu• 2 years ago

Yeah, it was power substations.

Probably this one?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack

And there was a still unsolved one in North Carolina two years ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_County_substation_atta... Which killed at least one person.

There were also a few others in the SeaTac area around the same time: https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/two-charged-attacks-fou...

But they caught those, and the suspects said they had planned to use the power outage to commit a burglary.

onlypassingthru• 2 years ago

It was the Metcalf substation.[0] I believe they found the rock cairn(s) used for the sniper rest on the hill across the highway.[1]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack

[1]https://www.google.com/maps/search/metcalf+substation/@37.21...

jncfhnb2• 2 years ago

What do you mean by “well run” and “precise”?

tw042• 2 years ago

I’m far more concerned with the “not a missile” than the power stations. I don’t believe it was ever solved.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mystery-missile-launch-seen-off...

Duanemclemore• 2 years ago

This has a distinct red / blue flavor to it.

WatchDog• 2 years ago

Sounds very much like an exercise to me.

slicktux• 2 years ago

Level the playing field. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KX0ji1sAXl8&pp=ygUNQW5kdXJpbCB...

purpleidea2• 2 years ago

Remove tracking info when you post links please.

a1o• 2 years ago

This is a fair request and nice thing to do to fellow users of this forum, people should not downvote this person.

someotherperson2• 2 years ago

Also on this, it looks like Brave's "copy clean link"[0] doesn't work on this particular URL. I wonder why.

[0] https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/9982188779405-Wh...

purpleidea2• 2 years ago

Wouldn't be surprised if this was being done by one of the U.S. defence contractors so that they can convince politicians to buy their anti-drone products.

What's most disappointing about this article is it has no actual details.

What size drones? How fast were they going? How many total? How many at a single time? Did they catch any? What models? Let's see a photo of one... and so on...

jkhanlar• 2 years ago

or using hedgefunds infinte ftd failure to deliver assets as collateral to deploy such an operation that is not as traceable/trackable. where's Jonathan Frakes? https://youtu.be/GM-e46xdcUo

dralley• 2 years ago

There's absolutely no need to stage an incident to convince anyone of the need for anti-drone products. The utilitarianism of drones employed en-masse, cheaply and without deep technical knowledge on both sides in Ukraine proves that point just fine.

signatoremo• 2 years ago

Wouldn't be surprised if this was being done by one of the U.S. defence contractors so that they can convince politicians to buy their anti-drone products.

No way they could do that without the military’s knowledge. That can have serious consequence. Anti drone is a hot area that the US is very interested in. All a vendor needs to do is to ask nicely.

What's most disappointing about this article is it has no actual details.

That’s because the US military was intentionally ambiguous about their anti-drone capabilities:

"To protect operational security, we do not discuss impacts to operations," the statement added. "We don’t discuss our specific force protection measures but retain the right to protect the installation …”

thegrim000• 2 years ago

Ah yes, a white collar CEO at a private US company just decided one day that his company was going to start committing felonies and sending swarms of drones to accost a US military installation. And the CEO ordered everyone involved to be somehow threatened into complete silence about the operation. That's totally something that would happen in the real world and not a deranged conspiracy theory.

GolfPopper• 2 years ago

a white collar CEO at a private US company just decided one day that his company was going to start committing felonies

This part seems pretty normal, actually.

throwawaymaths• 2 years ago

If you had connections to be a defense contractor, you would just red team it with at least a relatively high level military official on the inside.

boffinAudio2• 2 years ago

Nothing in this article supports the idea that these are man-made drones.

iJohnDoe• 2 years ago

Probably testing new reconnaissance capabilities to see how effective it is.

codezero• 2 years ago

What I wonder is if a radar is watching drones, what is it missing?

Could a drone swarm be used to draw attention away from another incursion or are radar systems able to handle slow and low things at the same time as higher and faster objects?

greedo3• 2 years ago

Normally radars are configured to detect aircraft faster than a small drone. They just filter that out as noise. Now the military could obviously afford multiple radars to fill this gap, but they haven't focused enough attention on this.

bushbaba• 2 years ago

A bird and a drone are pretty similar. Heck you could make a drone look and fly similar to a bird. Slow small object detection brings its own challenges.

The realistic aspect though is a small drone by itself can’t do huge damage. And a swarm would surely be detected.

dghlsakjg3• 2 years ago

There’s search radars, which is the ones you see in movies that spin in a circle or arc and continuously scan the whole area with updates for all returns every second or so. These are also what all ATC towers have.

Then there’s tracking radars which point at one thing and track it continuously.

This is a simplification, and some radars can switch between track and scan.

In other words, a scan radar can and does track many objects at once, but at lower update frequencies.

The other thing to keep in mind is that every plane on that air force base has its own radar, in addition to multiple ground units and most can be interlinked for a more complete picture.

icegreentea2• 2 years ago

Modern radar systems (note, not all of the radar systems currently being used even by the US military would be considered 'the most modern') should be able to handle a wide variety of targets at a variety of sizes, altitudes, ranges and speeds all at the same time. That being said, radars still fundamentally work by spewing radiation into specific regions of the sky - the more things that a radar needs to track, the more it needs to spread its power around.

Aside from the hard hardware limitations of the radar, what is more likely to be overwhelmed is either the attention and focus of human operators, or whatever software is being used to support the human operator.

littlestymaar2• 2 years ago

It's exactly what happen to the Moskva as far as we can tell: use a Bayraktar TB2 at max range to draw attention of the crew and sneak an anti-ship missile in the mean time (that's what the Ukrainians said they did, at least, there's always fog of war…)

verdverm3• 2 years ago

Could a drone swarm be used to draw attention away from another incursion or are radar systems able to handle slow and low things at the same time as higher and faster objects?

Ukraine has been running this playbook the last 6 months or so. Drones in one area or direction to distract, scalp/Taurus on a high value target elsewhere. Sometimes this plays out over days.

Current air defense systems are insufficient for the new drone paradigms. They won't scale to meet the needs. We need lasers and microwave based systems.

mapmeld• 2 years ago

When I hear that this military base on US soil, with dedicated security and surveillance, can't recover one drone, or get photos to trace who or what sent the drone, I think of the London airport shutdown from 2018. There is no super drone swarm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatwick_Airport_drone_incident

cirgue2• 2 years ago

Where did it mention that they were unable to get imagery of the drones or recover one? If the thesis is that this may be a foreign incursion, I very much doubt that they’d broadcast that they’d captured one.

somenameforme2• 2 years ago

This doesn't make sense to me. The government is more than thrilled to stir negative sentiment against every geopolitical competitor we have via the media, if this is one of said competitors drones then they obviously would know if it had been captured, and if you're concerned about public 'panic' - you already released the information anyhow.

You also have government planes doing loopity-loos around Langley with their public transponders turned on which shows a desire to make such actions publicly visible and available to literally anybody and everybody on the planet.

pdimitar• 2 years ago

Bragging about it is a good PR and inspires confidence in your citizens -- even if you didn't actually capture anything. It's rather mystifying that they didn't try to present a strong face after this incident.

nimbius• 2 years ago

agreed, this seems like a 15 page nothingburger of stock photos and conjecture.

the likelyhood swarms of UAV's loitered in and out of the military airspace with no photos, no pursuit, or capture seems like a dubious claim. That no single civilian seems able to corroborate this also seems to suggest the events simply didnt happen.

since these things might be dangerous to the general public you might release photos of them? or enlist help from the public/OSINT? sounds more like we're creating a story to help justify the use of expensive NASA resources for a budget review.

throwawayqqq113• 2 years ago

It could be a covert test by the US itself. This would explain the aggressive location and the negative findings. The media report could be used later to paint enemies or just to keep the acceptance of military expenditure up.

thsksbd• 2 years ago

If they didn't enter the base or break any FAA rules, it would be illegal to interfere with the drone.

ehnto• 2 years ago

I would be surprised if it was not controlled airspace, if not restricted airspace they would have had protocols to follow even just being near the base.

LVB• 2 years ago

They were flying in restricted airspace.

shiroiushi2• 2 years ago

FAA rules don't cover military airspace.

instagib• 2 years ago

Last I heard, dedicated security wasn’t even military anymore at Langley. It could have changed depending on fpcon levels or how many MP’s we have at home now instead of deployed.

Surveillance is one thing, then cameras pointing up, and then having someone to monitor all of it is another entirely. tracking down the alleged drone before it leaves is yet another. Think cop response times.

There’s zero reason they should release photos identifying the quality of their surveillance. Basic opsec. All they probably did is get proof, track them, get rid rid of them. No public knowledge necessary until it’s over.

I’m enjoying the armchair radar enthusiasts. The more misinformation the better for adversaries.

withinboredom2• 2 years ago

The military has equipments and people to trace a radio signal to its source. If they wanted to find the owner, they would have found the owner.

mock-possum• 2 years ago

170 drone sightings were reported, 115 of which were deemed "credible" by police.[3] No videos or photographs of the drone were given to the police.

Wow. All that trouble, and absolutely no hard evidence of anything. What an incredible waste.

ishtanbul• 2 years ago

Probably just the aliens…

someotherperson2• 2 years ago

You can probably screw with a lot of places by strapping a solar powered 2.4ghz radio transmitter to a bunch of birds and letting them roam around. Actually it doesn't even need to be solar powered if it could be low-power enough, just enough battery for a couple of weeks of intermittent signal.

somenameforme2• 2 years ago

You can buy commercial drones off Amazon capable of flying miles high with firmware mods. The hardware's more than capable, it's just the software that's crippled.

huytersd2• 2 years ago

The US army really doesn’t use enough cheap, small drones. All the drones we use are large and expensive.

dghlsakjg3• 2 years ago

Not at all. There are a number of small drones (field launchable by a single person) used for surveillance and delivering kinetic payloads.

This is one of many that are publicly acknowledged

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade

The RQ-11 is a hand launchable drone used by the US (among others) with more than 19k airframes having been delivered.

mcculley5• 2 years ago

That says unit cost is $52,914. Not cheap by most standards. Yes, cheap compared to military aircraft, but the interesting changes around doctrine are happening at cheap enough to be disposable.

paganel3• 2 years ago

The Switchblade has been a failure in the most recent conflict in Ukraine, the Ukrainians themselves have come up with much better and, more importantly, much cheaper alternatives.

lamontcg• 2 years ago

CIA is probably teaching the Ukrainians to build cheap, small drones and presumably they're building prototypes in a lab somewhere.

imtringued• 2 years ago

I don't know why you would need "cheap small" drones when the US has the most advanced bombs on the planet.

You don't even need planes to launch them anymore. A HIMARS on the ground is enough and you get 150 km range.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_Launched_Small_Diamet...

huytersd2• 2 years ago

I don’t know. Personel carried cheap disposable drone grenades sound very useful.

geraldhh• 2 years ago

the main benefit probably lies within a 'saturation attack' aka overwhelming defenses by numbers. cheap drones are a gamechanger

modzu• 2 years ago

pics or it didn't happen

johnohara• 2 years ago

Can't speak to the issues of security or surveillance, but the aerial shot included in the article does reveal a moderately challenging golf course immediately to the north of the main runway.

My personal surveillance suggests it might be more difficult to line up an approach shot on that par 4 (5?) dog leg right than it is to line up an approach vector to the main runway.

Just sayin'.

Cacti• 2 years ago

officers love to golf with other officers

perihelions2• 2 years ago

For those unaware, a drone attack killed three American soldiers a few weeks ago [0]. The early findings are that the military base that was attacked never detected the drone at all—possibly because it flew at too low altitude for its radar.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/02/06/... ("Drone that killed U.S. troops in Jordan likely went undetected")

verdverm3• 2 years ago

The explanation I've heard was that the drone came around the same time they were expecting a friendly drone to return.

They are shooting down drones all the time in the Middle East, it just doesn't make the news. Very similar for Israel iron dome. It only makes news when it doesn't work

perihelions2• 2 years ago

That was early speculation that's been contradicted by subsequent reporting, like the Post story I linked,

- "Taken together, the preliminary findings appear to undermine previous assertions that U.S. air defenses mistook the attacking aircraft for an American drone returning to the base about the same time"

paganel3• 2 years ago

At least this is a step from "Chinese weather balloons have invaded the contiguous territory of the United States!". I wonder what they'll come up with next.

throwawayqqq113• 2 years ago

You should question your certainty of chinese origin. Maybe it saves your or your sons life by not fighting in a distant war based on propaganda.

paganel3• 2 years ago

I was commenting it from the other side, i.e. I see this as a "fear campaign" (for lack of a better expression) carried out by Western intelligence services.

All of the sudden we should trust the CIA that there are unidentified drones surveilling their Langley home-base, there were times when the Western media would have at least tried to get to the bottom of this story but nowadays they're just forwarding it to us, the mostly unsuspecting public, with no relevant questions asked.

ipqk• 2 years ago

What claim is there that it was not Chinese? China claimed it as their own, ableit not a military one.

Mysterious Drones Swarmed Langley AFB for Weeks

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