Many are saying this should be an impeachable offense. Will anyone in the news media ask Kamala Harris what she knew and when she knew it, and why her administration did nothing?
Unknown drone fleet breached US military base airspace in Virginia for 17 straight days: report
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.
For several nights last December, U.S. military personnel reported witnessing a fleet of unknown unmanned aircraft breach restricted airspace over a stretch of land at Langley Air Force Base along Virginia’s shore, the Wall Street Journal first reported.
The drones would start to arrive about 45 minutes to an hour after sunset each night, one official reportedly told U.S. Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, who joined several other officers responsible for the country’s most advanced jet fighters, including F-22 Raptors, on a squadron rooftop.
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’s SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval port, according to the Journal.
These would not be privately owned drones, not at that size and speed
The report said officials could not determine if hobbyists or adversaries – such as China or Russia – 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. Those meetings included the Defense Department, the FBI and the Pentagon’s UFO office, as well as outside experts.
No. Have you ever seen a hobbyist flying a 20 foot drone? The air space over military bases is restricted below 400 feet, and some bases have total restrictions, where planes have to fly around them. In fairness, it was more than just huge drones, others were involved
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.
The originating article at the WSJ, which is paywalled, of course, notes (via Twitchy)
Federal law prohibits the military from shooting down drones near military bases in the U.S. unless they pose an imminent threat. Aerial snooping doesn’t qualify, though some lawmakers hope to give the military greater leeway.
Reports of the drones reached President Biden and set off two weeks of White House meetings after the aircraft first appeared in December last year. Officials from agencies including the Defense Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pentagon’s UFO office joined outside experts to throw out possible explanations as well as ideas about how to respond.
Large drones flying over military bases and a nuclear weapons site sure seems like an imminent threat. Biden-Harris held meetings while allowing someone to spy on bases and such
Over 17 days, the [Virginia] drones arrived at dusk, flew off and circled back… They also were nearly impossible to track, vanishing each night despite a wealth of resources deployed to catch them. Gen. Glen VanHerck, at the time commander of the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said drones had for years been spotted flying around defense installations. But the nightly drone swarms over Langley [Air Force base], he said, were unlike any past incursion…
Analysts learned that the smaller quadcopters didn’t use the usual frequency band available for off-the-shelf commercial drones — more evidence that the drone operators weren’t hobbyists.
Near the end of the article, we learn that the feds busted a Chinese student from the U of Minnesota as he was boarding a flight to China in January 2024
On Jan. 18, federal agents arrested Fengyun Shi as he was about to board a flight to China on a one-way ticket. Shi told FBI agents he was a ship enthusiast and hadn’t realized his drone crossed into restricted airspace. Investigators weren’t convinced. but found no evidence linking him to the Chinese government. They learned he had bought the drone on sale at a Costco in San Francisco the day before he traveled to Norfolk. U.S. prosecutors charged Shi with unlawfully taking photos of classified naval installations, the first case involving a drone under a provision of U.S. espionage law. The 26-year-old Chinese national pleaded guilty and appeared in federal court in Norfolk on Oct. 2 for sentencing. Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard said he didn’t believe Shi’s story — that he had been on vacation and was flying drones in the middle of the night for fun. “There’s significant holes,” the judge said in court.
“If he was a foreign agent, he would be the worst spy ever known,” said Shi’s attorney, Shaoming Cheng. “I’m sorry about what happened in Norfolk,” Shi said before he was sentenced to six months in federal prison.
But “U.S. officials have yet to determine who flew the Langley drones or why…”
And had you heard this story before? You’d think it was big. Yet, no news of it at the time. Was kept hush hush. Didn’t want to interfere with Biden’s re-election campaign, eh?
That’s insane.
HAHAHAHA. We now know that the only impeachable offense is being Republican with a Democratic party controlled House. And since the US government is observably run by some oligarchy in the shadows, it’s not like it really matters.
drones? why? havent the current administration sold all our secrets to ccp already?
No. It doesn’t. The WSJ saying so doesn’t make it so. Those laws are for civilians and general aviation, not the military. This WSJ article, which all the other news papers quoted, is all about providing cover for the Biden/Harris/Democrat to be named later administration for dithering on national defense issues when action would have been called for. “See? Our hands were tied. It was against the law for us to do anything about it”. The administration that is above the law on all other issues suddenly discovers a hard red line they will not cross.
It is worth pointing out that in the hours before 2 airplanes struck the World Trade Center in NYC on 9-11, there was no public law that would have permitted any fighter jets from intercepting them, shooting them down, and thus murdering hundreds of civilian passengers who did nothing wrong but board a flight that morning. Yet, there is no doubt that if the President had ordered Air Force pilots to do that, 8 out of 10 would have obeyed. Now, of course, if Trump would have ordered it, GEN Miley would have rejected the order and some Lieutenant Colonel on the back bench would go to congress as a whistleblower claiming immediate need to impeach Trump.
To this day, there is still no public law that permits American military to fire on aircraft in the USA, despite the fact that we have infrastructure in place to do just that. What do you think those missile launchers in DC are for? Military exigency is all the authority they need. No court would judge them for following those orders.
It is also worth noting that the military “shoots down aircraft over military bases” all the time. We do it for training and we buy specially made drones just to be the targets. So it is definitely NOT against the law to do it.
Note: I have personally shot at drones over a military base and did not get arrested. My actions were known in advance by all my military commanders and none of them tried to stop me or punish me later.
Did you get any hits ? What was recovered ? What type of weapon were you using ? Did you get any commendations or medals?
I’d love to discuss this, but you have already demonstrated here over the years that engaging you on any subject is pointless. Maybe someone else will ask about this and you can learn vicariously.
I’d love to discuss this, but you have already demonstrated here over the years that engaging you on any subject is pointless. You kinda, sorta make stuff up.
OMG !
This is the worst ever. Much worse than the Chinese spy balloons.
Mr Teach anyone who has read anything more than Mad Magazine’s “” Spy vs Spy” knows that after discovering any type of spying surveillance is to do nothing at first and then begin introducing bad data.
Our enemies have had sat cameras capable of reading license plates for decades. Probs my the various American agencies have advised Biden to allow them to do whatever it is they are doing
Ate the Hatians still eating the dogs and cats?