NOTHING TO SEE

I was perfectly happy to disregard the “drone” reports as media-induced mass panic. And then government officials began assuring the public that nothing was awry. 

First John Kirby, retired admiral and national security communications advisor, took to the air to drive home that, “We have not been able to, and neither have state or local authorities been able to corroborate any of the reported sightings.” Deputy Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, followed up with “ We have not seen drones penetrate restricted airspace," and, "there are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted airspace.”

Okay. Except that a cursory news search yields “drones”, even entire fleets of them for weeks at a time, being reported over Naval Weapons Station Earle, Edwards Air Force Base, Hill Air Force Base, Langley Air Force Base, the Nevada National Security Site, Picatinny Arsenal, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, among others. Some of those cases have included locking down those bases or completely shutting down all air traffic around them. This activity, in fact, appears to be so common all across the US that it's hardly worth commenting on. If that wasn’t enough, both local sheriff and coast guard officials have also falsified the claims of federal officials, telling reporters that they’ve spotted dozens of unknown objects and even failed to intercept those due to the superior speed and maneuverability of their targets.

When all of that came to light in the popular media, Kirby and other officials, including folks from the DHS, DOD, FBI, and FAA, returned to assure the public everything was under control. They asserted that the sightings coming in from the public were being taken seriously and imagery was being carefully analyzed. Wildly, Kirby then went on Fox, after almost a month of endless sightings, and explained that “To date, our assessment is that this is lawful, legal, commercial, hobbyist, and even law enforcement aircraft activity.” The Fox reporter questioned him, noting reports from police and the coast guard of vehicles far exceeding in size anything commercially available in the United States and that in one instance a swarm of perhaps 50 aerial vehicles and in another 15-30 were spotted coming from over the ocean, and that none of that would seem to be originating from law enforcement or hobbyists. Kirby reiterates that with effectively every federal, state, and local agency now involved, they have no information that anything taking place involves a foreign adversary, is in any way out of order, or poses any risk of any kind to the public. About three minutes into the interview, he slips in that there have in fact been “incursions” over restricted and sensitive sites such as military bases. He calls those “a different category.”

Today, after more than 5,000 reports to the FBI of unusual activity in the skies over New Jersey alone, the FAA (“at the request of federal security partners”) suddenly banned unmanned vehicles from flying over swathes of New Jersey, including 22 sites of critical infrastructure, for a period of one month, citing a “special security situation.” They’ve also highlighted that the government may use “deadly force” against anything deemed an “imminent security threat.”

So this is still nothing? Just an abundance of caution? Hmm.

Doesn't this have to be paired with the ongoing investigations involving reports by serious people, like Ryan Graves and others, who've been attempting to expose significant safety and security threats experienced by members of the armed forces? Or is all of that also "a different category" as well?

It would be nice to have someone explain what's up with some of this stuff. Until then, I suppose there's nothing to see here.