Who is behind the mystery drone swarms ? Image Credit: YouTube / The War Zone
The footage was captured during an incident in 2019 involving multiple unidentified drones buzzing a US navy vessel.
Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) by The War Zone, the intriguing footage pertains to an incident that occurred on April 24th, 2019 at around 8:30pm PST.
The USS Zumwalt - an advanced US Navy destroyer - had been situated 17 nautical miles from the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton when it found itself being buzzed by up to six unidentified unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which reached heights of up to 1,000 ft.
The footage, which was recorded by a member of the crew, shows what appears to be a rectangular formation of white and green lights with a red light in the center.
The video is admittedly difficult to make out, not least because it was dark at the time but also because the footage is very unsteady and jumps around all over the place.
Still, it is certainly possible to see the object - whatever it is - in the center of the frame.
The big question, of course, is where these drones had come from and who was operating them.
The fact that six of them had turned up at once strongly implies that this was a co-ordinated event and there must have been a boat relatively nearby from which they had been launched.
Without a captured drone to examine, however, it will be difficult to know for sure who was responsible.
Ok, let me try again. The Zumwalt is 17 nautical miles (~20 miles) from Camp Pendleton (shore), it's approximately 3:35am and there are 6 UAS's flying over and circling the ship. If the object was a drone, it could not be controlled from the shore. It's too far. The horizon is less than 4 miles (which you can't see because it is very dark). You don't have line of sight and a preset GPS track cannot locate, track, flyover and circle the ship. So, the drone was controlled from a boat. How do you locate a ship out at sea, when it is very, very dark and is essentially in the middle of nowher... [More]
Well, my MA2 does 400-feet AGL, and with an easy hack does up to 15,000 AGL. 15,000 !!!!! That's some serious height! I prefer to stay within the FAA law of 400 max, often a bit less depending on locations where I fly. Edit: I have specialized programs on my phone (free) which displays "no-fly" and altitude-restricted zones at my exact location of flight. All FAA certified, free programs.
I don't thrust that video. The guy speaks excited like it is happening at that moment but what he says is a summary of every detail of the incident that was collected afterwards. Besides, what you see looks exactly like an ordinary airplane.
Okay so we as in America's military are so very bumbling and incompetent that some quad copters can buzz the USS Zumwalt - an advanced US Navy destroyer and the captain crew and military scratch their heads and say we dont know who was flying them and we didnt blast them out of the sky, threat to us? Cue deer in headlight look. Â
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