"They Know Where It Came From And Where It Went, And For Some Reason, They Don't Want To Comment."
The FBI on Monday delivered a warning to the public: don’t shoot guns or point lasers at mysterious drones in the sky.
Pilots of manned aircraft are increasingly being hit in the eyes with lasers because people on the ground think they see a drone, according to the FBI’s field office in Newark, New Jersey. The FBI is also concerned that people might shoot a gun at a manned aircraft after mistaking it for a drone.
Notice that the clumsily worded release mentions "manned aircraft", but it doesn't use a much clearer phrase, "commercial airliner", which is what the vast majority of these sightings are. Over the past few days, I've noted that the most-cited videos portray what Megyn Kelly breathlessly reported
are going from dusk to around 11:00 at night, they say. Look at this. Another eyewitness told the New York Times the drones show up one after the other following the same flight path!
Yes, that's what airliners do, they follow the same carefully designated flight path in single file as they prepare to land at busy airports, and the flight controllers line them up at the minimum safe distance as they arrive, one after the other.I'm a member of a Facebook group dedicated to the New Jersey town where I spent most of my childhood -- I get to hear news of schoolmates and stories about the really great teachers -- and although these are generally smart and prosperous people, they're now posting their own photos of "drones" flying over at night. What astonishes me is that I knew, even as an 11-year-old kid, that the planes flying overhead were landing at Newark Airport, maybe 20 miles due east. I'd see them flying above from the hall window outside my bedroom as I got ready for school in the morning.
The photos that my former neighbors were posting were from the exact angle that I remembered from my window 65 years ago, they were just at night, not in the mornings. The posters were perplexed that the "drones" were displaying navigation lights. They marveled that they came in every 30 seconds or so, all following the same flight path. I tried to explain, but so far to no avail. This is getting out of hand. Here is the latest from our best and brightest in Washington:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and the Department of Defense (DOD) released a joint statement on Monday saying the drones currently seen over New Jersey pose no national security threat.
. . . The joint statement reiterated current evidence shows that the drone sightings include a “combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.”
More importantly, all four departments said the drones pose no national security or public safety risk while recognizing the concern that communities feel. Regarding drones that may have been seen over military facilities in New Jersey and other parts of the area, the statement said that such “sightings near or over DoD installations are not new.”
The most-cited videos, though, the ones on NewsNation and Megyn Kelly's podcast, are overwhelmingly from beneath airport arrival landing patterns. My former New Jersey neighbors are seeing these and are utterly puzzled. If someone at the FBI, DHS, DOD, or FAA would simply recognize this and explain this specific set of observations, it would go a long way toward calming things down.Trump said cryptically at yesterday's press conkference, ""They know where it came from and where it went, and for some reason, they don't want to comment." Indeed, they know it came from O'Hare and went to Newark Freedom. Why won't they make this clear?
I would guess it's a combination. It's the holidays, they're all likely "working from home" anyhow, and a lot of them are also aware they're short-timers. Why put themselves out to write clearer releases? The pompous and viscous style also makes them seem important. As I quoted David Freiheit the other day, "They know damn well what it is, and it's not that they're not telling us because they're scared [of looking stupid], they don't give a flying F if they look stupid."
The supposed mystery, and the automatic implication that they know what it is and are covering something up, makes them feel important. Let's hope Trump can clean this up, or at least make a start.
