Yes, there are people "out there" who would do us harm. However, 99.999999% of them lack the resources, ability, tenaciousness, opportunity, or intelligence to actually DO anything other than play keyboard warrior on whatever unmoderated (anti)social network they are playing on today.
The remaining tiny, tiny minority usually get snagged by the various law enforcement agencies (federal, state, local) and even at routine traffic stops ("Sir I pulled you over for a broken tail light, why is your car full of gas cans?") or turned in by tipsters, some of whom are neighbors or even family members - like the guy in VA who was just caught building bombs even though his "learning curve" involved previously losing three fingers on one hand to one of his devices. Personally, I think I'd be looking for another hobby . . .
"Conspiracies" are rarely successful, the more people who are involved, the more likely there will be a leak. I read somewhere that if there are 22+ people involved, there is no way it will remain a secret. Same article had some comments on the moon landing. With the thousands and thousands of people involved, companies, sub-contractors, etc., it would have been far simpler just to go to the moon than to keep the conspiracy a secret. I personally watched the Saturn moon mission leave from KSC - either it actually happened or that was the best case of mass delusion and special effects ever in the world. So I have to ask myself, who should I believe, my own lying eyes, or a collection of anonymous conspiracy enthusiasts on the internet? Dude, I was *there*, I watched that launch LIVE from the south causeway.
Even 9/11 wasn't a complete surprise. Various intelligence agencies were getting "tickles" but unfortunately, they weren't talking to each other so nobody got to add two and two and even get three. I understand that has been "remedied" - or at least I hope so. Another problem was that the various NYC emergency radios were incompatible, so the PD couldn't talk to the FD who couldn't talk to the EMS crews. Some of that has been fixed, our county got federal money to buy new interoperable equipment (of course it only took almost 20 years for it to arrive).
Don't underestimate the internet's ability to spread hysteria and misinformation. A few months ago, several of my (otherwise normal and sane) neighbors were CONVINCED that a large migrant caravan was going to be coming right up the railroad tracks (Florida East Coast RR) from Miami, and they would be HERE at six o'clock TONIGHT!!!
Three of them actually grabbed their rifles and some lawn chairs, took them over to the RR tracks and waited. And waited. And waited. By midnight, all that had arrived were swarms of mosquitoes. All three were very quiet and very itchy the next day. I didn't ask them how the "barbarian hordes" were able to GET to Miami undetected in the first place, or why nobody would be bothering them on their 250+ mile trek from Miami to here, but whatever, I think the mosquito bites convinced them not to believe everything they saw on social media.
New Jersey Drones . . . if the goal was to fly around undetected, why do they have position lights? (red/green/white) Fer cryin' out loud guys, turn off your position lights or the populace will have something to aim at! Most drones are not self-controlled, they are not autonomous. That means someone has a control box which transmits to the drone. That also means that a semi-professional spectrum analyzer (i.e. not from Temu) should be able to pick up the transmissions, and then it is simple to find them (radio direction finder), and pay the operators "a visit" from law enforcement. The analyzer looks at the radio spectrum, this is AM, this is the ham 2 meter band, this is UHF, these are aircraft radio frequencies, aha, what is THIS? and you've got them.
It is also very difficult to judge the speed, size and distance of an unfamiliar object in the sky without some kind of reference, and much more so at night. (Has anybody seen these drones in daylight, or only at night? Aha! They're vampire drones and only come out after dark! That explains it!) Anybody have some good photographs of these things? Anybody actually capture one or shoot it down (highly illegal, by the way)? And why New Jersey? Why should the rest of the country, yea, the rest of the whole world get left out?
In a few months, this will all die down, just like the imaginary migrant caravan from Miami did, and nobody will want to talk about it. Unfortunately, some equally wacky rumor about something else will replace it.
I'll bring popcorn.
Best Regards,
Mike/Florida
He did video one near Home Depot on Friday night. To me, looks like a standard hobbiest quadcopter. On Saturday evening, we drove to the top of a local hill to try to spot some drones. All we could ID were many, many, airplanes. On the horizon, overhead, in almost every direction. Drove around to a few other spots, but no drones. I couldn't "size" the airplanes, at night, and with no referance, so not sure how people are calling out "car size" drones. Seams to me to be allot of hysteria.
