What a mystery. The article mentioned winged drones that could "make round trips of about nine miles". A range like that would make for a fairly narrow search area for a base.<p>Then again this NY Times article (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/us/drones-FAA-colorado-nebraska.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/us/drones-FAA-colorado-ne...</a>) said "local officials were studying the flight path of the drones and coordinating across county lines to figure out where they were coming from."<p>If they're crossing county lines, that seems like a long distance.<p>The pattern sounds predictable based on the reporting. Could a sheriff helicopter track them to where they land? Could a photographer team up with a searchlight operator to get a clear close-up photo of a drone, maybe identify the drone make/model, then start to identify the types of equipment (e.g. photo, lidar, other sensors) for clues?<p>The other puzzling part of this is that if a well-funded entity wanted to test in secret, they could probably find unpopulated areas to test over. Unless the testing relates to features of a populated area.
Another, less-nefarious (than military exercises), option: animal surveys[1].<p>> Another benefit of drones over current methods is that the industrial grade drones offer thermal or infrared technology, which means surveys could be done at night, when deer are typically more active<p>[1] <a href="https://www.ckwri.tamuk.edu/news-events/tpwd-joins-ckwri-study-use-drones-deer-surveys" rel="nofollow">https://www.ckwri.tamuk.edu/news-events/tpwd-joins-ckwri-stu...</a>
6-foot wide drones are very expensive and there aren't that many people that can afford risking 50-100k in one go for whatever this is, so I'm guessing it's the military, which would be long overdue.<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/us/drones-FAA-colorado-nebraska.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/us/drones-FAA-colorado-ne...</a>
The TL;DR seems to be:
Some entity is flying drone swarms in Colorado and Nebraska. You need a number of permits to do so, but none of the entities that have such permits and the right kind of drones are admitting it's them.<p>So, either someone is lying or someone is flying without a permit. Or, and this is my addition, someone is flying the drones who doesn't need a permit, somehow.
If the DEA were developing swarms w/IR sensing to canvas areas for things like like grow operations I'd expect them to stay mum about it exactly how this is playing out.
Curious why no one has used a telescope to check out the drones. This be a far simpler and cheaper solution than dispatching planes or landing on them. Would it not work?
It's hysteria<p>Stars, satellites or planes in the distance. The strangest things would be weather balloons.<p>We have moved form Aliens to drones. Same happened at Gatwick Airport.