FAA documents give unprecedented look into Colorado drone swarm mystery

The amount of hysteria over drones (Particularly incidents like this) is really concerning to me, because it plays right into the hands of regulators and lobbyists in the US trying to justify unnecessary Remote ID legislation under the guise of &quot;safety&quot;.<p>The recently released proposed rules for Remote ID raised a huge amount of concern in the model aircraft world, because it proposed restrictions that would effectively kill the hobby:<p>- All drones&#x2F;RC aircraft must have a GPS-based tracking (&quot;Full remote ID&quot;) on the aircraft, connected to a ground station and relayed to a subscription third-party service. These &quot;Full remote ID&quot; aircraft can be flown past line of site.<p>- Aircraft not constructed by a single manufacturer (For example, handmade RC planes) are not allowed to use full remote ID, and instead must use &quot;limited&quot; remote ID in which GPS can be on the ground station, but the aircraft must disable itself past 400ft from the ground station.<p>- Aircraft with limited remote ID can only be flown in a dedicated &quot;FRIA&quot; flying site.<p>- FRIA sites are &quot;legacy&quot; and after a short period, no new sites will be created. The stated intention of the FAA is to phase these sites out completely, meaning after a certain period all planes must comply with full remote ID, effectively killing hand-built model aircraft.<p>The end result of this regulation is _not_ safer airways: It&#x27;s an airspace &lt;400ft owned by commercial entities such as Amazon who are able to comply with the requirements of the Remote ID tracking and single-manufacturer requirements. It&#x27;s an example of regulatory capture that will genuinely make the world worse for us by increasing noise pollution and drone traffic at low heights. Meanwhile, the model aircraft and drone hobby will have a large barrier to entry that pushes away the innovation of millions of engineers who got their start as kids flying affordable DIY planes.

These drones had Denver area defense contractor written all over them. I would guess Lockheed or Raytheon or Boulder based lab or company. They would not coordinate because 1. every project they do is classified 2. probably is some sort of mass surveillance tech that they would rather not advertise 3. Probably not sponsored directly by the military or deemed a weapons system, so no need to go through the hassle of testing on a military range (lets just drive a few hours outside town). 4. Didn&#x27;t want to go through the hassle of dealing with the FAA and know that if the FAA seriously got involved they could just pull strings. 5. Don&#x27;t care if they bother a few farmers and consider most of the area to be &quot;empty&quot;<p>Clearly the drones stopped because it was a limited term contract.

Just to balance out things a bit: most of the sightings were dismissed as either aircrafts, stars or other lights [1]. It may be worth reading the actual released documents rather than take the cherry picked quotes from them. My 2c.<p>Edit - Just to be clear: this is not about drones being spotted, there may have been small drones flying at night. This is about reports of drones with a large wingspan flying in formation around a &#x27;mothership&#x27;. These sightings have been investigated and dismissed [2].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en_us&#x2F;article&#x2F;884xv3&#x2F;the-colorado-mystery-drones-werent-real" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en_us&#x2F;article&#x2F;884xv3&#x2F;the-colorado-myste...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.colorado.gov&#x2F;pacific&#x2F;publicsafety&#x2F;news&#x2F;updates-investigations-suspicious-drone-activity-ne-colorado" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.colorado.gov&#x2F;pacific&#x2F;publicsafety&#x2F;news&#x2F;updates-i...</a>

Was thinking what a fabulous method to generate publicity in lead up to a motion picture. Perform this event multiple times across the country before a reveal when a trailer is dropped; would be good for any dystopian future or alien invasion movie

There are many eye witnesses, but no pictures or videos?

This reads like a UFO hysteria report. &quot;10 ft drones that make no sound and hover in the air for hours at a time&quot;<p>Do drones like this even exist that are available to civilians? Even $30,000 commercial grade drones are only a few feet wide and have sub hour flight times.

Maybe this is the equivalent of the flash mobs in malls some years back?<p>Instead of people being physically present, they all have drones and fly them in a formation? Bored, smart, rich kids will definitely be able to pull this off.

It seems pretty obvious that if this is real and not mass hysteria the first most plausible explanation is a secret military project, no? The Government doesn’t tell folks when they are testing new spy planes and stuff, etc.

&gt;the pattern of multiple “drones” flying a grid type pattern and remaining airborne for several hours at a time in less than optimum flying conditions (high winds and storm-like conditions). The number of drones reported operating at one time range from between 2 and 16 and appear to be approximately 6 feet width and length. Flight time has been 2 to 3 hours continuous.<p>that isn&#x27;t amateurs, nor does it look like any small business&#x2F;start-up. That smells like defense contractor.

the fact there were multiple sightings in rural areas and not one was destroyed by buckshot should mean something.<p>I grew up in the country, I don&#x27;t see any teen&#x2F;young adult spotting one of these over their farm&#x2F;ranch and resisting the urge to grab a 12 gauge and take a shot.

For all these witnesses, i haven&#x27;t seen any pictures

tl;dr: somebody flew some drones in formation frequently for a few weeks. Nobody knows why. Nobody came forward to say why.

It&#x27;s aliens. They&#x27;ve realized if they use drones that people will blame governments or large corporations. &#x2F;sarcasm

&gt; ... the “mystery drone” wave also elicited serious expressions of concern from at least two U.S. senators and attention from Colorado’s governor and state public safety agency.<p>What concern?<p>&gt; ... absence of evidence of criminal intent, or of a proximate threat to military assets or other critical infrastructure. Once the aerial activity stopped, it appears that both federal and state agencies quickly dropped the matter<p>And rightly so. Interesting oddity, but pointless use of federal investigatory resources.

I understand the hacker community has always been into UFO&#x27;s and 40 years ago this forum would be talking about aliens.<p>But what they were still stands at what we knew they were when first reported, hysteria. (aka stars, planes and maybe, perhaps an occasional domestic DJI drone)<p>Go have a look at the drones being used by independent militant groups (with some state help) around they Middle East, they are much more interesting and real.<p>Link to get you started - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;N_Waters89&#x2F;status&#x2F;1255821485979176962" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;N_Waters89&#x2F;status&#x2F;1255821485979176962</a>