Fleets of dozens of mysterious UFO drones are monitoring America’s most sensitive military sites, and the Pentagon admits there’s not much it can do to stop it aerial intruderAccording to a new report.
Drones of unknown origin have been seen flying over military bases in Virginia and Nevada in the past year, including secret bases. Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six commando unit and Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval port, Wall Street Journal report,
Federal laws, however, prevent the military from shooting down drones because of the potential dangers to soldiers and civilians.
According to the Journal, jamming of their signals was even refused at high-level White House meetings — with concerns that it could interfere with 911 systems, WiFi networks and commercial airliners.
The result is that the Pentagon has little choice to stop it. Potential surveillance from foreign adversaries.
According to the WSJ, former US Air Force General Mark Kelly first became aware of drone sightings in December 2023, where officials at Langley Air Force Base along the Virginia coast reported seeing dozens of drones flying over the base at night. Was informed.
The base is home to F-22 Raptor fighter planes – one of the US military’s most advanced stealth warplanes.
The drones remained visible for 17 days, with officials suspecting they may have been deployed by Russian or Chinese agents to spy on US military assets.
Since espionage is not an imminent threat, the military is prohibited by law from shooting down drones.
An FAA official warned that directed jamming attacks also had the potential to interfere with commercial aircraft near the peak of the holiday travel season.
The analog strategy also failed because local police assisting in the investigation lost sight of the drone during a midnight chase, the WSJ reports.
The drone sightings ended on December 23, but authorities are still unsure where they came from and who was operating them.
Given the complexity of the operation and the number of drones flying in coordination, officials had ruled out the possibility that amateur drone pilots were behind the sightings.
However, a clue was found the following month when a Chinese student studying at the University of Minnesota was caught flying a drone near the Langley base on January 6.
Fengyun Xi, a 26-year-old student, had his drone stuck in a tree, which he appeared to abandon while flying to California the next day.
The drone fell from the tree the same day and was turned over to the FBI, who discovered that the drone had taken photographs of Navy ships parked at the base.
According to the WSJ, Xi was arrested a week later as he was about to embark on a one-way flight to China, with prosecutors accusing him of illegally taking photographs of classified naval installations, the first such case involving drones. Was.
After Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard rejected Shi’s claim that he was a student flying drones just for fun on holidays, Shi pleaded guilty to espionage charges on October 2.
Xi’s lawyer Xiaoming Cheng told the WSJ, “If he were a foreign agent, he would be the worst spy ever known.”
As well as the incidents in Virginia, US officials have confirmed that similar swarms of drones were recently seen near Edwards Air Force Base in Nevada.
The Defense Department has not yet publicly revealed who is behind these apparent surveillance drones.
