I work with a major league team who has a drone detection system on their stadium. This system can not only track any drone located within 40-50 miles of their stadium, BUT it can also pinpoint where the drone pilot is so law enforcement can apprehend. I find it INCREDIBLY hard to believe our military bases don’t have similar or better tech installed than what’s available commercially. In this case, if there are hundreds of drones, they should be able to see where the pilot(s) are.

Not heard a peep of this anywhere else.

WB-57 Canberra my beloved. Thing is older than the B-52.

1 guy in a RV inside an RV park can swarm an airbase with killer drones can take out BILLIONS of dollars worth of aircraft. Most of which can't be replaced (any jet that is out of production). We will need advanced EW and sensor equipment at EVERY airbase to find/fix/track the control node, which could even be unmanned with AI. I'm afraid we're asleep at the wheel. Any Chinese owned property near bases needs to be reclaimed through Eminent Domain. Wow.

The US military banned DJI drones for a while as the Phantom series drones would "phone home" with the images and data from the memory card mounted in the onboard controller. Then there was the issue with the FitBit watches and Strava which revealed a few of the US bases in Syria and Afghanistan

RB 57 has a tremendous camera system used to video rocket launches, can get close clear photos from very far away

I'm with Mover on this one.

As a supply vessel captain in the Gulf, I've seen these things on radar that don't show visually. Also, have seen the weird lights out there too, many times.

NASA was doing UAS tests in December at the CERTAIN ranges on Langley while all these drone reports were coming in. I'm betting the WB-57 was there for that.

The chinese have farmland all around our bases too.

It's very impressive how the United States has the talent to maintain our military vehicles and aircraft for a very long time. I think it's awesome, to see aircraft that my relatives could've flown still flying.

WB-57 is used for many missions. Nasa uses it for high altitude photography of rocket launches. Very accurate, high resolving camera system

I completely agree with Mover. Drones with even basic image processing tech are a serious threat to national security. They are easy to manufacture and most of their capabilities are in the software side which any country can do. I think of a country like Croatia that recently acquired 12 used Dassault Rafale jets for around 1.21B USD, that is a huge amount of money for a country of that size. For that same amount they could have created a domestic drone production pipeline that can handle all of their needs in terms of airspace surveillance and defense. I think for the money, traditional fighter aircraft will not make sense for many of these countries that have small to medium budgets in comparison to drones.

The Drone and the Operator are both transmitting (UHF?). I assume radio triangulation could be used to detect and pinpoint each?

The WB-57 was probably to try and image the local area and look for the drone controller's radio emissions. I think some kind of anti-drone jamming technology or kinetic anti-drone system will be needed to counter attacks from radio-controlled and autonomous drone systems respectively.

It absolutely blows my mind that there isn't any real, clearly apparent effort to combat these drone incursions into restricted airspace over sensitive facilities. This kind of thing has been happening for at least, like, 7 years, and there's still not even a shared idea of how to respond & deal with them. Apparently, there's only just been a "90-day review" started to maybe think about thinking about a way to kinda do something about something or something... Maybe. Thing is, I live by a nuclear power plant, and there wasn't even a mention, in the news or anywhere, until almost a year and a half later that, in 2017, a *series* of incursions, each by *several* large quadcopter drones observed and/or heard from the ground by security guards who reported that the drones were anywhere from (the guards said was) just a few dozen feet to over a thousand feet off the ground and maneuvering in repeated & clearly purposeful patterns above different sections of the plant, with each incursion lasting at least 90 minutes between the hours of 1:00AM & 4:00AM each time, over a different section each time, in an apparently methodical order - over a ***NUCLEAR-THE-FU€K-POWER PLANT!!!*** And nobody did anything except document it, notify their "bosses" or whatever, and, eventually, after a few nights of this, inform the police who eventually passed the reports along to the FAA, who apparently filed 'em away, forgot about' em, and then took their sweet time digging 'em back up before redacting the reports & releasing them over a year and a half after the fact, and only because a local reporter who'd heard the story from a friend of one of the security guards had filed a FOIA request. Nobody ever so much as bothered to try to find out who they belonged to, where they came from, or why they were there, even after it dawned on some people at the FAA that this same exact thing had happened & was still happening over the restricted airspace of *at least half a dozen* other nuclear plants, and some anectodal reports going around the water cooler which suggested at least a dozen more nuclear plants experienced such series of incursions that either weren't observed & reported, or just weren't really noticed except incidentally and had only been vaguely mentioned & poorly recalled months or over a year later when other reports started being talked about. And several of the plants noted one or more repeat series of incursions happening months apart. About a year after that, an electrician for the area power company near my house noticed, stuck in a tree just a few yards from a very large substation, a quadcopter drone with a length of heavy-gauge copper wire just a couple feet or so longer than the width between the high-voltage lines of the substation and bent into hooks at either end. Apparently, had it not gotten stuck in the tree, that drone could have laid that copper wire across any 2 of those high-voltage lines to effectively cause the substation to blow itself up. They informed their "higher ups" who, at least claimed to have, informed the local PD, and nothing else ever happened. That substation is still, right now, exposed just as it was then 3 or 4 years ago, and is still without a proper surrounding fence. They haven't even bothered to just tie some netting over top of it, or throw something up there between the tree branches to catch anything that might fall on it, on purpose or not, and knock out power to thousands upon thousands of people for probably a couple of days, at least.

The drones could be being used to also test response times/reactions. This definitely is a threat.

One of my favorite video games is Ace Combat 7 which came out in 2019, and one of the reasons why it's my favorite video game is because it was the perfect representation of what a future war would look like with AI drones. In the game, there is a war between two countries where one side at a traditional military with a traditional air force with manned fighter jets and another country that used mostly AI drone aircraft. The country with the AI drone aircraft pretty much took out most of the military of the other country on Day 1 of the conflict by sneaking them on containers on container ships at ports all over their country. The drone aircraft launched from the containers while they were still on the ships! Talk about swarming a country! That was the beginning of the game. The end of the game was even crazier! Two prototype and futuristic drone aircraft were AI copies of the enemy ace of the game, and they AI drones were going to copy themselves to every drone in the drone factories all over the world. The final mission was a race against time to shoot these drones down before they could transmit their data to the drone factories. It was an incredible game and an incredible story, and it was amazing to see the game come out when it did before these current world conflicts where we're drones being used more than ever as weapons in war. It was like the perfect preview of future wars.

I encountered a drone on a US military post. It turned out to be post personnel doing their hobby. At the time we had no procedures or directives regarding drones coming onto a military installation. I doubt anything has changed and security is not likely to have any way to deal with the drones.

As an FPV pilot I can tell you that while you can fly while being mobile , in most cases you are sitting. The FPV drones though you won’t know who they are tired to since remote ID is not active YET. Even then if you are just streaming the feed and then recording it remotely it can be a 1 way drone as they are insanely inexpensive to build. Inexpensive would be about 200 dollars is about as cheap as I’ve made one.just thoughts from a nobody

Would it be possible that the military is sending these drone swarms at it's own bases as a readiness test to try to close security holes?

Are we about to witness Mover ruining drones?🤔

Don’t know about Langley but the Navy was flying real aggressive at Oceana yesterday. It was a great show

If college students can do 3D shows at football games using thousands of drones, why should we be surprised?

Could this be a Red Cell for NSCT? Might explain all the NOTAMs you guys remember from a few years ago. What if all of the concerns Mover addressed are being tested to answer the very question Gonky asked, “How do you defend against that?”

Agree with you Move about the "Concerns" .

I hate how KZfaq moved the comments from the bottom of the video to the side bar. anyway to change it back?

I fear someday a weaponized drone swarm at a major outdoor public event.

Forget a backpack. The bigger ones you can fly right out the back of a van or pickup with a cap on it. Land it and drive away. It's a massive problem.

The fact that we think this is crazy or dumb or conspiracy while we have an open border is really the crazy part.

Anyone in the USAS is well aware of the comprehensive anti-drone technology in possession of DoD. Particularly the Navy. So, these "drones" must be some very impressive technology indeed to thwart such advanced counter drone measures. Knowing what we know about the vastness of space, why are we all so afraid to acknowledge what is clearly happening?

It's also a major threat for any navy. You can load up a bunch of cheap civilian boats with explosives and cheap drone tech and pretty much overwhelm anything currently in existence. Jamming isn't even useful there because you can use conventional algorithms to identify the targets pretty well - but advanced machine learning inference only chips are also getting very very cheap and mass produced, so you could easily make jamming irrelevant.

I emailed NASA over a year ago and suggested they use their WB-57 aircraft and it's tracking cameras to try and record these UAP in the NAVY training area off the coast of Virginia.

I’m with Mover on this & far from as sanguine as Gonky!

It's not hard to detect a swarm. Do we know if these are fixed wing or rotary?

It seems to me that the Achilles heel of a drone is its spinning props. Anything that would foul those props, especially if it caused some drones in a swarm to crash into each other and maybe even cause a cascade of drone midairs, might be effective in stopping a swarm attack. For protecting fixed targets, like airfields, I wonder if a pretty low-tech solution, like installing mortars around the perimeter that could fire large numbers of small projectiles on parachutes, might not be effective. It sounds a little crazy (and maybe it is), but if you could just put a high enough density of obstructions into the air at the right moment, maybe that could work. It obviously would only be possible at low altitude, but if the intent of a drone swarm is to carry explosives to cause damage, instead of just to surveil, it seems likely they’d have to stay pretty close to the ground to be accurate. Maybe it is a stupid idea, but trying to target them individually seems like a loser due to the potential numbers in a swarm, and even trying to jam the radio frequencies controlling them could be countered by frequency hopping or onboard autonomous navigation. That’s why I think you have to put something physical into the air to get in their way.

Drone with a small shaped charge pointing down. In swarms, In our AFB's. That's a terrifying first strike scenario.

Yep. I am at Langley now, it was an actual problem. There is research done at Langley that is for the NGAD at the nasa center attached to Langley.

The ship thing, didn't it turn out to be almost any ship going in or out of San Diego?

@C.W Lemoine. Cwis with a high output laser and a jamming beam guns? . perimeter for low level, lightweight fish net wall popped up at least 20~25 ft from the ground ,activated at will, covering at least 40 line ft.and over lapping. might cost a few bucks but what's the alternative.

I’m very curious about this because I’ve personally seen at other locations why these drone swarms shouldn’t be possible so it’s interesting that some locations don’t have a way to deal with this.

Not saying this is it but, a long time ago from a point in California we would run mock attacks to test abilities of equipment . personel.

I see people talking about Drone Tracking, which relies on RF signals. It wouldn't pick up drones designed to fly to an area and then detect aircraft shapes to target. Automated flight path like a Tomahawk missile, and program to detect and target aircraft shapes. Could fit a lot of drones in a trucking container, especially if each base has a couple trucks that launch at same time from different directions. Its a race to a drone air force.

That wb57 is the Canberra bomber after it hit the MMA gym and got jacked. But decided to become a photographer.

What scares me the most is when I watched a show on the B-2 it was stored in the above ground hanger made out of thin aluminum. Why wouldn't they store our most valuable aircraft the B-2 that has a load capacity of a B-1 Lancer in some underground hanger type that goes in some underground heavily fortified hanger....

Wasn't this on last week?

When I think of this logically the more I believe its either us testing our own readiness or a bored teenager. The last thing I would want to do if I was a foreign power with drone sleepers, assuming they exist, is find a hole in our air defense just to have it modified or shut when its go time. Not to mention potential of reaction to something like that. The other piece the Air Force said it was referred to FBI so that again leans towards a random person being dumb.

completely agree with this. Dangerous. Not only do we have technology to detect and track drones, the military also has ways to jam them and they fall out of the sky. Why haven't the military moved this weapon system into Langley? Its DUH thing for me. And definitely moved the f22s somewhere else for a while.

With the thousands of military age men from China, and other adversarial actors, coming across the southern (majority) and northern border, I am convinced these drones are precursory intelligence gathering and testing counter-drone capabilities at critical nodes like Langley and NOB Norfolk. The Ukrainian war has shown that defense against drone swarms is difficult, if not impossible.

Unless these drones were totally autonomous, they would be emitting TX/RX signals that could be tracked/monitored SIGINTEL?? Maybe even jammed?

It’s funny people are talking about this because there were several drone NOTAMS posted around the same days this was happening.

Time to develop an anti-drone system based on the naval CWIS system. They developed that system 40 years ago, don't tell me we could not make one small enough to fit on a vehicle with auto-guns aimed by radar, infrared, or shotgun microphones.

I hope they confirm these Pilots have remote ID otherwise the FAA may have to track them down and give them a ticket

WB57 just left Ellington the other day over my house. I think they live here?

People with talent, creativity, and some engineering skill and a developmental budget to play with have enormous opportunities to do something useful in the counterdrone field. It's only a matter of time before all military installations and all airfields, military, commercial, or civilian, will be guarded by effective counterdrone measures. And they will evolve quickly as the threat will too.

I hear Mossberg makes an outstanding 12 Guage anti drone device that's relatively inexpensive and is easy to train personnel on how to operate it within the span of a few hours

Some FPV drones carry shaped charges. First comes surveillance then comes strike. An A.I. drone could be programmed to attack with photographs from reconnaissance drone.

12 gage shotguns with birdshot?

Also, the USAF has been discussing potential solutions to include radar based Phalanx type systems for drone defense.

Can’t they figure out how to jam the frequencies they’re using or are they maybe using frequencies hoping if they’re military grade?

Multiple drones can image with very detail imagery. For over five years there has been software that allows a DJI drone to make a programmed pattern over a position in order to develop a 3D image of the location. Multiple drones would make this capability easier and faster, not to mention the area it could map.

After this video was posted, several Chinese military aged males were apprehended by military police for trespassing on military bases. These individuals were taking photos of vehicles and facilities.

Surely there’s no danger to our massive fleet of F-22s!

The WB57 can be and probably is configured for ELINT or electronic intelligence gathering from high altitude. They were probably trying to intercept the controlling telemetry of the user to pick up the frequencies and often imbedded code serial numbers that can lead back to where purchased and by whom. They can also track the drones back to the point of departure with this info and try to catch them and identify the "bad guys". Just saying.

Better get the laser defense systems up and running

I won’t say which AFB I’m at, but we also experienced a drone swarm a few weeks ago

It could just be a NASA nerd from NASA Langley Research Center (co-located with Langley AFB) testing out his own stuff literally for work right next door.

*Incredulously* : "I'm superficial, it's ugly- come on!" lol On a serious note- why don't US federal installations simply have the ability to jam civllian-grade small drones? They work via a radio signal transmitted 4 or less miles. Jam the shit out of the drone's radio frequency and follow it to it's origin point. If it's like a Uke drone it'll fall to the ground.

people are massively under appreciating the impact on asymmetric warfare and the Ukraine thing. the general public have know idea how dangerous things are. Any mass gathering now has the issue of not single person with a backpack bomber's but untraceable drone swarms.

The Navy has its unmanned vehicle Center of Excellence literally next door to Langley AFB.

Wouldn't virtually any nation state of concern have high enough resolution from space?

Reminds me of the south park episode about drones

Drones and radio controlled models are now required to have "Remote ID" transmitters onboard. I'm sure the bad guys will comply with this rule while the rest of us have to foot the cost or stop flying.

I think it's the Canadians trying to figure out how we're still flying 70 year old T-38s

What is the cost ratio if they take out a squadron of F-22's with a bunch of $2,000 drones?

If you want to think about something that will really make your blood run cold, think about those decorative drone displays that a lot of places are using instead of fireworks. Now imagine each of them with a five-pound munition....

This is a true and quite concerning event. If we're just now talking about or seeing this, how long has this been going on?!? And what are the deep ramifications of this? Scary as all get out!

Did you see that drone demo of the running horses in Saudi?

They have bigger dual-human carrying drone swarms. It is already buyable, it has stocks on wallstreet, and FAA and our side is far behind with Archer... 😐🤦‍♂️🇺🇲 iykyk. Also its on video already, i have told people since 2021.. few people even notice. They even have a youtuber page

The infiltration of drones into Langley Air Force Base is deeply concerning, especially with the strong possibility that they may be originating from within the country, possibly linked to properties purchased by China near military bases. This raises significant security issues and underscores the need for thorough investigation and monitoring. The veracity of this claim can be verified through public records, highlighting the importance of addressing potential threats posed by these drones launched from nearby properties.

Maybe it's just The Arnold taking over. "First The Arnold then the machineeees!"

still another issue being overlooked just like in other bad things..The question that should be talked about is "who" more than "what or where" their tool of choice is from or made by.

"Unidentified flying...thingies?" Yeah those UFTs man. I agree with Mover though. This could be a probing mission to see what they can get away with and after the balloon that flew over the entire US, I feel like the Chinese are like, "Let's do some more, really figure out their limits." And with the election coming up in November I get the feeling that this won't be the only time we see these kinds of things go on. Also, the act that I haven't seen nearly as much coverage on this on the news like I did with the balloon, tells me this is something different.

The Vehicle Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE) & and the USAF Research Laboratorys THOR weapon are 2 good choices .

I live in Virginia and I had no idea this happened… I wonder what the drones are doing

Something I'm wondering is: if the USAF does have decent anti-drone weapons and countermeasures (which I'm sure they're working on), would they actually use them on low-volume flyovers like this? Seems like whipping out a whiz-bang laser system or whatever for every little airspace violation would just show off their capabilities (or lack thereof) and help potential attackers figure out how to bypass them. Especially if whatever anti-drone system is early on in development and not ready for the worst-case of hundreds or thousands of drones at once. Not saying this is 100% what's going on, but it could be an explanation for why the response so far seems to be purely observational. We do know just from public information that military and civilian R&D groups have been working on soft- and hard-kill anti-drone systems for at least the last several years.

The little drones have a limited range you should be able to locate the user as its user will be within 10-20kms

His last name is Guillot, gee-yacht It is French and common in south Louisiana. Mover should know that 😜

Could it be only American citizens just wanting to get pictures of a airbase? When I at an air base to see the museum and decommissioned Nuke silos. I took photo of B1 taking off with a long wildlife lens. The odds it is just warplanes fans or pesky neighbors.

Seems like someone is trying to prove a point and get the DoD to react with reforms to mitigate against the potential threats of drones.

EMP plus radio jamming should work to drop a drone from the sky. Drone are not autonomous they are remote control. Sever that communication connection and the drone stops.

Sending drones to this sensitive AFB on the US East Coast being seen but not being caught is an act of war. Apparently these drones dared to hang around long enough for calling in that WB-57 Canberra to take a closer look, thats many hours of lead time. WTF. So if China or Russia is controlling these at Langley AFB and were also around those Navy ships 100 miles off LA coast in US territorial waters its war. Then there were the "drones" in Colorado seen by law enforcement, etc. If these drones are not Chinese or Russian, and its not a US secret program, it would fall in the category "other" or UAP. This is just as serious. I would say even more disturbing.

The things I read that made me say "da'fuq?" are... ...it was about 40 drones of various sizes flying for extended periods of time, over the course of hours. They approached from the Atlantic from beyond the horizon. They arrived in groups and waves, some groups loitered for extended periods, then they trickled back towards the ocean, over the horizon in the direction they came. Oh, and no one reported them making any noise. What kind of adversary drone can do that?

I live in Norfolk. Almost all the time the aircraft are flying. Lots of them helicopters. Can’t a military helicopter track drone to its landing and call local PD?

DARPA project?

I know, launching a surveillance plane is not done quick, but WEEKS? I doubt, these drones were hostile anyway. But an EW-plane should have noticed pretty precise, where the signals came from.

Wow its not like unknown groups are shooting up power sub stations. Couldnt possibly be another group. All of these activities are messages from an adversary.

Is it too controversial for them to interview Ryan Graves?? He was a naval aviator, has first hand knowledge of UAP events in restricted air space and runs an organisation dedicated to aviation safety. I can't believe they have not interviewed him already just out of sheer curiosity if nothing else.

Are you guys still eligible to be recalled to active duty?

I'm with Wombat on this one. Mover, you've highlighted the problem with many of our processes/things... so much administrative/bureaucratic BS in anything we do puts Monty Python to shame...