Curated from MIT Technology Review — Here’s what matters right now:
On a Friday evening last December, every tier of US law enforcement—federal, state, and local—was dispatched to the US Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, a military research installation outside Boston. A squadron of about 15 to 20 drones had been spotted violating the base’s restricted airspace. The culprits could not be found. One retired major with the Massachusetts State Police, who had been dispatched to help investigate that night, called these unidentified aircraft “the strangest thing he’s ever seen,” according to Brian Lauzon, deputy chief of Natick’s municipal police department. When Lauzon arrived on base later that weekend, he says, he saw drones that were larger than traditional consumer models (most of which are pre-programmed to respect US military airspace these days anyway). By the end of this weekend-long breach, base police not only had called in local law enforcement for backup but were coordinating with the FBI and US Army commanders as well. The event, which barely made local news , was only the latest in a series of purported drone sightings along the US East Coast that November and December. Most of these happened in New Jersey, where military police confirmed at least 11 unauthorized drone incursions over an Army research and arms-manufacturing facility, Picatinny Arsenal. Further sightings, including cases above Donald Trump’s golf course in nearby Bedminster, prompted an FBI investigation and a flurry of new FAA-issued flight bans over sensitive sites, including critical infrastructure. But official answers were less forthcoming. The Tedescos’ roving aerial surveillance unit, which they’ve dubbed “the Nightcrawler,” is an old RV equipped with an array of homemade signals collection equipment. “It created a lot of hysteria in the general public,” Lauzon recalls. “I was talking to old ladies who’re telling me that there’s this ship in the ocean that’s launching hundreds of these at a time across the United States.” One Republican congressman from New Jersey did, in fact, claim that a militarized drone ship from Iran had launched the invaders, despite Pentagon denials . Lauzon remembers fielding myriad calls from civilians who had misidentified passenger jets as hostile drones. He recalls attending one presentation by an FBI expert in uncrewed aircraft systems who showed police unhelpful scare videos of improvised drone strikes in Ukraine , in which tiny aircraft rained grenades down on bloodied soldiers. By late January, the incoming Trump administration would assert that the entirety of the New Jersey drone wave had been benign , with each and every UAS “authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons.” Their surety, however, stood in stark contrast to the warnings from top military brass , including the Air Force general at the head of NORAD, Gregory Guillot. In February, he testified to the Senate that approximately 350 drone incursions had been reported over a hundred different US mil
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Original reporting: MIT Technology Review