Mystery drones seen over three US air bases in UK

Apparently someone local to Mildenhall , filmed a “suspected drone” on his phone, whilst 3 F15 fighters were scrambled to “intercept” it. I highly doubt whether they’d scramble supersonic fighter aircraft to intercept a 30mph max speed drone :joy::joy::joy: ( of course our favourite “geek”, was fair taken with the idea , showing the video, then chatting about it afterwards) :joy::joy::joy::joy::joy:

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What an absolute load of shite. :roll_eyes: :joy:

Yep, that’s exactly what I thought :joy::joy::joy::joy:

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If it’s this video…

… I’m calling it nonsense as well.

Honestly, does anyone really think a “naughty” drone would be flying around an airbase with it’s lights on? Though unfortunately I think the hype from stories in the Sun will get in the way of reality.

I fixed it for you… :slightly_smiling_face:

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Ok, this is apparently a video showing, what? A light or some lights against a dark background with no contextual elements in the image to indicate it’s size, or if it is moving, or hovering but the camera is moving. Nor is there any indication of where the footage was shot; could be anywhere! It could be a drone, of course, and it could be some other sort of aircraft or it could, for all I know, be some xmas lights laid out in someone’s back garden at night to fake the footage; there is nothing to suggest that it is taken from the ground looking up except the self-referential claim that it is of a drone…

Once all those factors are taken into account, it seems very unlikely to me to be footage of a drone in the vicinity of any of the airbases being discussed, and therefore most likely to be nonsense, though it is feasible that an uncritical viewer might accept it as being what it purports to be.

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If a foreign government wants to spy they’ll just use satellites, pretty much everything that would show up on a drone flyover can be seen on Google maps

It’s far more likely that this is either local idiots or it never actually happened and it’s passed out to the press to create an unease about Russia

Before we condemn those whose job it is to react to foreign incursions or agent activity over this (that is of course, if it turns out to have been a false alarm), it is worth I think remembering that the Russians have a long history of overflying UK airspace or coming close to it’s limits, and that interceptors from East Coast bases have had plenty to occupy themselves for nearly 80 years since the Cold War started. Given the heightend tensions, sabre rattling from Vlad (never mess with anyone called Vlad, it’s a scary name), and the expectation of some sort of Russian response to the British-made missiles now being used agaisnt them by the Ukranians, it might be forgiveable if someone overrreacted!j

The think that makes it unlikely to my mind is the talk of ‘swarms’, The logistics needed to put up a swarm of drones, the transport, flight preparation, and general activity, in what are normally quiet East Anglian country lanes but probably under some surveillance we don’t know about where they are close to base perimeters, would hardly have gone unnoticed, surely. What sort of ‘local idiots’ could muster a swarm of drone and transport them unnoticed between the bases.

Unless you want to go down the ‘Birds aren’t real’ rabbit hole, in which case my idea of starlings becomes incredibly sinister…

BBC article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crk4g3zddexo
According to the article they interviewed 3 local residents who reported:

  1. "a triangle-shaped aerial vehicle, which was “a grey, dark colour”, “They were really noisy and had lights”
  2. “an orange ball in the sky at night”
  3. “could not detect a noise”, “All you see is light, but it’s a big, big light”

A noisy triangle shaped aerial vehicle? A plane?
An orange ball in the sky at night? The moon or a planet?
A silent big light? The moon?
Nothing that actually provides any evidence of a drone.

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Some of that blokes info is a bit duff… There are no Sea Stallion rotary assets in the UK. In fact it was the MH-53’s that were once based at Mildenhall. These have now been replaced with the Ospreys.

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Are the drones lighting up US bases in England something sinister?

Bruce’s take on it

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Moved your post to the pre-existing thread on the subject. :+1:

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The woman who reported this was doing so in the context of claiming to have possibly seen a drone being shot down. If there were unauthorised drones and they could be shot down safely, I would expect this to be done, probably from ground-based weapons, and being the military (ours and the Americans’) there will be no statement or comment about it.

If I flew my drone over a military base or a naval vessel without permission, despite the fact that it is obviously a small hobby drone, I would expect it to be shot down; for which reason I would not be flying my drone over a military base. I am a civilian, but of the view that the military’s business is the military’s business and none of mine, so I leave them well alone. By and large they return the courtesy.j

I was at a CTP brief this week, and that’s so far off the mark :flushed:

What does CTP mean Chris, I did google it but it came up with lots of many things :smiley:

Never google it Rich , gets you a knock in the night

Only kidding though they do tell you the words not to google to stop those knocks in the night

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I just Googled that too :rofl:
I’ve learnt more since I’ve joined this club than I ever did at school,
I’ll read that thank you …

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Ah well there’s a new one ‘ Project Servator ‘ first I’ve ever heard of it, understand the counter terrorisim etc :+1: