Colorado Drone Mystery


This exact explanation was offered early on by one of the defense oriented blogs I read. I thought it was possible until I saw a US Senator footstomp about the mystery. DoD has a legislative liaison group who quietly whisper in legislators' ears about such things. DoD may not tell them what is actually going on, but they will be told enough so they do not step on it and embarrass themselves and/or impact opsec. Will be interesting to see if this is the real answer, and if so how the Senator reacts. If someone in the USAF/DoD chain made a conscious decision to lie to him, as in "We know nothing about it," there will be careers on the line.
 
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Task force?? I hope that's not law enforcement speak for "committee." A former colleague had a sign on his office wall that said, "A committee is a group that keeps minutes but wastes hours."
Just keeps getting stranger and stranger.....
 
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New drone task force investigating mysterious sightings across Colorado, Nebraska
"Martin said members of the Air Force attended Monday’s meeting and assured the attendees that the military is not behind the drones. But Martin admitted "I don't know" when asked if he believes that."

Leaving everyone in a perplexed "I don't know" state is a good indicator of an effectively classified program. Though, of course, it doesn't logically prove that is what it is. But that's the whole point.

I'm predicting that there will be no disclosure by anyone as to what is really going on no matter how accurate any of the guesses may be. It is also laughable to give any credibility at all to these "members of the Air Force". It is almost a certain bet that if this is a highly classified program, the strategy in keeping with this would be to send out spokespeople without the requisite need to know. After all, the most effective liars are the ones who don't know the truth.
 
"Martin said members of the Air Force attended Monday’s meeting and assured the attendees that the military is not behind the drones. But Martin admitted "I don't know" when asked if he believes that."

Leaving everyone in a perplexed "I don't know" state is a good indicator of an effectively classified program. Though, of course, it doesn't logically prove that is what it is. But that's the whole point.

I'm predicting that there will be no disclosure by anyone as to what is really going on no matter how accurate any of the guesses may be. It is also laughable to give any credibility at all to these "members of the Air Force". It is almost a certain bet that if this is a highly classified program, the strategy in keeping with this would be to send out spokespeople without the requisite need to know. After all, the most effective liars are the ones who don't know the truth.

Why would USAF conduct operations of a highly classified program in a populated area, thus calling attention to it? There are hundreds of thousands of square miles of DoD ranges throughout the country where something like limited range drones could be flown day and night without prying eyes and reporters.

I'm beginning to think why they are being flown in that area is a bigger question than who is operating them. What is going on there that somewhere believes requires aerial surveillance? Sounds more like a law enforcement effort than something military related, maybe an agency like ICE, DEA, or DHS.
 
High-tech plane joins search for mysterious drones in Colorado

In the latest bid to solve the question of mysterious drone sightings vexing authorities in northeastern Colorado, a state surveillance airplane loaded with sophisticated cameras and sensors was launched Monday evening.

However, it did not detect any suspicious drone activity Monday despite a five hour-flight over the area besieged by recent reports of drone sightings, officials told ABC News.

The plane took off around 5 p.m. Monday, flying a spaghetti-shaped pattern over northeast Colorado before returning to its base at the Centennial Airport south of Denver, according to FlightRadar.

The search was part of an effort to get answers to a series of reported drone sightings across parts of Colorado and Nebraska since mid-December.

mma-drone-flight-ho-mo-20200107_hpEmbed_23x15_992.jpg

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An airplane, known as the multi-mission aircraft, or MMA, is a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop airplane equipped with three cameras that see in color and infrared modes able to see through smoke, but not clouds.

"(Colorado Department of Public Safety) participated in a joint operation last night to investigate the source of the mystery drones; the joint operation found no verification of suspicious drones," said Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management spokeswoman Nicki Trost in an email. "We are actively monitoring reports of suspicious activity and will take action based on the level of activity and information being gathered by the Colorado Information Analysis Center."

At the same time and in the same area of Monday’s surveillance flight, multiple people were still posting to drone-spotting Facebook groups that they could see one or more of the objects in the air.

"This is sort of a modern version of the UFO hysteria in that people think they see something and all of a sudden everybody thinks they see something," said retired Col. Steve Ganyard, a former Marine fighter pilot and ABC News consultant. "But they're really seeing nothing or they're seeing something that's eventually going to be easily explained scientifically."

Multiple government agencies have denied that any of the reported drones belong to them. Ganyard says it is unlikely that the U.S military is flying drones in the area, or attempting to cover up their existence.

"If the military wanted to keep something secret, they have lots of places in the U.S. where they could fly them and no one would ever know," according to Ganyard.

On Monday, officials announced a drone task force that includes local law enforcement agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI.

The airplane launched Monday, known as the multi-mission aircraft, or MMA, is a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop airplane equipped with three cameras that see in color and infrared modes able to see through smoke, but not clouds.

The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control website describes the primary mission of the airplane as wildfire detection, "in addition to providing near real time information to ground forces during initial attack on wildfires."
 
High-tech plane joins search for mysterious drones in Colorado

In the latest bid to solve the question of mysterious drone sightings vexing authorities in northeastern Colorado, a state surveillance airplane loaded with sophisticated cameras and sensors was launched Monday evening.

However, it did not detect any suspicious drone activity Monday despite a five hour-flight over the area besieged by recent reports of drone sightings, officials told ABC News.

The plane took off around 5 p.m. Monday, flying a spaghetti-shaped pattern over northeast Colorado before returning to its base at the Centennial Airport south of Denver, according to FlightRadar.

The search was part of an effort to get answers to a series of reported drone sightings across parts of Colorado and Nebraska since mid-December.

mma-drone-flight-ho-mo-20200107_hpEmbed_23x15_992.jpg

camera.svg

An airplane, known as the multi-mission aircraft, or MMA, is a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop airplane equipped with three cameras that see in color and infrared modes able to see through smoke, but not clouds.

"(Colorado Department of Public Safety) participated in a joint operation last night to investigate the source of the mystery drones; the joint operation found no verification of suspicious drones," said Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management spokeswoman Nicki Trost in an email. "We are actively monitoring reports of suspicious activity and will take action based on the level of activity and information being gathered by the Colorado Information Analysis Center."

At the same time and in the same area of Monday’s surveillance flight, multiple people were still posting to drone-spotting Facebook groups that they could see one or more of the objects in the air.

"This is sort of a modern version of the UFO hysteria in that people think they see something and all of a sudden everybody thinks they see something," said retired Col. Steve Ganyard, a former Marine fighter pilot and ABC News consultant. "But they're really seeing nothing or they're seeing something that's eventually going to be easily explained scientifically."

Multiple government agencies have denied that any of the reported drones belong to them. Ganyard says it is unlikely that the U.S military is flying drones in the area, or attempting to cover up their existence.

"If the military wanted to keep something secret, they have lots of places in the U.S. where they could fly them and no one would ever know," according to Ganyard.

On Monday, officials announced a drone task force that includes local law enforcement agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI.

The airplane launched Monday, known as the multi-mission aircraft, or MMA, is a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop airplane equipped with three cameras that see in color and infrared modes able to see through smoke, but not clouds.

The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control website describes the primary mission of the airplane as wildfire detection, "in addition to providing near real time information to ground forces during initial attack on wildfires."

A step up, but the infrared cameras will only allow detection of the drones in flight, and maybe the people operating the controllers if they are out in the open. What's needed is a signals intelligence (Sigint) aircraft equipped to detect the output of the controllers. There are a number of such a/c in the DoD inventory, including the Army RC-12. Note all the antennas for receiving transmissions.
300px-Beechcraft_RC-12N_Huron_in_flight.jpg
 
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"This is sort of a modern version of the UFO hysteria in that people think they see something and all of a sudden everybody thinks they see something," said retired Col. Steve Ganyard, a former Marine fighter pilot and ABC News consultant. "But they're really seeing nothing or they're seeing something that's eventually going to be easily explained scientifically."
This statement....