Harassment Of Navy Destroyers By Mysterious Drone Swarms Off California Went On For Weeks

thedrive.com/the-war-zone ^ | ADAM KEHOE AND MARC CECOTTI

[RoosterRedux]

Earlier this year The War Zone exclusively reported about a series of 2019 incidents that involved unidentified drones stalking US Navy vessels over several nights in the waters off of Southern California. Our initial report also covered the Navy’s investigation into the incidents, which appeared to struggle to identify either the aircraft or their operators. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday later clarified that the aircraft were never identified, and that there have been similar incidents across the service branches and allied militaries.

Newly released documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that the full scope of these drone incursions was greater than it initially appeared, and they persisted well after the Navy’s investigation was launched. Deck logs indicate that drone sightings continued throughout the month of July 2019 and included events where drone countermeasure teams were called into action. One notable event involved at least three ships observing multiple drones. Uncharacteristically for unclassified deck logs, the details on this event are almost entirely redacted.

Among the new documents is the map seen below that details the interactions between a drone (denoted on what appears to be a briefing slide as an unmanned aerial system, or UAS) and a Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS Paul Hamilton.

The map depicts Paul Hamilton making an abrupt right-hand turn while a drone closely follows the ship. The legends and annotations of the map have been redacted under FOIA exemptions that apply to technical data that have military applications. Though the title of the document reads July 17th, the map appears to refer to drone encounters that occurred in the incidents on July 14th and July 15th.

[Antoninus]

What remains a mystery is where are they launched from

Edwards Air Force Base is the home of the Air Force Test Center, Air Force Test Pilot School, and NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center.

Probably just a coincidence.

[Antoninus]

That none of these destroyers have taken anything more than evasive action suggests to me that the CO & XO have been ordered to remain passive and allow their crews to react within those limits. And THAT tells me that the UAV’s belong to us and this is some sort of elaborate test.

Bingo, bango.

[PIF]

All of those sites are very, very far from either coast - further still from where the ships were operating. Control, but not launch sites perhaps. But I very much doubt it, since these things are recorded going back to the Dark Ages (in oil paintings) and there is even a photo snapped from a hot air balloon over some mountain in New England in the late 1800s.

So coninkiydink? You decide.

[Alas Babylon!]

That’s pretty good. You had me until refueling in cornfields! Then I caught on.