Pentagon officials are baffled by a swarm of mysterious drones that flew over Langley Air Force Base seventeen nights in a row.
The phalanx of drones flew in a precise pattern over the base in Eastern Virginia, an area with one of the largest concentrations of national security and defense facilities on U.S. soil, for more than two weeks in December 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported.
One or two fixed-wing drones flew more than 100 feet in the air, while smaller quadcopters, the size of 20-pound commercial drones, flew slower, lower, and occasionally hovered over the 17-night period.
They were preceded by a drone estimated to be 20 feet long and flying at 100 mph at an altitude of 10 to 4,000 feet.
They flew over Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay toward the city of Norfolk, over an area that included SEAL Team Six’s home base, Langley Air Force base, Fort Eustis and Naval Station Norfolk.
While officials at Langley, home of the Air Combat Command, called on the Navy and Coast Guard to beware of drones, their size allowed them to avoid detection.
Pentagon officials are baffled by a swarm of mysterious drones that flew over Langley Air Force Base for 17 nights in a row (File Image)
The phalanx of drones flew in a precise pattern over the eastern Virginia base for more than two weeks in December 2023 (File image)
Defense officials were unsure whether the drones belonged to curious hobbyists or rogue actors, and some suspected they came from Russia or China to test a U.S. response.
But analysts did find that the quadcopters did not use the frequencies available to most commercial drones, which they said indicated they were not being flown by hobbyists.
Knowing they had to respond quickly, they contacted the White House to discuss their options to combat the possible surveillance.
One official suggested using electronic signals to tamper with the drones’ navigation systems, although this was shot down due to the risk of disrupting Wi-Fi networks and local emergency response systems.
Another wanted to use directed energy weapons, an emerging war technology, to take down the drones. But a Federal Aviation Authority official said a weapon like this poses too much of a risk to commercial planes flying overhead during the holidays.
A third official said the US Coast Guard could shoot a net into the air to catch the drones, although it was also suggested the security service would not have the authority to use such a tool. Moreover, tracking the exact location of the fast drones was already too difficult.
The suspected Chinese spy balloon floats towards the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, US, February 4, 2023
A U.S. Air Force U-2 pilot looks down at the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon as it hovers over the U.S. on February 3, 2023
A Chinese high-altitude spy balloon floats over Billings, Mont., Feb. 1, 2023
While the investigation into who was responsible for flying the drones over the militarily sensitive area, a clue was found in January this year when a Chinese student was arrested as he was about to fly back to China and charged with unlawfully taking photographs of classified naval installations.
Fengyun Shi, a student at the University of Minnesota, was found flying a drone outside a shipyard owned by HII, the company behind America’s nuclear submarines and the Navy’s latest generation of the Ford Class aircraft carrier.
Investigators who had access to his drone, which had crashed into a tree, discovered that he was taking pictures of Navy ships in dry dock around midnight. Many of the ships were still under construction.
His lawyer said during his appearance in federal court: “If we were a foreign agent, he would be the worst spy we have ever known.”
The drones over Langely came just two months after drones were spotted at a government site used for testing nuclear weapons.
The Energy Department’s Nevada Nuclear Security Site outside Las Vegas detected four of the drones over three days, while employees spotted a fifth.
It also came after a Chinese spy balloon hovered over Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, where nuclear assets are stored.
On February 4 last year, the Air Force sent an F-22 fighter jet armed with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to shoot down the balloon over water.