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The Gatwick drone returns?

Almost exactly six years ago, Gatwick airport in the UK was closed by what was reported to be a number of drones menacing the runway area.

Despite eye-witness reports from numerous "reliable witnesses" we find today that the whole thing was a farce and there were no drones at Gatwick Airport around Christmas 2018, aside from those the police used.

Despite the total lack of evidence and increasingly obvious conclusion that this was simply a stuff-up of the highest order on the part of authorities, "The Gatwick Drone Incident" is still cited today by organisations as venerable as CAA New Zealand and our Ministry of Transport. They use the incident as justification for tightening drone regulations and if that's the best they can do then heaven help us.

However, perhaps the illusive Gatwick drone has returned because this week it has been reported that mysterious, unidentified drones have been buzzing US airbases in the UK.

Yes, just like at Gatwick, "reliable" eye witnesses have reported seeing drones in the night skies over Suffolk and Norfolk.

There is speculation that these drones may be operated by agents with ties to Russia and that they are attempting to gather data that could be useful in the event that the Ukraine conflict becomes a wider one.

However, just as at Gatwick in 2018, things simply do not add up.

Firstly, these drones are only seen at night -- a time when gathering aerial video and images would be almost impossible due to the lack of light.

Secondly, the sightings are of "lights in the sky" which seems rather odd. Surely any bad actor seeking to gather intelligence using a drone would not fly a craft that had bright LEDs all over it. Wouldn't they disable those lights first?

Thirdly, the UK and USA now have very sophisticated counter-UAS (anti-drone) technologies that they use to detect and prevent this sort of thing near sensitive sites. Why is it that none of these systems have detected anything and that all the reports are simply visual observations by people on the ground?

And finally... where are the pictures?

Everyone has a phone in their pocket these days and surely, once the alarm was raised, decent cameras with zoom lenses would have been used to scan the skies -- yet strangely, not one single drone has been photographed or videoed in the skies over these airbases.

Yes, this is *exactly* like Gatwick in 2018.

So what's really going on here?

Well back in 2018 it was clearly exposed that many of the so called "drone sightings" reported by "reliable witnesses" turned out to be police helicopters, police drones and even a crane in the distance. Despite the world's media being camped out at Gatwick, not one single picture was ever taken of the non-existant Gatwick Drone(s).

One theory, in respect to the UK airbases, is that people are seeing Starlink satellites and reporting them as drones. This is quite understandable, given that these orbiting craft are becoming so dense in our skies and they are clearly visible when illuminated by the sun's rays just after sunset or just before sunrise.

Other possibilities are that these are not drones flying over the bases but conventional aircraft flying much further away. Unbelievably, there does not seem to have been anyone correlating the data provided by aicraft tracking services (such as FlightRadar 24 and the sightings so as to prove or disprove this theory. Perhaps that's because there is a narrative in play here and to prove that the drone sightings were just plane old aircraft would run contrary to that narrative. Or maybe it's just that the media no longer engage in investigative journalism at all.

Perhaps the big driver of these sightings may be paranoia. We already see that far too many people consider all drones to be evil and nothing more than an attempt to spy on them. Combine this with the way drones are being used in Ukraine as a military weapon and you can see why "reliable witnesses" may be anything-but when it comes to identifying a light in the sky moving across the heavens in the vicinity of a US military base.

I guess only time will tell but my prediction is that there are *NO* drones and all we have is more anti-drone hysteria from people who couldn't tell their arse from their elbow, despite their civil or military qualifications.

Or could the sightings, both those made this week and those back in 2018, be nothing more than Santa on a training flight for the big night due in less than a month? Could it be that the timing is just coincidence? I don't think so!

Carpe Diem folks!

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