Are drones watching you now?

reply to post by manmental

Originally posted by manmental
reply to post by yoursteppingonmytoes

 

Agreed.... but just to clarify,... a top professional shop bought quadcopter can hold up to 10kg i think... so it could carry a weapon... BUT it couldn't carry a weapon AND an aiming gimble and camera and everything necessary to make into a lethal weapon... I think. Maybe it could.
In fact I'm sure it won't be long before we see an amateur Youtube RC Quadcopter with remote gun FPV....

Disturbing my friend. I suppose its just another potential lethal weapon we will need to regulate so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Although the "right hands" they are in now don't seem so right after all and must be brought into question.

I have read that polyurethane wrap or however you spell it, loosely wrapped around your body can evade IR signature targeting and tracking from drones as some guy tested it on the US-MEX border to evade the drone patrols.

Let's all wrap ourselves in GLAD WRAP and we'll be fine hahah

reply to post by yoursteppingonmytoes


No apology needed I know it's hard to decide how someone words a reply it can be taken the wrong way. I'm new too only been here 2 years. And I to think I'm kind .. Hence the user name. Even though I wish to join the armed forces lol that's a different matter though I have my reasons

Take care

reply to post by manmental


Yeah, but the concept is there regarding those little UAV's. Always thought it would be cool to own one.

I'm just saying I don't see a difference between a drone and a manned ISR aircraft or even sats. I'm not sure of the protocol and where exactly aircraft can carry live weapons over the USA, but I imagine drones would follow the strict procedure as manned (even more restrained actually). It's just people trying to make it seem like the government is trying watch everyone having predators in the sky with missiles ready to kill anyone at anytime. Not even close.

I really don't care about drones over America. This last week they would have seen me drive all over town looking for a valentines day gift, lock myself out of my workplace, step in dog poo, roll my ankle, and look for my gas cap that I left on the back of my Jeep. If anything, they will get a good laugh up at D.C. after watching my week. But seriously, I do not have a problem with them doing routine surveillance, and looking for escaped fugitives and other high risk criminals. Same thing with my OnStar, I have nothing to hide so I don't care.

I don't know, but we've had something happen which makes me feel concerned.
Back in 1998 or so, we had a wierd small plane that started flying over and circling our land and house, just about everyday. It made a strange sound, and didn't look like any plane I had ever seen before.
I began bringing friends and family outside to see it when it was circling, and we ended up concluding that it was some sort of experimental plane being tested.

At that time, I had not heard of drones before, and it wasn't until many years later I saw a photo of a drone and realized that is what it was!

The troubling part is that I lived in a semi-rural area of south France. I do not know if the french military has invested anything in drones, I have never heard so and would doubt it. But it isn't impossible. There was no military bases anywhere near us though.

And at that time, our family was struggling with alien abduction and missing time type of experiences. We had been in contact with people working for Dr. John Mack (to help our two year old) and I had revealed this stuff to a couple of friends on internet. We also had some troubling experiences (just before the drone started showing up) with what seemed to be agents of some sort while on vacation in Calif.
So I sometimes wonder if we hadn't been under surveillence at that time, even all the way over here!

Maybe not, maybe it was just some other french organism testing a drone next to our land, but it makes me suspicious anyway.

reply to post by Bluesma
The French have been using drones for as long as anyone else. It appears that the French used the technology in Kosovo in 1999 and this would obviously mean they had been developing it for some years earlier.

Naturally a lot of testing is limited to military AFBs, but as development progresses they need to be tested over greater areas and 'semi-rural' often describes the locations of aerospace/military AFBs.

Here are a couple of links; here and over here.

Perhaps the above will put to bed some of the concerns you've had? Could you describe the craft or link to a picture?

reply to post by Kandinsky


I've never spent the time to actually designate what it was (I think I just wanted to not think about that period at all!) until now. It only took a few seconds to see that you are right- the french definately have them and this is the one that was over us all the time-


The Harfang
It even seems possible that it could have been coming from a base at Istres I didn't know about.
But these weren't officially announced until much later, apparently, so it seems unlikely this was the exact one- it sure looks exactly like it.

I was out walking with my dog in the countryside near my home taking photos of some odd chemtrail clouds. When I got home I lay down in the shade of my truck and took another cloud photo. I didn't see the drones at the time because the camera's lcd display/viewfinder is hard to see when it's very bright outdoors. But when I got the photos downloaded and blown up I saw them. The "swarm" is a large photo and I went over it inch by inch. Seems like the drone all by itself, above the truck had followed me home. All photos were taken July 23, 2011.
(Later on I had to laugh wondering who was monitoring the drone cameras while I was taking photos and did they think I could "see" them?)

Even though they only started talking about using drones inside the USA fairly recently if I can believe what I've read, most so-called new military ideas have actually been in use for about 12 years before the public is aware or informed.

I live about 35 miles from an Army installation where they practice artillery and other training exercises. I'd appreciate opinions on the photos. The drones are far smaller than Predators but larger than the mosquito sized ones. (I read about the bug-like ones in Dan Brown's "Deception Point.") These may be the type we're told will be used to find lost hikers etc. I believe that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Wouldn't bother me if they were as I have nothing to hide nor do I think my behavior is important enough to warrant that attention.

Originally posted by opethPA
Wouldn't bother me if they were as I have nothing to hide nor do I think my behavior is important enough to warrant that attention.

You miss the point. You have no oversight on who drones watch and why they may be watching.

And if you're not worried and have nothing to contribute why even post?

Reminds of people who respond with OK to an SMS. Feel free to keep your opinion to yourself if its going to be self centered and contribute nothing to the topic, which it didn't.

reply to post by zobrist


Interesting snaps zobrist,

They look very rudimentary and basic to me but I've not seen that shape in my travels before. It could be a model rc craft or some sort of glider..

But I'm not sure sorry!

Originally posted by ThePeaceMaker
Jees I've said it once and ill say it again .. You lot in the states are so paranoid now. The argument I put up is if you live in a city of say 750,000 people one drone cannot observe everyone. Hell even 100 drones couldn't watch everyone. It's like me in my job I can operate up to 160 CCTV cameras but when I'm watching someone one one camera the other 159 are pretty much pointless until I select to use them. And also if I'm watching one person the other 200 or so in my area I am NOT watching as I am focused on this one person.

The same principle for drones, if a drone is above a city it could be watching say someone in the north area of the city so therefore people in the south are not being watched.

I'm curious.

How long before these drones are flying with intelligent observational software built in? As the software gets better, the drones 'brain' will be able to better recognise patterns, and make automated judgements on the level of a 'threat', or activity worth monitoring.

No doubt it will get it wrong sometimes, but the possibility exists that the human observer may be the last and final arbiter of a decision in a chain of otherwise robotic command.

very interesting.

reply to post by eluder


Do you think you'd be able to contribute more than just posting "very interesting" on 3 seperate threads..

Actually I get it now, you needed those extra posts so you could start a thread on your 'UFO' sighting.

I'm very curious, what does a US drone actually sound like? Anyone know & can describe it? I assume it would sound more like a humming or an ultralight plane? I ask because a coworker has been woken up several nights by a loud humming noise that seems to be traveling slowly over her neighborhood, and then fades away. She's convinced it is a drone but refuses to actually get out of bed to look.

I once posted on Facebook that I was going on vacation, I got home and my house was robbed. I didn't think there was anything wrong with posting the information, I had nothing to hide. Turns out the bad guys will use lack of privacy against you, even if you have nothing to hide.

Originally posted by manmental
Civilian drones can't do much apart from film some cool stuff.
They can't hold weapons which kill people.

Sure they can, they just don't under the law. There's nothing but a law saying they can't. There is no "civilian" and "military" catalog. Some of the ones used by police forces, and CBP are also sold to the military.

Weapons:
(NOT AVAILABLE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT) U.S. Military components have options including single or multiple shot 40mm grenade launcher, 25mm Grenade Launcher, 12g shotgun

vanguarddefense.com...

There were even questions about some of them being able to carry non-lethal weapons systems (in fact CBP has scrapped a plan to put non-lethal weapons on their UAVs).