Criminal Investigation Starts After Drones Swarm Over U.S. Air Bases in UK
The bases in Eastern England are used by the US military.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall my report on a swarm of drones that violated air space over Langley Air Force base in Virginia for 17 days since last December, and the Pentagon appeared clueless as to who is controlling these vehicles.
Now, the U.S. Air Force is reporting that several small drones were detected last week around three bases in eastern England used by American forces.
The drones were spotted between Wednesday and Friday near RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall and RAF Feltwell. They were actively monitored after they were seen in the vicinity of and over the three bases, U.S. Air Forces Europe said in a statement.
The Air Force didn’t identify who was behind the incursions but said base officials determined there was no impact on residents or critical infrastructure.
Lakenheath is home to the 48th Fighter Wing, which the U.S. Air Force describes as the foundation of its combat capability in Europe. Mildenhall hosts the 100th Air Refueling Wing, and Feltwell is a hub for housing, schools and other services.
“To protect operational security, we do not discuss our specific force protection measures but retain the right to protect the installation,” the Air Force said. “We continue to monitor our airspace and are working with host-nation authorities and mission partners to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities and assets.”
British officials are launching a criminal investigation into these incidents.
Ministry of Defense Police and local authorities are investigating the activity alongside U.S. forces, Defense Minister Vernon Coaker said in Parliament.
“We take any safety issue seriously and maintain robust measures at Ministry of Defense sites,” Coaker said. “This includes counter-drone capabilities.”
Anyone convicted could face up 14 years in prison under national security laws, Coaker said.
Though it is unclear whether the drones had a hostile intent, the incidents come at a time which saw the most significant escalation of hostilities in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly three years ago.
Lakenheath was critical in assisting Israel in its defense against Iranian missiles this year. The British are providing additional personnel to help protect the bases and to help identify the drone operators.
CBS News’ partner network BBC News said the U.K. military had deployed about 60 additional British troops to the bases to help aid in U.S. efforts to determine who is responsible for the drones.
The personnel have been sent to assist the US Air Force (USAF) in its investigation, the BBC understands.
While no entity or third nation has been named as a possible source of the unexplained drones, several major U.S. adversaries, including Russia and Iran, have been accused of increasing their espionage and sabotage activities in Europe this year.
U.S. fighter jets based at Lakenheath were part of the American effort to help shoot down missiles launched by Iran at Israel on April 13 — the first of two Iranian missile attacks on Israel this year.
Drones also targeted a base in Gloucestershire (RAF Fairford) in the west. American assets at that installation include U-2S Dragon Lady reconnaissance aircraft from the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron and B-52 Stratofortress bombers.
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Next you’ll tell me a rogue Chinese weather balloon stuffed w/ intelligence-gathering equipment drifted across the USA from Alaska to N. Carolina last year while oUr LeAdErs stood around w/ their thumb up their butts deliberating what to do about this obvious probe for weakness.
Anyways, how about them Chiefs?
The smart way to bet is that the British authorities already know who the perps are – and they are part of a protected group (see: Rotherham rape gangs).
This is happening in New Jersey. The objects, which have been captured on reasonably good video shot at night, are described as ‘car-sized drones.’ They’ve been loitering over this town for ‘most of the night,’ then leaving before the sun starts to rise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph3kpJT6a30&list=RDNSph3kpJT6a30&start_radio=1
It’s bizarre. Why would a foreign adversary send drones with bright, blinking lights to do covert surveillance? What kind of battery-system is a ‘car-sized drone’ using to loiter over an area for hours? The offshore oil and gas industry does have large ‘drones’ like this. But, they’re more properly described as unmanned, gas-powered helicopters…because that’s what they are. They’re loud, just like a manned helicopter is. None of the people interviewed described hearing something like that.
FWIW, I’ve seen some additional footage of the New Jersey drones that was captured at dusk. They (or some of them at least) are clearly winged-drones and not a quad or octo-copters. That makes WAY more sense. There are several Chinese-made commercial drones that are on the larger size – not quite car-sized, but significantly bigger than quad/octo-copters – that are VTOL; they take off and land vertically and can hover for short periods of time. But, they have wings which greatly extends their loitering time to a couple hours. These things aren’t cheap, usually costing several tens-of-thousands of dollars each. They have very capable AI-enabled autonomous operating systems. Designed for electrical grid-operators to inspect big chunks of power-lines, some even possess inertial navigation. While there are other reasons to outfit a drone with inertial navigation, one other benefit would be it allows the drones to operate in an environment where GPS-jamming is happening.
It is strange that whatever deep-pocketed operator is doing this, they would keep the navigation lights on…unless they were really worried about the blowback from a potential collision with a passenger airplane. Would an adversary care about that? Probably not, right. Makes you wonder if they’re not our drones.
Here is a suggestion,
Shoot one down and see who owns it, if they want it back they will ask for it.
No takers then guess it was a rogue craft wandering around.
My guess is they know already and don’t want to know or you to know.
How about we send our own drones up to follow them back to their base when they try to recharge then we’ll know where they’re coming from
They ought to work on imitating a flight of starlings, each circling towards the center of mass of the swarm with the center of mass making slow progress towards wherever it’s going.
Car-sized starlings? Or are you talking about drones to hunt the mystery “drones?” Maybe those huge drones are US countermeasures that are eyes-only status?
base officials determined there was no impact on residents or critical infrastructure
While I know this can be true, I always get cynical and suspicious when it’s said.
Having said that, there is the possibility this is just over-zealous British plane watchers. These folks would line up against the exterior fence at Mildenhall and watch which tail numbers took off and landed. They keep journals. They have clubs to compare who saw what tail numbers and when.
For them it’s just a dedication to military airplanes. But everyone responsible for OpSec looks at them as a Spy Club, because that’s exactly the info an adversary would want. They know it’s entirely innocent but they pull their hair out because it’s a vulnerability. (They knew which F-111 had gone down in the Libya raid almost as soon as the command did, since it didn’t land.)
what sort of security measures are in place at us military installations ( both here and abroad ) ?–there are definitely bases here in the us that, should you attempt to ” loiter ” over the base without identifying yourself / your aircraft and not cooperating with any received communications from the base, you would be intercepted (at a minimum) and then taken out–especially if unmanned with no operator onboard
The Air Force security folks at Langley wanted to take them out, but were told they could NOT fire into the air (in peacetime). I think it was a safety measure since civilians surround the base and a bullet that doesn’t impact the drone has to come down somewhere.
FOD around airports as well as civilian air traffic and civilian buildings are clearly the reasons they don’t want to employ kinetic counter-measures, unless they really, really have no choice. But, there are a number of US defense contractors who have developed directed-energy UAV counter-measures. The skeptic in me believes that it’s at least possible these ‘drone incursions’ are nothing more than contractors and DOD allies building political support to invest heavily into these directed-energy weapons.
While I might disagree with you, you are right to be cynical.
You’re maybe referring to EMP guns?
I retired a decade ago, so I’m a bit out of my depth here. But, I believe the two functioning systems developed by US defense contractors currently under evaluation are using concentrated microwave bursts. Ultimately, that may produce a similar effect to an EMP device without actually being an EMP device.
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