OT: The Avalounge (mod warning - No Politics)

McMetal

Writer of Wrongs
Sep 29, 2015
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they don't really have the lawful authority to do that outside of an emergency

quadcopters have tiny radar signatures and the country is large

defense against small drones is an interesting field to be in right now
If a foreign power was violating our airspace, it would 100% qualify as an emergency. Even if they just suspected that it was foreign in origin and they didn't know what purpose it served, they would shoot first and ask questions later. The source would be found by spy satellites within 24 hours, and whoever was responsible would be in custody.

It just strains credulity to posit that the USAF would be looking at this, without knowing the source, and shrugging their shoulders at it. And between our civilian and military intelligence services, somebody somewhere would have an inkling of what was going on. The only conclusion left is that they know exactly what's going on, and they're not panicking because it's some kind of classified DOD test.
 

The Moops

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If a foreign power was violating our airspace, it would 100% qualify as an emergency. Even if they just suspected that it was foreign in origin and they didn't know what purpose it served, they would shoot first and ask questions later. The source would be found by spy satellites within 24 hours, and whoever was responsible would be in custody.

It just strains credulity to posit that the USAF would be looking at this, without knowing the source, and shrugging their shoulders at it. And between our civilian and military intelligence services, somebody somewhere would have an inkling of what was going on. The only conclusion left is that they know exactly what's going on, and they're not panicking because it's some kind of classified DOD test.
So explain the Chinese balloon
 

illegitimate

Registered User
Oct 18, 2024
76
88
If a foreign power was violating our airspace, it would 100% qualify as an emergency. Even if they just suspected that it was foreign in origin and they didn't know what purpose it served, they would shoot first and ask questions later. The source would be found by spy satellites within 24 hours, and whoever was responsible would be in custody.

It just strains credulity to posit that the USAF would be looking at this, without knowing the source, and shrugging their shoulders at it. And between our civilian and military intelligence services, somebody somewhere would have an inkling of what was going on. The only conclusion left is that they know exactly what's going on, and they're not panicking because it's some kind of classified DOD test.
no, the military takes posse comitatus very seriously. not sure what exactly would have to be done by who, but deploying the national guard to respond to an emergency requires the state's governor to request it of the president and that's a lot less legally fraught than the actual air force.

unless it's someone they're already monitoring using a cell phone they know about, spy satellites aren't going to do much either because non-law enforcement surveillance of the US is also a legal minefield.

and when you have shit like the (former*) governor of maryland posting video on twitter of drones hovering over his house demanding that the government act and it's clearly stars:
cnn showing video of venus:
wall street journal showing video of airliners on approach patterns saying that nobody knows what they are but they weren't there before: https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/new-jersey-drones-mystery-51e7bd26,

my conclusion is:
 
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McMetal

Writer of Wrongs
Sep 29, 2015
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12,865
no, the military takes posse comitatus very seriously. not sure what exactly would have to be done by who, but deploying the national guard to respond to an emergency requires the state's governor to request it of the president and that's a lot less legally fraught than the actual air force.

So you're telling me that if a Russian bomber violated America's airspace over Alaska and was on a path straight to Anchorage, the military would have to politely request permission from the state government and fill out a bunch of paperwork before it responded to the foreign threat? That's crazypants. Surprise foreign invasions are treated as the threats they are, the rules of engagement don't have a weekslong checklist that has to be satisfied before they can do anything about incursions into American airspace. Posse comitatus is about using the military for domestic law enforcement, not repelling invaders. We've spent trillions of dollars on the military since I was born, I would hope that if China invaded New Jersey that they would be able to at least notice it was happening before somebody posted a video of it on TikTok.

The drones that are being recorded are not commercially available. That leaves two options for their origin: the US military (or one of its contractors) or a foreign military. And since option B is out of the question, it's option A. It's unimaginable that the most powerful military on earth would be mystified and unable to respond to a foreign incursion into their territory. Defending the homeland is literally their number one job.

And the military is perfectly capable of keeping a secret from the governor of Maryland if they feel like it. Do you think Larry Hogan has eyes only clearance for US military research? Just ask all the people who filed FOIA requests about Area 51 about how forthcoming the military can be about something they want to keep secret.

All these drones are doing as of right now are flying low and weird, it's not like anyone has been hurt by one. Of course a defense contractor isn't going to be dropping bombs on the east coast, that would be a scandal and cost them their lucrative contract. They're certainly creeping people out, and it's gone viral because somehow people still believe in aliens, but no actual documented harm has come out of this yet.

Which again points away from a foreign origin. If anybody from another country wanted to spy on New Jersey from the air, they could use a small commercial drone with a few modifications to do it, which would be virtually undetectable. Why would they need dozens of low-flying drones the size of refrigerators? We can make smaller cameras than that. And if it's an attack and not a spy op, why haven't these very easy to spot drones provoked a swift military response?

Nothing else makes any sense. It's not foreign, it's not civilian, so who else would have the means and motive to do fly these things without the government scrambling to respond to it?
 
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illegitimate

Registered User
Oct 18, 2024
76
88
So you're telling me that if a Russian bomber violated America's airspace over Alaska and was on a path straight to Anchorage, the military would have to politely request permission from the state government and fill out a bunch of paperwork before it responded to the foreign threat? That's crazypants. Surprise foreign invasions are treated as the threats they are, the rules of engagement don't have a weekslong checklist that has to be satisfied before they can do anything about incursions into American airspace. Posse comitatus is about using the military for domestic law enforcement, not repelling invaders. We've spent trillions of dollars on the military since I was born, I would hope that if China invaded New Jersey that they would be able to at least notice it was happening before somebody posted a video of it on TikTok.

The drones that are being recorded are not commercially available. That leaves two options for their origin: the US military (or one of its contractors) or a foreign military. And since option B is out of the question, it's option A. It's unimaginable that the most powerful military on earth would be mystified and unable to respond to a foreign incursion into their territory. Defending the homeland is literally their number one job.
russian bombers do that regularly lol, we just send up an f-15 to escort them back to international airspace. several times a week sometimes. they're pricks.

but a bomber of russian make coming from the direction of russia isn't really an unknown aircraft, and it isn't a law enforcement problem the way that a drone originating from inside the united states doing suspicious things, maybe, is. or it's a planet, or a helicopter, or a 737, or a weird patch of fog, or a guy with a drone looking for the suspicious drones he's heard about.

the first warning of an invasion isn't gonna be a plane appearing on the horizon. remember that the CIA raised the warning about russia invading ukraine several months in advance, and that's a war where the other country's capitol is a day's drive down a highway. a cross-ocean invasion is a much more difficult thing to stage. normandy was like two and a half years in the making.

as for being commercially available - i'm pretty sure you could find someone willing to sell you venus if you looked.
 
Aug 17, 2005
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If the goverment is behind the drone swarms they're doing a really good job of pretending that they aren't

Again, I just ask everyone to remember the theory of Hanlon's razor...."Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

"The" government is made of many branches and departments and many of them do not talk to each other. Sometimes by design (plausible deniability). I absolutely assure you that either someone does know what is going on but has absolutely no intention of sharing it, or the government seriously is this inept and they don't know and are scrambling to figure it out.

I'm really torn on this one because it's not going to go away like 1950s crop-fields. For the record... I believe it's either the US government or a US company that is responsible for the real unknown situations. There are still so many fakes (intentional or otherwise) being shared. Like people are sharing cell phone pictures of Venus and claiming it's a drone.

Mark Twain really was right...When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
 

SirLoinOfCloth

Registered User
Apr 22, 2019
6,405
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Colorado
There was some woman in the Nextdoor app on my neighborhood the other day saying that for the last few days she's been followed by drones wherever she goes and that the cops are not listening to her or believing her.

And my initial thought was: how f***ing special do you think you are for some foreign state to target you specifically with around the clock drones? You're just another person living an unimportant life in suburbia. People have had drones for years and now all of a sudden because of some sensationalist reporting of what's going on in NJ, some middle aged woman in a Denver Metro suburb thinks there are people spying on her. Amazing.

It's a similar conversation I have with my middle schooler occasionally when she says stuff like "everyone is talking about me" or "everyone is laughing at [a thing she did]". I'm like, "no offense but you're not important enough in other people's lives for them to all be thinking about you. They are middle schoolers, they are all too concerned with their own anxieties to be worried about yours, just like you are with your own".

Tldr; get over yourself. No one gives a f*** about you.

Go Avs. Extend bednar.
 
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The Merchant

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So I got an interesting phone call from my best buddy who I've known since grade school. He's a pilot for a Southwest subsidiary and is extremely well-versed in all things air travel. He knows I've always been interested in the paranormal, including UFO's/UAP's and the like and he's very much in the skeptic camp. A few hours ago he called me from the cockpit (something he's never done before) to tell me "When there's a situation like this you're one of the first people I'd want to call." My heart sank. My mind immediately went to "oh f*** the plane is going down" lol.

That, of course, was not the case. He called to inform me that he and his co-pilot had just spotted orbs in a triangle formation at an altitude of around 50,000 ft, well above the capability of any drone or helicopter. So they knew they were dealing with some sort of advanced aircraft. They called in to the pilots within their vicinity to get confirmation that they weren't the only ones seeing these things and, sure enough, they all did. One of the pilots thought it might be starlink-related, but the patterning was not consistent with those satellites. As that was going on, the orbs suddenly shot down to around 30,000 ft in the blink of an eye, essentially defying the laws of physics. After the sighting was reported, air traffic control confirmed that these orbs did not show up on radar.

Regardless of what he saw or what he thought he saw, I'd never really heard him sound so flabbergasted. He's very much a level-headed, proof is in the pudding kind of guy, lending to his skepticism of this sort of stuff. But he was sure that they were no form of aircraft that he's ever seen, nor was it physically possible for them to maneuver in they way that they did. With all the drone swarm/UAP stuff going on right now it really couldn't have been more impeccable timing. I'll be seeing him over the holidays next week, so I'm looking forward to seeing what else I can pry out of him. Crazy times we're living in.
 
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henchman21

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Feb 24, 2012
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I get a real kick out of people suddenly claiming everything in the sky is weird drones. Even things that are super common like starlink and commercial aircraft. There's always weird stuff going on that we can't explain... mostly because we are not nearly as smart of a species as we think we are.

On a personal note (feel free to not read, I'm just typing for my own sanity and grief. Not the happiest of topics here)... my wife and I had to put our dog down last week. A few months ago, we noticed that she was walking a bit weird and favoring a back leg. At first we didn't think much of it. She was chasing chipmunks in the wood pile and thought she just tweaked something. When it didn't clear up after a few days we took her into a local vet. That vet thought it was a ligament issue and suggested we try some shots. So we did and things didn't get better, in fact they got worse. Really to the point of her not using her back leg at all. So we sought out a specialist. And upon the first x-ray it was very clear. Bone cancer in the leg near the pelvis. This was just prior to Thanksgiving. None of the options were good, but it looked to be contained. So we elected to amputate and then try to setup chemo/other options down the road. Sadly given the holidays, it took us about 10 days to get scheduled for the surgery. Which lead to things only getting worse and worse. On the day of surgery, there was relief that there was light at the end of the tunnel. About half way through, the surgeon called and said things were more extensive than previously thought. Much more of the pelvis had to be taken out. Which sucked, but we were assured she could recover. So we proceeded. After that was the recovery. It was to be a couple weeks and the first few days pretty difficult. Which it was, though by the day, you could see her getting better. She was eating, moving around better, bullying our other dog, etc. One thing kept cropping up though. Her incision wouldn't stay closed. So many moments of blood everywhere and rushing to stop it. We had to return multiple times to get more staples, and the obvious worry was infection. On our last visit, the vet confirmed my worst fear. The tissue had gone necrotic. I actually had this happen on a surgery of mine and it took months for it to heal and be fixed. Even after debrinement. I have a nasty collarbone scar to prove it. I knew this probably meant extensive wound care on top of everything else. Another surgery was needed, but the hope was we could get rid of the dead tissue and that it hadn't extended into the abdomen and muscle tissue. My wife and I agreed the chance was worth it, but if the tissue underneath was bad, that we'd pull the plug. The reasoning for that is that she'd have to undergo 2-3 more surgeries and have a mesh implanted, plus extensive wound care. Basically the next 3-4 months would be surgery, recover, wound care, surgery, recovery, wound care, etc along with cancer treatment. Given that bone cancer is basically a 6-12 month diagnosis even with amputation, we couldn't put her through that. Still if only the outer tissue was necrotic, we could avoid that. So it was worth the shot. We scheduled that for the next morning and said our goodbyes... knowing in our hearts it was likely over. That next morning we got the call we feared. The abdomen muscle tissue was in really bad shape. There was no way around a mesh and a lot of future surgery. At that point we elected to euthanize her while she was still under. So she wouldn't have to wake up in pain for our own selfish reasons. In a matter of 7-8 weeks, she went from a perfectly normal, healthy dog (if a tad overweight)... to being gone. She was 10, which for her breed (heeler) isn't old. She should have had at least 4-6 more years in her, but that wasn't the way life went. I've had and lost a number of dog in my life, this one has probably hit the worst.
 

The Moops

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I get a real kick out of people suddenly claiming everything in the sky is weird drones. Even things that are super common like starlink and commercial aircraft. There's always weird stuff going on that we can't explain... mostly because we are not nearly as smart of a species as we think we are.

On a personal note (feel free to not read, I'm just typing for my own sanity and grief. Not the happiest of topics here)... my wife and I had to put our dog down last week. A few months ago, we noticed that she was walking a bit weird and favoring a back leg. At first we didn't think much of it. She was chasing chipmunks in the wood pile and thought she just tweaked something. When it didn't clear up after a few days we took her into a local vet. That vet thought it was a ligament issue and suggested we try some shots. So we did and things didn't get better, in fact they got worse. Really to the point of her not using her back leg at all. So we sought out a specialist. And upon the first x-ray it was very clear. Bone cancer in the leg near the pelvis. This was just prior to Thanksgiving. None of the options were good, but it looked to be contained. So we elected to amputate and then try to setup chemo/other options down the road. Sadly given the holidays, it took us about 10 days to get scheduled for the surgery. Which lead to things only getting worse and worse. On the day of surgery, there was relief that there was light at the end of the tunnel. About half way through, the surgeon called and said things were more extensive than previously thought. Much more of the pelvis had to be taken out. Which sucked, but we were assured she could recover. So we proceeded. After that was the recovery. It was to be a couple weeks and the first few days pretty difficult. Which it was, though by the day, you could see her getting better. She was eating, moving around better, bullying our other dog, etc. One thing kept cropping up though. Her incision wouldn't stay closed. So many moments of blood everywhere and rushing to stop it. We had to return multiple times to get more staples, and the obvious worry was infection. On our last visit, the vet confirmed my worst fear. The tissue had gone necrotic. I actually had this happen on a surgery of mine and it took months for it to heal and be fixed. Even after debrinement. I have a nasty collarbone scar to prove it. I knew this probably meant extensive wound care on top of everything else. Another surgery was needed, but the hope was we could get rid of the dead tissue and that it hadn't extended into the abdomen and muscle tissue. My wife and I agreed the chance was worth it, but if the tissue underneath was bad, that we'd pull the plug. The reasoning for that is that she'd have to undergo 2-3 more surgeries and have a mesh implanted, plus extensive wound care. Basically the next 3-4 months would be surgery, recover, wound care, surgery, recovery, wound care, etc along with cancer treatment. Given that bone cancer is basically a 6-12 month diagnosis even with amputation, we couldn't put her through that. Still if only the outer tissue was necrotic, we could avoid that. So it was worth the shot. We scheduled that for the next morning and said our goodbyes... knowing in our hearts it was likely over. That next morning we got the call we feared. The abdomen muscle tissue was in really bad shape. There was no way around a mesh and a lot of future surgery. At that point we elected to euthanize her while she was still under. So she wouldn't have to wake up in pain for our own selfish reasons. In a matter of 7-8 weeks, she went from a perfectly normal, healthy dog (if a tad overweight)... to being gone. She was 10, which for her breed (heeler) isn't old. She should have had at least 4-6 more years in her, but that wasn't the way life went. I've had and lost a number of dog in my life, this one has probably hit the worst.
Losing pets are the worst. I hate it so much. Always hurts. Sorry man 😭
 
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