Comment by keepamovin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by keepamovin | Hacker News Reader

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What 'commercially available' aircraft can operate for at least 6 - 7 hours, sized up to 6 feet, not always detectable by FLIR, evade detection by helicopters, don't always use lights, have a range of at least 15 miles, are not obeying FAA line of sight regulations for night flights (all per the statewide briefing provided to NJ legislators yesterday: https://x.com/DawnFantasia_NJ/status/1866896860578717994) , and are assessed by the Pentagon yesterday (https://www.youtube.com/live/gSIKXMt4qHk?si=HafZLJzX8lUqQvrd...) to not originate in the US or any other nation?

What extra-terrestrial amazon.com or Weyland-Yutani intergalactic commerce do you have access to haha? :)

Also, videos of the 'drones' show them hovering for long periods, so they're not conventional fixed wing craft. I think local officials should put together some investigative task forces using local scientists, engineers and commercial providers that have access to good electronic intelligence surveillance capabilities and get more data so we can see more and know more about this.

> are assessed by the Pentagon yesterday to not originate in the US or any other nation

To be clear, they stated that “these are not US military drones”, and that they have no evidence that they are from a foreign entity or adversary, which is very different from what I interpreted you as saying.

You interpreted me as saying?

"are assessed by the Pentagon yesterday... to not originate in the US or any other nation" = "the Pentagon claims to actively know that the drones aren't from any publicly-known line of drone models"

Well that's not exactly what they said. Here's the transcript:

"at this time we have no evidence that these activities are coming from a foreign entity or the work of an adversary...these are not US military drones"

What do you make of that?

I didn't say they said that. You asked what the other poster interpreted you as saying.

Right but how would you know how the other person interpreted it? What you said is not what I said. What I said is just a paraphrase of the Pentagon statement. How is it very different hahaha? :)

I interpreted your statement as “the Pentagon has assessed the drones and determined that they did not originate in the US or any other nation”.

Basically yeah, there's some room for interpretation, but the key thing is the exact words the Pentagon spokesmen used are:

"at this time we have no evidence that these activities are coming from a foreign entity or the work of an adversary...these are not US military drones"

The linked video starts at the relevant timestamp.

> "are assessed by the Pentagon yesterday to not originate in the US or any other nation"

This statement logically means that:

* The Pentagon assessed (determined) that X is true

* Where X is defined as "The drones do not originate in the US or any other nation"

That is different than the statement:

* The Pentagon has stated that (a) X is false, and (b) they have no evidence that Y is true.

* Where X is defined as "The drones are US military assets"

* Where Y is defined as "The drones originate from and/or are assets of a foreign nation or adversary."

For clarity the exact words the Pentagon staff in the video used are:

"at this time we have no evidence that these activities are coming from a foreign entity or the work of an adversary...these are not US military drones"

What's your thoughts?

I'd just revise the second part of my post to:

That is different than the statement:

* The Pentagon has stated that (a) X is true, and (b) they have no evidence that Y is true.

* Where X is defined as "These are not US military drones"

* Where Y is defined as "these activities are coming from a foreign entity or the work of an adversary"

I guess "US commercial drones" is the gap or intersection of the relevant Venn diagrams, but that doesn't make sense. Why would you test them over a military base?

I think we can apply some Gaussian blur and assume the statement is an approximate fit to the meaning by remembering that: this was a statement provided by a human in real time, ad libbing in response to a press question. They didn't spend hours drafting it to elucidate all possible logical connections and deftly conceal the unstated meaning by crafting some inference puzzle. Hahaha! :)

Communication between people is successful miscommunication. It's not an API - remember that, engineer! :)

Not "military" drones seems very very open to interpretation. Is DARPA Military? Or is military being used in a generic sense of the dictionary definition vs. the US government budgetary definition?

My assumption is these are US military drones.

I'm guessing "Defense Advanced Research" is pretty military haha :)

If anduril, for instance, sends the US military some new drones to try out, it is not technically a false statement for the military to say they aren’t military drones.

The wording, imo, is intentionally very vague.

confirmed that jesus has returned as an alien to bring about the apocalypse.

but uhh, the most standard thing is that its some weather balloon put up by an undergrad student who isnt aware of the relevant regulations theyre supposed to be following and whod really prefer to ask forgiveness than permission

Well this is a ridiculous take. They are flying around powered. Check out the vids.

What evidence do they have though? I’m going with none and it seems odd to me they’re ok just letting the local law enforcement run point

Why would one believe that US intelligence agencies have no information about extensive reports of drone activity near military installations? Given that this has been happening for a couple weeks now, and the military has said “these are not a threat”, the clearly more plausible explanation is that they know what these are, and they aren’t saying.

This is what the military does when they are testing classified military technology. “It’s not ours. It’s not the enemy’s. It’s not a threat. Nothing to see here.”

Maybe they state that, but they're not going to test it in the open so it's not a secret.

Can you really assume they have no evidence?

You'd hope they'd have sensors and analysis capable of forming some conclusions, such as tracing the drones to a origin point, or classifying based on signature, etc.

They've haven't provided much and there's a lot of questions unanswered, but they've said unequivocally what they think the origin is not.

> What extra-terrestrial amazon.com or Weyland-Yutani intergalactic commerce do you have access to haha? :)

I got a guy at Wolfram & Hart.

Honestly you can drive down the Gowanus expressway any day of the week in NYC and see these mysterious large drones somehow sitting up in the air for HOURS, silently. You can see their lights as they hover, if you are coming from the tunnel to the verazzano bridge. What kind of battery tech do they have! Who flies them??

Cool. What do you think? Have you tried to record them? Do they make any noise? How low do you think they are? :)

Yes, I have recorded them, they are there for hours every night, every car can see them

Thought they were official, watching traffic

My thoughts are — how do their batteries last that long at night?

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