Exactly. That's what I think it is, government secrecy as their standard operating procedure. When unsure, don't say anything. After all, disclosing the public includes adversaries also knowing.

It seems to me what's happening is a "Streisand Effect" where the whole attitude of "go away, nothing to see here" is in fact maximizing attention and defeating the purpose of hiding this away.

If it were me I'd put a band-aid on a drone, fly it to a person, and say, "we are testing military capabilities to render first aid to our soldiers" or something similar. It's not a lie, it's good optics, adversaries can worry about it... then put whatever it is on ice for a while until the heat dies down

Can you think of a better way to normalize it? Think about the average persons response to online privacy these days for a good indicator about how people will feel about drone monitoring in a few years if this is normalized.