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Comment by perihelions | Hacker News Reader

It's also the reason the US (last I checked*) has standing orders not to attempt to down the drones of unknown origin (adversary espionage, I guess) that swarm at military bases. The risk of accidentally attacking a civilian aircraft vastly outweighs—what they assess as—the immediate threat of the drones.

When there was a panic about the Chinese spy balloon last year, the US sent armed F-22's to shoot down... at least three different unmanned civilian balloons [0,1].

edit: I think I was wrong; apparently the US has a new "deadly force" order as of last week [2].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34824653 ("Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down by USAF (aviationweek.com)") 371 comments

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34814717 ("The US Air Force may have shot down an amateur radio pico balloon over Canada (rtl-sdr.com)", 168 comments

[2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/12/us-temporarily-b... ("US temporarily bans drones in parts of NJ, may use “deadly force” against aircraft")

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No, I think you're right.

I'm quite sure the "deadly force" wording was for effect, more than any kind of actual change in posture or practice. Unless I'm mistaken there are still plenty of drones being seen in NJ and they're not blasting them out of the sky. And they've always had the option of lethal force around bases anyway.

    what they assess as—the immediate threat of the drones

None of us know for sure but I think the immediate threat of the drones is negligible. If US bases are leaking signals that can be intercepted by drones overhead then these same signals could be just as easily intercepted by cars driving past the bases or nearby homes. And as far as the visible spectrum is concerned all the major players have satellites overhead anyway.

And as you say, the risks of shooting drones down are high. Damage to nearby property. Accidental shootdowns of innocent craft. Successful shootdowns would reveal our capabilities. Unsuccessful shootdowns would reveal our inability to deal with the threat. And in aggregate this would all give the enemy lots of intel as to where we do and don't have defenses. And open war (!!!) over our skies is, to put it mildly, kind of a big deal. There are, to put it mildly, global economic consequences.

Of course, that's all if these drones are of hostile origin, which I think is still a very open question.

If these drones are "ours," which would be weird but also plausible, then the "deadly force" note in the FAA notice could just be part of the cover story.

> If US bases are leaking signals that can be intercepted by drones overhead then these same signals could be just as easily intercepted by cars driving past the bases or nearby homes

Not really. Some signals can be very much unidirectional (eg, visible only to an overhead drone) instead of omnidirectional (eg, a car).

Just curious; what kind of signals would be uni-directionally beaming upwards? For communicating with aircrafts that directly hover above the base? Wouldn't that be really limiting in terms of usefulness?

Satellites.

Satellite base stations

I'm surprised the US doesn't carry bigger drones with butterfly nets.

But those drones would have to wear the same uniforms as the Keystone Cops to put it to full effect.

They could send Spiderman Drones with web slingers!

https://www.fun.com/marvel-3-inch-spider-man-flying-figure-i...

In the US there are also major restrictions to federal US military operating on US soil. [0]

Thus, any action (or effectors traveling) outside base boundaries would generally be illegal.

Given the mobility of drones and desire to prevent their encroachment on bases in the first place, the appropriately legal unit for this would be non-federalized national guard air defense units, tasked by the state governor to intervene.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

The Posse Comitatus Act restricts the military from engaging in civil law enforcement. It doesn’t prevent the military from using force to defend US soil or airspace. For instance, on 9/11, fighter jets were scrambled to intercept Flight 93; they just didn’t reach it until the passengers had already forced the plane down.

The 9/11 military airspace defense mission was a mass of confusion, as a consequence of the then-novelty of civilian airliner suicide hijackings and split information between the FAA and NORAD.

Hypothetically, the fighters launched could have shot down a civilian plane, but it would have taken direct presidential authorization (i.e. national emergency).

In the absence of an immediate threat, that authorization isn't going to happen.

Drones in most cases are a civil law enforcement matter.

They're not obviously the actors of a foreign nation state, are not an invasion, and are not posing an immediate threat.

They are breaking civil aviation laws.

You're still vastly overstating the scope of the Posse Comitatus Act. As a matter of policy, the US military is cautious about intercepting hostile aircraft in American airspace[1], but the Posse Comitatus Act doesn't prevent it from doing so.

In particular, your claim that "any action (or effectors traveling) outside base boundaries would generally be illegal" is not only false but facially absurd, since it would imply that the US military is statutorily prevented from intercepting enemy bombers or responding to an invasion of American soil.

[1] The reasons for which are well discussed here: https://www.navalgazing.net/Thoughts-on-the-Chinese-Balloon

Drones can capture much higher resolution images, and from very different angles, than satellites. Both are useful, and neither really replaces the other. A high-res composite image taken from multiple angles and exposures can confirm or refute what was just a hunch from satellite imagery alone.

> None of us know for sure but I think the immediate threat of the drones is negligible. If US bases are leaking signals that can be intercepted by drones overhead then these same signals could be just as easily intercepted by cars driving past the bases or nearby homes. And as far as the visible spectrum is concerned all the major players have satellites overhead anyway.

You can also do radio frequency signals intercepts from space, too. You need a big antenna on your satellite, but it's essentially a solved problem. Spaceborne SIGINT goes back to at least the early 70s.

The problem with satellites however is that they cannot loiter, so the window in which they can gather data is limited and predictable. They are also essentially fixed on their track - changing orbit requires fuel. Drones (and old-fashioned spy planes) do not suffer from that limitation.

Tossing a battery-powered radio in a gallon ziplock into the woods outside the chainlink for the base also works, and would have more loitering capability than a drone.

Clearly. But it would not be overhead and might suffer from shielding by buildings etc.

So throw it in a gallon ziplock inside some rope and stuff and toss into a tree. In any case, a drone has about 15-30 min of loitering time while a radio-in-a-bag has potentially weeks or even months. I know which I would choose for spying on radio transmissions.

There are geostationary satellites. they loiter.

What they don’t have is high accuracy pointing. If you want to listen to activity on 128MHz at a specific military base from GEO you’re going to be getting a huge amount of interference from everything else in CONUS on the same frequency. At LEO you can do much much better pointing with your antenna.

Geostationary is only possible on very specific orbits - over the equator on one height. Any other orbit cannot be geostationary.

It's not 'for effect'. It's the legal description of use of a firearm by police/military.

The "drone threat" is a bunch of mass hysteria. Every photo I was shown was obviously a passenger jet liner.

   It's not 'for effect'. It's the legal description of 
   use of a firearm by police/military.

That's what I meant by "for effect." They were already able to shoot you.

Ergo a reminder that the military or police can shoot you is for effect; it does not represent a change to the status quo.

Drones are dangerous. First, they can take high-quality photos, second they can jam the radio communications and GPS, third, they may contain explosives.

> Unless I'm mistaken there are still plenty of drones being seen in NJ and they're not blasting them out of the sky.

Would these drones be running FAA-standard navigation lights and a transponder? Because that seems to be the case for most of these drone spottings :)

I know what you're saying! Clearly the vast majority of these drone sightings seem to be regular aircraft.

Some do not seem to be, although my skepticism is high because I have seen a lot of faked UFO videos over the years and faking points of light in the night sky is like, the easiest thing to fake in a fake video/photo.

While I think this is unlikely, we could imagine that whoever is doing shady drone stuff might want to actually observe some basic safety rules, ridiculous as that sounds.

Suppose for a second that these drones are a "flex" from China/Russia/whoever. Causing a midair collision with an aircraft because they're running dark, or risking the chance of that because they're running dark, is a lot more serious than just flying some drones.

And if it's aliens, hey, maybe they're just trying to... uh, fit in by mimicing our airplanes' safety lights? =)

I think a solid 95% of what people think are drones are actually passenger planes so I’m glad we’re not firing at them.

What adversarial intelligence would fly drones at night extremely low with their lights on?

IMO most likely commercial LIDAR mapping by some company that’d rather remain stealth.

None and in most cases it’s not even clear it’s happening. Due to perspective, a plane far away and a drone up close could look very similar at night when all you can see are lights in a dark sky.

Totally, it at least seems quite clear it's not happening anywhere near the extent to which it's suspected of happening.

Drones fly around. It's legal. It's fun. It's interesting for countless reasons to countless people. Really speaks to the state of our information environment that so many have been thrown into an absolute tizzy.

Most people just don’t know much about drones or planes really. They don’t know how their brain interprets what it sees. Etc

It’s obviously just mass hysteria.

This would make a fascinating case study about how many people have never looked up at their own skies before. I also wouldn't be surprised if the hysteria is being amplified to distract from all the other nonsense in the world right now.

A star light-years away also looks the same, and it's pretty hilarious when they're mistaken for "drones"

Pretty much any object in featureless space: ships on a flat body of water (sea, lake), aircraft in the sky, objects on flat terrain (plains, taiga, desert, sand, snow), objects in space.

Even on other solar system bodies (the Moon, Mars, etc.), it's quite difficult to gauge scale and distance without terrestrial references (trees, structures, etc.) to guide the eye.

Sadly when the United States Coast Guard reports being followed by unknown drones (and unknown drones have been reported around military space by military personnel for years) and the government response is to say 'we don't know, and we are doing nothing' people tend to become concerned. The best way to stop vigilanties is to have a system of laws and and government that follows the laws and that instill trust in the people. When the government just shrugs, well... that's how you end up with horrible/idiotic vigilanytism.

I'm a government institutions guy, but yes, let's attack people for... following basic human nature, not the government big brains that ignore basic realities of human nature about needing trust in stable/steady government institutions who instead just demand 'faith in government' that isn't earned. The government isn't just failing in actions, they are failing in understanding this BASIC requirement for governing.

So... outlaw drones? Or are you proposing we just start shooting people's toys out of the sky? At what cost per drone is justifiable to achieve this? A couple hundred thousand dollars and risk of misfires, aviation accidents, and shrapnel?

I think the people panicking about drones are not going to be a fan of a federal ban on them. Just my two cents though.

I'm not proposing anything. I'm just pointing out when the government fails to lead/leaves a vacuum people can quickly turn to vigilantist/dumb type behavior and follow the first person/thought/idea that fills the void.

Here the government said 'the United States Coast Guard mistook some 747s far away for 12 drones following their boat and if it wasn't planes then actually we assessed the 12 drones and found they aren't a threat, we don't know what they are, whose they are, or were they came from' and expected people to just go, hmm, ok, nevermind then.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Government is there to help control/direct what it gets filled with when it's a societal one.

Yeah totally... we want the government to be at the ready with some answer for literally any event that confuses any moron with a Twitter account lest it blow up into many morons with Twitter accounts getting confused.

The government doesn't know, it has no real responsibility or right to know, and it says it doesn't know. People extrapolating that into ridiculous theories cannot really be pinned on the government.

Next up: "I saw a shadow in the woods near my house and the government said they have no clue what it is!!!!"

You, an allegedly levelheaded person: "Well nature abhors a vacuum! It's a failure to lead not to have answers to such questions!"

No, that's actually not a levelheaded take.

You might not like the take, but all I am doing is pointing out human nature and a basic role government provides.

If you don't enforce laws/proper behavior/provide safety, you get vigilanties. If you don't provide answers, people go looking, and gullible people settle for the first thing they find.

No one is confused about why these people are panicking. They’re panicking because they’ve offloaded their thinking and information processing to algorithmic bullshit-amplification machines.

That’s why I’m being aggressive against this same “errr well yah know the government should have answers!” bullshit you’re purveying right here.

That’s what they want you to think. The sailors on the Iranian aircraft carrier and the Bigfoot pay close attention to FAA regulations.

"It's also the reason the US (last I checked*) has standing orders not to attempt to down the drones of unknown origin"

I think it depends. The smaller drones are allowed to be zapped using equiptment designed to take down drowns. They generally aren't shooting traditional munitions at drones domestically for multiple safety reasons, unless they are over a specific size/altitude.

The government has no right to destroy property (by any method) of private citizens who are flying drones when there is no evidence of illegality or of them being a credible threat.

To say "flying a drone makes it a credible threat" to say "drones are illegal," which someone is free to take up as their legislative priority.

If you're flying your drone in a restricted area, then it would be illegal. Many of the drone-downing systems do not permanently destroy it.

On a side note, do you have a TRUST or Part 107?

Yeah, duh if it's in a restricted area. That's not what the drone hysteria is about.

> Many of the drone-downing systems do not permanently destroy it.

Uhh yeah if a consumer grade drone falls 300 feet out of the sky then yes it's destroyed.

"Yeah, duh if it's in a restricted area. That's not what the drone hysteria is about."

Look up TFRs. Look up all the other restrictions these drones are supposed to be following. Tell me how they're legal.

"Uhh yeah if a consumer grade drone falls 300 feet out of the sky then yes it's destroyed."

Not irreparably. Some components will.

First TFRs in NJ went up on Dec 18... and suuspiiciousslyyy.... drone sightings disappear!

https://nypost.com/2024/12/28/us-news/mystery-nj-drone-sight...

> Not irreparably. Some components will.

Okay.

Lol what are you even arguing right now? It is not legal for the USG to destroy, seize, or damage people's property when they are not breaking the law or credibly threatening people. At the times of the drone sightings, there was no evidence whatsoever of them breaking the law or credibly threatening people.

Please state your position explicitly instead of this silly dance.

A lot of this stuff is “doing something” to calm people down. People are losing their minds.

Where I live in upstate NY, Nextdoor.com was losing its shit over a “drone”, actually a lidar mapping plane, and some of the dumber people were suggesting taking shots at the Iranians.

I’m waiting for the next seemingly inevitable object lesson: it’s insanely illegal, federally illegal, to shoot at flying objects, for what I would have hoped were obvious reasons. But it seems we’re still really rather dumb as a collective.

> obvious reasons

It's maybe worth mentioning that the obvious reasons almost entirely have to do with the things you'd hit in the air, not once the bullet descended. If everyone on earth suddenly shot upward at around 80 degrees from the ground, you'd expect approximately zero casualties on average from the bullets falling and lethally striking surface objects (there would be a number of welts and bruises as well as minor property damage, but even that is less likely than you might suspect).

People are routinely killed by falling bullets. It turns out that the vast majority of idiots firing blindly into the air don't know or care to shoot only straight up, and it would be the same problem for whichever idiots were trying to shoot down drones.

> People are routinely killed by falling bullets.

Do you have a citation for that? I can't find any numbers on people getting hit by falling bullets, let alone fatalities. Things let celebratory gunfire don't seem to be comparable since people tend to congregate outside for celebrations resulting in larger groups of potential unintentional targets.

Here you go:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/201323

Celebratory gunfire incidents were included, but only make up 4.6% of the total.

In approximately one year:

>Altogether, 317 persons received stray bullet injuries;

>142 (44.8%) were female, and 176 (55.5%) were outside the age range 15 to 34 years.

>Most individuals (258, 81.4%) were unaware of the events leading to the gunfire that caused their injuries.

>Many (129, 40.7%) were at home; most of these persons (88, 68.2%) were indoors.

>Sixty-five persons (20.5%) died, 18 (27.7%) of them at the shooting site and 55 (84.6%) on the day they were shot.

>Fourteen persons received nonfatal injuries by secondary mechanisms.

I have not logged the citations, but I distinctly recall reading on the order of one-two news reports per year of people being killed by falling bullets in multiple different countries, including US, Brazil, and several middle eastern countries.

Also, injuries and one fatality were confirmed by Mythbusters in [0]. Read the account for Episode 50, which was the only myth to receive all three ratings (Busted, Plausible, and Confirmed) at the same time.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2006_season)

Some data on stray bullet fatalities just in Rio:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1284427/stray-bullets-vi...

I'm not sure that's at all the same thing with the extremely high rate of violent crime involving guns in Brazil. Pointing a gun straight at a city background, missing your specific target, and still injuring/killing somebody is very different from pointing a gun at the sky and having the 170 ft/s bullet fall, manage to hit that same highly populated region, and cause problems.

The point is that all sky-pointed bullets are NOT going only 170ft/sec.

Yes, it is reasonably established that bullets fired straight up do not regain their initial velocity on the way back down.

But, at less-than-vertical firing angles, they can retain a lot of their initial 4-figure-fps velocity, and how much is very dependent on particular trajectory, wind, bullet composition, and initial angle. Dependent enough that it's specifically outlawed in many states.

So, don't go glibly firing off skyward celebratory shots (over)confident in your understanding of the physics (or implicitly advocating it). You might be willing to take the risk, but no one else is willingly undertaking the risk you are creating.

I honestly can't believe that people would argue that they should be allowed to fire guns up in the air, lmao. You & I both know people don't indicate while driving, so I'm sure we're not that surprised, though.

No, I agree. Brazil is likely leaning towards immediate contact and absorption of small arms in that localized region of conflict rather than horizon aimed rifle fire like you’d expect with people shooting at traditional aircraft they believe is as close as a drone would be, towards what I presume would be a residential, no-fly zone, military airspace, etc.

It’s really not the collective. It’s every town and cities loonies that now have formed a small but vocal subset of the population thanks to the Internet.

Important to note that it was a panic about an alleged chinese spy balloon, but in all likelihood it was just a weather balloon. There was no proof it was a spy balloon.

Ummm, no. We recovered the balloons and they were full of surveillance equipment.

They seemed to not have a way to phone home, so more than likely China’s plan was to recover the balloon to get the data. That may be what you recall. For all we know they had been doing so for years successfully.

But they were definitely spy balloons.

The US downed and recovered a Chinese balloon, not balloons.

The 2023 incident is pretty well written up on Wikipedia[1].

There was one Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down. Subsequent shoot-downs of balloons over the arctic and Great Lakes were not attributed to China - one that was recovered was definitively identified as a private weather balloon.

There were also previous Chinese surveillance balloon overflights - as well as one over Central America - that were not shot down.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Chinese_balloon_incident

> in all likelihood it was just a weather balloon

Normal weather balloons are 20ft in diameter. This one was 200 feet in diameter and carried quite a payload - about the size of a couple of box cars. Additionally it had propellers and the ability to steer itself.

> There was no proof it was a spy balloon.

There was a preponderance of evidence - from the route of the balloon (over US strategic nuclear missle silos), to the equipment that was recovered to radio intercptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Chinese_balloon_incident

This is also why there was reluctance to shoot the balloon down until it had passed over the ocean. The enormous payload container was a definite threat to life and limb if shot down over a populated area, and most of the US has at least a token population.

It’s also much easier to do less damage on the drone itself by shooting it over water than land. Honestly I think that played a major factor where they shot it down.

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