Drone swarms are buzzing about sensitive American military sites, and so far no one knows who is sending them or how to stop them.
Late last year, for 17 consecutive evenings, drones buzzed about over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly witnessed one swarm and estimated the drones in question were 20 feet long and moving faster than 100 miles an hour, at an altitude of between 3,000 and 4,000 feet.
After passing Langley, the drones headed toward Naval Station Norfolk.
The event was reported to the Biden White House, but no response was taken, in part because the military is legally barred from downing drones near a base unless there is a visible threat.
Gen. Glen VanHerck, who at the time commanded the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said drones were buzzing bases for years, but the Langley episode was unlike any other.
Officials tried using police and ships from the Navy and Coast Guard to catch the drones. No luck. Then, on Dec. 23, they left and have not returned. Their origin remains a mystery.
“This isn’t a tomorrow problem, this is a today problem,” said Tom Karako, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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“It’s not an over-there problem. It’s an over-there, over-here and everywhere problem,” he said.
Drone swarms were spotted recently near Edwards Air Force Base in California.
In October 2023, drones buzzed about the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site near Las Vegas for three days.
Earlier this year, Gen. Gregory Guillot, head of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Defense Command, said that he began a 90-day assessment when he took the job, according to the War Zone.
“As part of my 90-day assessment, … to tell the truth, the counter-UAS [uncrewed aircraft systems] mission has dominated that so far in the first month. Of course, I knew it was an issue coming from another combatant command [CENTCOM], where we faced that threat in a very different way because of the environment,” he said.
“But I wasn’t prepared for the number of incursions that I see. [I’ve] gone into the events at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, and I’m using that as the centerpiece of my 90-day assessment.”
Another report said drone flights near bases are common.
“You can only report what you see, and so that’s part of the challenge,” a senior defense official said, according to the website Air and Space Forces.
“But I’d say that’s usually two or three a week, total across the U.S. And it’s never primarily in one part of the country or another. It’s fairly random, or it seems to be random,” the official said.
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