Editor;
Drones
More than one thing can be true at the same time, and I think this statement applies to the recent concern over “Drone Sightings.” Most of these sightings appear to be aircraft and most reports are by folks that until recently have never looked up at night. I suspect several others are drone hobbyists that want to get foolishly in on the action and are laughing.
We also know that Chinese spies have flown drones over sensitive locations to collect intelligence in the past so the current situation could be good cover for this type of activity. Another possibility is that some could be satellites or meteors.
Many of the images of these objects have been taken with cameras that have poor night capability causing images to bloom and appear as out of focus orbs. Some sightings by commercial pilots in the west appear to be actual UAPS. These are phenomena or objects that we cannot explain with our current knowledge of science or technology. These reports have been made by trained flight crew and include some contacts by the collision avoidance system, TCAS.
The fact that this phenomenon showed up on TCAS infers that the object had a transponder so the explanation might be it was an aircraft and weather phenomena caused an optical illusion causing it to appear to be operating erratically.
So, what to do against a drone hovering over your house?
Shooting one down is a felony since it is classified as an aircraft and if the battery is hit it may also cause a hot fire that could fall on private property.
Calls to do this are best not acted upon. Although most of these sightings have simple explanations reports and imagery from military pilots of UAPS also exist that remain completely unexplained.
Of course, I think we cannot discount Santa and Rudoph’s red nose at this point.
Joe Kaffl
Hillsboro
