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That has been my main take here. But what has magnified this that I discovered (and posted about) a couple days ago was this - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143357038



I had no idea. Literally last year, these remote craft were NOW permitted to "fly at night". So now you have the buzz-buzzes out and about 24/7 and of course at night, when they have lights on, they are visible.

Once people started reporting them, that obviously encouraged people who never normally cared, to go outside and "look". And if they are not familiar with the sky in their areas, then they WILL misidentify flight paths of planes, etc.

I live near 3 airports and am under the flight paths of all 3 and am used to seeing that fascinating drumbeat of perfectly timed (and spaced) planes coming/going to all 3. But most people might not be.

I have been a weather hobbyist for almost 55 years and interact with some guys on my weather forum, plus watch storm chasers, who have quadcopters that they use to survey the weather, and in the latter case, to get video of storm damage. The videos and stills have generally been during the daytime but recently, I started seeing some "night shots".

Hell... DU's own BoZarts (formerly DemoTex) got a quadcopter for his firetower/lookout and has periodically posted pics from it.



Remember that the law authorizing these things didn't get passd until 2012, so they are STILL "relatively new".

You also have a situation that each government agency has its "wheelhouse". Everything has been directed at the "security" (DHS) and "military" (DOD) people for some reason, completely ignoring the FAA. The FAA regulates those things and IMHO, Pete should be out there or they should at least create a little "taskforce" and partner with the overarching agencies to put out a single "message" to cover various aspects.

The average person in a suburban neighborhood doesn't necessarily care about some "drone" (in quotes) dropping a bomb on their house but might be concerned about a "peeping Tom" thing buzzing over their backyard.

I.e., are they "casing the place" for a future robbery? THAT is a real concern.

I always laughed about the old-fashioned 1950s/60s "model airplanes" that (rich surburban) kids had which had all kinds of sophisticated controls, but they didn't have GoPros on them.

Now you have the "modern" versions (I noticed in the below video that some of the shots in the sequences had little "chaser" quadcopters recording video of the RC planes landing, including a few wipeouts trying to keep up ) -



And add to that the various small 'copters that can hover - the "hover" capability being the bigger issue when it comes to dealing with these RC craft.

People act like these things don't exist and then start talking about people having "mass hysteria about UFOs" and other stuff and if they do accept they are out there, assume "everyone" who has one is "on the up and up", with no nefarious intent.