"Citing multiple sources close to the matter, CBS said the Pentagon had planned to test new military technology - reportedly a high-energy laser - to practice taking down drones near a military base next to the El Paso airport. Meetings to discuss the technology's safety were scheduled with the FAA, but the defence department wanted to test it sooner, prompting the FAA to close the airspace, according to CBS"
"One of the people said the laser was deployed near Fort Bliss without coordinating with the FAA, which decided then to close the airspace to ensure commercial air safety. Others familiar with the matter said the technology was used despite a meeting scheduled for later this month between the Pentagon and the FAA to discuss the issue"
OK, new thread for the great Euro Drone Panic of fall 2025. In today's episode from Munich "Because it was dark, no information on the type, size or origins of the drones was confirmed" which strongly suggests the reports came from people seeing flying lights. We may note flying lights are
a) Very common in the vicinity of airports
b) Not usually required to operate a drone for nefarious purposes, unless that purpose is to be seen and cause chaos
French version of that story notes "In the case of Elsenborn, Butgenbach mayor Daniel Franzen told the Belga news agency that he had not been informed of a drone threat on Friday morning. However, he reported that a drone had been used to search for a stray horse in the area" - but one isn't 15, and probably not at 1:45 am unless they had a thermal camera. In any case, 15 seems like a lot, regardless of whether it was espionage, harassment, or a random civilian
'Police later said that a drone spotted on Friday morning flying 700 metres (0.4 miles) from Frankfurt Airport, Germany's largest hub, had been piloted by a man who was overly eager to test a new hobby drone. "He faces a heavy fine," the Frankfurt police wrote'
Other sightings in Germany remain mostly unexplained with minimal details, aside from a "small aircraft reported flying over an ammunition depot in northern Germany," which seems likely to be normal GA traffic
"Up to 25 small hot-air balloons, some of them confirmed to be carrying smuggled cigarettes, entered Lithuanian airspace late Saturday and forced the shutdown of Vilnius Airport"
also notes balloons are not unusual "Similar incidents, but with fewer balloons, were reported in August. Last year, 966 hot-air balloons entering from Belarus were intercepted … There have been 544 recorded this year"
"The witness says he went to talk to the men, who said they were tourists from Hong Kong… [Police inspector] Koskinen says that the Helsinki police receive reports of drones every week, often involving tourists flying drones. According to Koskinen, based on a “general feeling,” the number of sightings has not increased recently, but there are no recent statistics available"
CIT spells out what 99% of professional press and analyst community appears allergic to mentioning: "As we have previously noted, some instances of airspace violations in Europe may be deliberate Russian provocations, while others are likely ordinary incidents that would once have gone largely unnoticed"
Latest drone incident over Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium includes video… potato quality makes it a bit hard to tell what's going on but seems the "drones" were running lights
Lithuania caught one: "… the Fly Safe system recorded an unauthorized drone launch at 12:00 p.m. … The location is within a prohibited flight zone that surrounds the city’s international airport. Although the drone disappeared from radar shortly after launch, VST officers quickly identified the location and detained the operator at 12:07 p.m."
Details are thin my but such as they are my bet is garden variety idiot
"FOUR UNIDENTIFIED MILITARY-STYLE drones breached a no-fly zone and flew towards the flight path of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plane at sea near Dublin Airport … the fact that the drones had their lights on has led security forces to suspect that the aim was to disrupt the flight’s arrival into Dublin"
WTF is "military-style" supposed to mean in this context? 🤔
"The marine rifle battalion, which is responsible for protecting the base, carried out several anti-drone strikes … used a jammer, not a firearm … That protocol, according to the official, holds that when there is a case of doubt about what is flying over a military base … Despite efforts to stop the drones, none were brought down, and no operators were identified"
It's interesting how many of these incidents reportedly involve multiple drones, seems like an adversary who wanted to do something covert would use only one unless they absolutely needed more, and your average dufus flying their hobby drone where they shouldn't would also probably only have one. Not obvious what purpose a flight of 3-6 would serve, and the lack of imagery and vague reporting makes it hard to tell how reliable the numbers are
Paywalled, in Dutch, but Trouw did a serious analysis of the "drone incidents" and yeah… "In approximately forty incidents, the origin remains unclear, or no evidence of drones in the airspace has been found at all … In at least fourteen cases, it later turned out to be something completely different. For example, people in Belgium mistook (small) airplanes and helicopters for drones, while the flying objects in South Limburg and Billund, Denmark, were stars" https://www.trouw.nl/binnenland/analyse-zestig-drone-incidenten-in-europa-veel-paniek-en-weinig-bewijs~bbae510b/
The only ones they appear to attribute to Russia are the obvious Shahed and Gerbera types found in Poland, Moldova and Romania. None of people caught flying DJI types in the wrong place appear to have been connected to Russia, which seems like pretty strong evidence they were just regular idiots, given the intense interest of the authorities and poor opsec of typical telegram recruits https://www.trouw.nl/binnenland/analyse-zestig-drone-incidenten-in-europa-veel-paniek-en-weinig-bewijs~bbae510b/
The press coverage and official communications around this have been embarrassingly bad for the most part. If someone saw funny lights at night, it should be stated up front that chances are very high that it was not a drone, and if it was drone, it was probably someone who didn't know they weren't supposed to fly there because otherwise they wouldn't have left the f-ing lights on
If the details reported in Dublin incident are accurate (five shipping palette sized, presumably multi-rotor, electric drones), it would certainly point to something other than a random idiot. But as noted in the replies, I have doubts…
One other oddity in that Times report: It states, without qualification "Almost every drone attack is launched from cargo vessels whose crews are Russian or have been paid by Russian special services" yet AFAIK the number of cases where this scenario has actually been confirmed is currently zero. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened, but evidence in the public domain doesn't support that it has, let alone in a significant number of cases
Much better reporting from RTÉ: "Crew on board the LÉ William Butler Yeats spotted several unidentified drones north of Dublin while monitoring maritime activity off the east coast. RTÉ understands that the drone activity took place more than 10km off-shore, east of Howth and Dublin Bay. The weapons on board LÉ William Butler Yeats' were not used to intercept the drones but it is understood extensive video footage of them was obtained"
Unfortunately, without seeing the footage, it's still unclear whether the "drones" were positively identified or just a pattern of lights (and yes, military personnel reporting stars, planets, aircraft lights etc as UFOs or drones is a thing), but you'd expect a 90m patrol boat to have some decent optics and given the specificity of the description in the Times story, it seems quite likely they were real
RTÉ also notes "According to data from marine traffic websites analysed by RTÉ, one of the vessels present in the Irish Sea at the time of President Zelensky's arrival was previously suspected of involvement in the sabotage of subsea cables" 🤨
Irish Times reports the drones "came as close as 500m to an Irish naval vessel" and they decided not to shoot them down because in international waters the rules of engagement would only allow if they were a threat to the ship and "the most suitable weapon for shooting down the ship, the Yeats’s 20mm autocannons, would have posed a potential danger to several civilian aircraft which were in a holding pattern overhead waiting for clearance to land" https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/12/09/drones-passed-within-500m-of-naval-ship-during-zelenskiy-visit/
Seems like a strong case for rapid adoption of interceptor drones. Much lower risk to the neighborhood than 20mm autocannons, and even if the ROE doesn't support destroying them, and would allow getting a close look and potentially following them back to the operators
Several of the recent drone incursion in Turkey are indisputably real and Russian. Awfully far from the front lines, especially for the Orlan-10, but possibly the Russians are running them in the south Black Sea to try to prevent Ukrainian USV attacks. The one shot down earlier by a Turkish F-16 hasn't been identified AFAIK
"Irish security services suspect Russian intelligence — or groups acting on their behalf — were most likely behind the hybrid drone incidents during the visit of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Ireland … Without access to the actual drones, or information that might lead to the identification of their operators, sources said it will be very difficult to find evidence to show Russia was behind the hybrid incident"
Mystery drones buzzed Germany's Arrow 3 installation: "On December 1, 2025, three drones of an "unknown type" were sighted over the Annaburg airbase in Saxony-Anhalt … A rapid response team was immediately activated, deploying, among other things, a reconnaissance drone. One of the drones was thus visually identified. The German Armed Forces then attempted to shoot down the drone using a special targeting device, but without success"
"the [Chinese] Supreme Court ushered in changes allowing life imprisonment and even the death penalty for those guilty of advocating for Taiwanese independence … Chinese authorities launched a website identifying Taiwanese public figures deemed “die hard” separatists. The site included an email address where people could send “clues and crimes” about those who had been named, or anyone else they suspected"
Sheffield Hallam University "a decision by the university not to publish a final phase of the research on forced labour in China was communicated to the National Security Service … immediately relations improved and the threat to staff wellbeing appears to be removed" and canceled prof Laura Murphy's research into supply chains and forced labour "due to … the corporate insurance position … and our duty of care to colleagues working in both China and the UK" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq50j5vwny6o
A government spokesperson told the BBC "any attempt by a foreign state to intimidate, harass or harm individuals in the UK will not be tolerated, and the government has made this clear to Beijing after learning of this case" - Which I suspect will be tested by another thin-skinned autocrat rather sooner than later
Class action settlement emails and sites have such a distinct yet extremely phishy smell… seems like the process could be vastly improved by having a single, very simple .gov portal that lets you find a case and directs you to the official claim process
Another day, another phishy class action notice. Fun part, it's:
For a data breach
Involving a company where I've never used the relevant email and didn't have an account at the relevant time
For someone who is definitely not me, but with a last name which I've frequently received typo'd emails for in the past, including from the company that was breached
So, if my email was disclosed due to someone else typo'ing it on their account, was my data breached ? 🤔
Bonus: What the fresh hell is this, a web form cosplaying as a call queue?
(on the settlement site contact form, after a cloudflare "check the box to verify you're a human" prompt. Also, their form didn't work in firefox)
