U.S. military personnel reported seeing a fleet of unidentified unmanned aircraft violate restricted airspace over an area of land at Langley Air Force Base along Virginia's shore for many nights last December, according to a report of the Wall Street Journal.
The drones would begin to arrive about 45 minutes to an hour after sunset each night, one official reportedly told U.S. Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, who joined several other officers responsible for the country's most advanced jet fighters, along with F-22 Raptors, on a squadron rooftop.
Kelly described the first drone he witnessed as about 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour, at an altitude of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet.
The WSJ reported that as many as a dozen or more drones followed, flying across Chesapeake Bay, and then traveling toward Norfolk, Virginia, and through a space viewing the base for the Navy's SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, the world's biggest naval port.
The report added officials could not determine if hobbyists or foreign enemies like China or Russia were in control of the drone fleet.
Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, who served at the time as the commander of the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said the Air Force had known that drones have been flying around military complexes for years. But the drone swarms over Langley, he noted, were unlike any previous intrusion.
VanHerck, who headed the military response to the suspected Chinese spy balloon last year, ordered jet fighters and other aircraft to fly close enough to collect evidence from the drones. (Related: Chinese spy balloon collected intelligence from military sites and transmitted it to Beijing in real time.)
He recommended that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin allow a full menu of electronic eavesdropping and spy craft to learn more about the drones, although the Pentagon is restricted in what it can do on American soil.
"If there are unknown objects within North America [the job is] to go out and identify them," said VanHerck.
Reports of the issue reached President Joe Biden and brought about two weeks of meetings at the White House in December 2023, the WSJ reported. Those meetings included the Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pentagon's UFO office, in addition to outside experts.
Mysterious drones reaching as far inland as Nevada
Two months before the drone fleet appeared in Virginia, five mysterious drones reportedly violated restricted airspace over a government nuclear weapons experiment site in Nevada.
Four of the drones were seen by the Department of Energy's Nevada National Security Site outside Las Vegas, while the fifth was seen by employees, the WSJ reported.
The facility has since improved its detection system, but officials have not determined who was behind the breach.
The sightings showed the problem of defending against drones on American soil in comparison with the comfort of deploying or combating them abroad.
Drones have become a lethal and economical tool of war, capable of delivering surveillance gear, explosives or deadly chemicals.
However, shooting down suspicious aircraft over America risks upsetting or threatening the lives of Americans the military is sworn to protect.
Follow DroneWatchNews.com for more news about drones.
Watch the video below discussing how the Pentagon is refusing to act against the mysterious drones swarming U.S. military airspace.
This video is from the TruNews channel on Brighteon.com.
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