Over a period of 17 nights in December 2023, mysterious drones of unknown origin flew over the United State’s highly restricted airspace above the Langley Air Force Base on Virginia’s shoreline, the Wall Street Journal published on Saturday.
The drones hovered over the base, home to the US’s most advanced fighter jets, including F-22 raptors, until December 23.
US Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, citing information given to him by another US official, said the drones were spotted nightly for a period between 45 minutes to an hour after sunset.
Kelly estimated the first drone to be 20 feet long and reportedly flew at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour at an altitude of 3,000-4,000 feet. A dozen more drones would later follow.
The origins of the drones were unknown, though suspicions were raised that they came from Russia or China. Few believed the flights to be the work of hobbyists.
Analysts discovered that the smaller quadcopters didn’t use the usual frequency band available for standard commercial drones, further evidence that hobbyists did not fly the drones.
Despite the drones flying above some of the most valuable military assets in America, the WSJ reported that it was not legal for them to be shot down. Only an imminent threat can justify shooting down the drones, although lawmakers are currently debating whether espionage should be a legitimate reason under the eyes of the law.
While abroad, the US military can shoot down aerial threats. However, on US soil, shooting down drones threatens the safety of Americans and is therefore restricted to imminent threats only.
The drones, disappearing into a darkened night sky, were reportedly nearly impossible to track. However, this did not stop local police from attempting to chase down the drones for two nights by car and foot - with little success.
The drones, significantly smaller than standard military aircraft, often did not show up on radars, which led the military to recalibrate its security that had previously been set to ignore anything that resembled a bird.
Gen. Glen VanHerck, then-commander of the US Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said that while it was not unheard of for drones to be spotted in flight above defense installations, the Langley swarm was unlike past incursions.
Langley officials reportedly canceled nighttime training missions to minimize potential risks due to concerns about a collision. Additionally, the F-22s were moved to another base.
“If there are unknown objects within North America, the job is to go out and identify them,” VanHerck stated.
A local student
In January, the military finally discovered a clue, which led them to University of Minnesota student Fengyun Shi.
Shi told local residents that his drone had gotten stuck in a tree, which landed him the attention of local news and the police. Police questioned why Shi was flying drones in poor weather conditions and advised him to call the fire department for help freeing his drone.
Rather than call the department, Shi returned his rental car and fled by Amtrak to Washington and later to California.
After Shi fled, his drone fell from the tree and landed, by chance, with federal investigators. The investigators quickly discovered that Shi had captured photos of Navy vessels in dry docks at night.
On January 18, Shi was arrested as he attempted to board a flight back to China. Shi, pleading his innocence, asserted that he had just been a drone hobbyist who liked ships and had purchased the flying device from Costco.
Investigators later confirmed he had purchased the discounted drone from the retailer and failed to find any link between Shi and the Chinese government.
The 26-year-old Chinese national was charged with unlawfully taking photos of classified naval installations, the first case involving a drone under a provision of US espionage law.
Despite previously swearing he was simply a hobbyist, Shi pled guilty and was sentenced on October 2.
Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard, casting doubt on Shi’s story, reportedly said, “There are significant holes” in his account of events.
“If he were a foreign agent, he would be the worst spy ever known,” said Shi’s attorney, Shaoming Cheng.
Espionage attempts
Some two months before the nightly incursion, five drones flew over a government site used for nuclear weapons experiments in Nevada. US officials, again, said they did not know who operated the drones. In response to the incident, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site noted the facility has since upgraded a system to detect and counter drones.
Fears of foreign espionage are not unfounded, as last year, a suspected Chinese air balloon with electronic surveillance gear was shot down after it flew across the US for eight days.