Unknown drones spotted over Colorado.

Warzone/The Drive.

A large group of unknown drones have been spotted flying grid patterns at night over Colorado's airspace. Warzone/The Drive. Every night this week the drones have been spotted flying from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm. There are an estimated 17 drones all of them with six foot wingspans and were operating with lights on. Military and civilian organizations do not claim these drones and they do not know who is operating them. The drones could be conducting surveillance of the area, which is desolate and without much human presence. However, the drones area of operations are within 30 miles of the F.E. Warren Air Force base which houses nuclear ICBM's. 

My Comment:

The government needs to find out who is flying these drones and they needed to do it yesterday. There are many possible explanations for this and none of them sound good to me. The government needs to find out who these people are and what their goals are immediately as even the less sinister explanations are putting people at risk. 

It's possible that this is just some civilian or group of civilians having some fun with their drones. That's probably the best case scenario but it still begs the question on how they managed to plot the flight paths and what they are trying to do. They are also putting civil and commercial aviation at risk by not filing a flight plan with the FAA. 

Another possibility is that this is an intelligence operation by some foreign government or non-government organization. Given the sophistication and size of these drones that's certainly a possibility but one wonders how they would get the drones here, if they were not produced domestically. There is little of interest for foreign governments outside of the F.E. Warren Air Force Base, but this could be a "dry run" for more valuable targets. The fact that these drones are lit up at night might be for evaluation purposes. 

The most disturbing possibility is that these drones are part of a military or terrorist operation that could target military or civilian targets. These drones could be in a dry run before an attack and they may be evaluating how reliable they are. Though the drones alone are not much of a threat they could be rigged with explosives and could be used as crude bombers or as kamikaze attackers. Such attacks have been used before, most notably by ISIS in Syria and Iraq and during the recent Iranian attack on a Saudi oil facility, so the possibility is out there. 

It might be very difficult to track down who these people are. Indeed, the only reason we know that this is happening at all is because the pilot(s) of the drones have mysteriously left their lights on. If they were running dark the people of Colorado would have no idea that their skies were infested with drones. And given the small size of these drones and the massive amount of remote territory in Colorado it would be fairly easy to launch and recover these drones without being noticed. It would likely take a huge effort by law enforcement and military assets to find these people or a lucky break where they made a mistake. 

I also wonder if these drone operations aren't more widespread than it seems. Remember, the only reason we know about these drones is because they turned their lights on. It's possible that this is only the tip of the iceberg and there are many other drones out there. 

Finally, I do wonder if more regulations on civil drone usage is coming. Obviously, what is happening in Colorado is already illegal but it is fairly disturbing that they can get away with this so easily. I don't really support new regulation but if this does turn out to be an foreign intelligence operation or a terror plot than I could see drones getting banned entirely or at least much more heavily regulated.