Drone swarms inside the U.S. could be spying — and the ability to detect, track them is lagging

last month the head of nurad and northcom the military commands that defend North America told Congress some of those mysterious drones seen flying inside the United States May indeed have been spying he did not say for whom 60 Minutes has been looking into a series of eerily similar incidents going back years including those attention getting flyovers in New Jersey recently in each drones first appeared over restricted military or civilian sites coming and going often literally under the radar the wakeup call came just over a year ago when drones invaded the skies above Langley Air Force

Base in Virginia over 17 nights forcing the relocation of our most advanced fighter jets our story starts with an eyewitness and an iPhone the story will continue in a moment close around 7:00 I would say I started seeing these reddish orange flashing lights that were starting to come in from the Virginia Beach area it began slowly like one at a time Jonathan butner's close encounter with drones came on December 14th 2023 he was at his family's cabin on the James River in Virginia about 100 miles south of Washington DC with a commanding view of several

veral military installations across the water they started really coming in like almost like on a conveyor belt how many in total I probably saw upwards of 40 plus when I first saw that I was like th those are going directly over Langley Air Force Base Langley is one of the most critical air bases on the East Coast home to dozens of F22 Raptors the most advanced stealth fighter jets ever built Butner says from his perch he has seen it all I'm very familiar with all the different types of military craft we have Blackhawks we have

the f-22s and these were like nothing I've ever seen Butner took these iPhone videos of the objects coming and going for nearly an hour and a half these are the only public videos of the drones over Langley there's themselves from each other yes he shared this video with the FBI for its investigation and another yes the reports were coming in 20 to 30 sightings same time every evening 30 to 45 minutes after Sunset retired fourstar General Mark Kelly was the highest ranking officer at Langley to witness the Swarm a veteran fighter pilot Kelly went up

to the roof of a squadron headquarters for an unobstructed view of the Airborne Invaders so what did you see well what you saw was different sizes of incursions of aircraft you saw different altitudes different air speeds some were rather loud some weren't near as loud what was the smallest one what was the largest one the smallest you know you're talking about a commercial size quadcopter and then the largest ones are probably size what I would call a bass boat or a small car the size of a small car at the time General Glenn van herk

was joint commander of NORAD and northcom the military commands that protect North American Air space he has since retired I actually provided support in the form of Fighters uh Airborne warning and control platforms uh helicopters to try to further categorize what those drones were at the time 10 months earlier he ordered an F-22 from Langley to shoot down that Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic after it had sailed across the us but this time he found himself ill equipped to respond norad's radar systems designed during the Cold War to detect high altitude air space or

missile attacks were unable to detect low flying drones that could be seen with the naked eye why don't we just shoot them down well first you have to have the capability to detect track identify make sure it's not a civilian airplane flying around if you can do that bill then it becomes a safety issue for the American public firing missiles in our homeland is not taken lightly we're not able to track them we're not able to see where they originate no it's a capability Gap certainly they can come and go from any direction the FBI

is looking at potential options but they don't have an answer right now and there haven't been answers for similar encroachments for more than 5 years there are multiple uas in vicinity up all Hamilton CPA 100 ft in altitude off the bow in 2019 Naval warships training off the California coast were shadowed for weeks by dozens of drones we have visual of four probable unidentified drones with course unknown and speed unknown cont for years the Pentagon did little to dispel speculation these images taken with night vision equipment were UFOs but ship's logs show they were identified

as drones at the time and the Navy suspect Ed they came from this Hong Kong flagged freighter sailing nearby but couldn't prove it since then the defense news site the war zone has documented dozens of drone intrusions at sensitive infrastructure and military installations in 2019 the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant in Arizona the largest power producer in the country in 2024 an experimental weapon site in Southern California where defense contractors are building the the next generation of stealth bombers last December the Army confirmed 11 drone sightings over the pitini Arsenal in northern New Jersey where Advanced

weapons are designed and built what is that which ignited a public frenzy with sightings of unidentified flying objects all over the region New Jersey Remains the epicenter of the Drone mystery while much of the country was fixated on New Jersey another swarm of drones was disrupted operations at an air base in the UK where US nuclear weapons have been stored clearly uh there is a military intelligence aspect of this Republican senator Roger wicker of Mississippi is Chairman of the armed services committee that oversees the Pentagon we talked to him this past December do you believe

that these drones are a spying system a spying platform what would a logical person include that that these are yes spying incursions and yet I can tell you I I am privy to to classifi briefings at the highest level I think the Pentagon and the National Security advisers are still mystified still mystified Yes more alarming with drones overhead some of the f-22s stationed at Langley were moved to a nearby Airbase for their own protection there's a new wartime reality drones that can spy can also destroy deep inside Russia Advanced aircraft have been destroyed by Ukrainian

drones General van herk told us drones could do the same thing here I have seen video of drones in various sizes flying over uh the F-22 flight line at Langley what's your reaction to that they could drop ordinance on them drop bombs on them they could crash into them to disable them was that a concern absolutely it's a concern small uas or drones can do a myriad of missions President Biden was informed of the Langley intrusions and meetings were held at the White House to figure out how to bring the drones down but after 17

nights the Drone visitation stopped a senior official in the Biden White House later downplayed the incident to 60 Minutes saying it was likely the work of hobbyists from what you saw did you rule out that these might be hobbyists sending these drones up no it would be my assessment they weren't hobbyists because of the magnitude of the events the sizes of some of the drones and the duration so what's going on well I wish I had the answer it certainly could have a foreign Nexus a threat Nexus they could be doing anything from surveilling critical

infrastructure uh just to the point of uh embarrassing us from the fact that they can do this on a day-to-day basis uh and then we're not able to do anything about it in overseas War zones the US military has broad authority to bring down menacing drones with gunfire missiles and electronic jamming here at home any of those actions would pose a threat to civilians on the ground and in the air well we certainly need new systems to to counter this threat a year ago General Gregory guo a combat veteran took control of NORAD and northcom

he ordered a 90-day assessment of operations and says the drones or uavs at Langley became the centerpiece we're the most powerful military on the face of the Earth and yet drones could fly over a major air force base and we couldn't stop them how's that possible well I think the uh the threat got ahead of our ability to uh detect and and track the threat I think all eyes uh were rightfully overseas where uavs were being used on one way attack to attack us and Coalition service members and the threat in the US probably caught

us by surprise a little bit as it stands today could you detect a swarm of drones flying over or flying into the airspace at at Langley could you detect that today at at at low altitude uh probably not with your standard uh FAA or um surveillance Radars complicating his efforts bureaucracy when the drones flew outside the perimeter of Langley Air Force Base other agencies had jurisdiction the Coast Guard FAA FBI and local police there was no one agency in charge so what did you determine went on at Langley well that that uh that investigation is

still ongoing uh so I don't think we know uh entirely what happened you know when we hear things from the White House that it's not deemed a threat it it seems to me that this is alarming I mean this is kind of hair on fire time it is alarming and uh I would say that our hair is on fire here in in North Comm in a controlled way and we're moving out extremely quickly this past November General gu was given the authority to cut through the red tape and coordinate counter drone efforts across multiple government

agencies he says new more sens radar systems are being installed at strategic bases and northcom is developing what it calls FlyAway kits with the latest anti-drone technology to be delivered to Bases besieged by drones my goal is inside of a year that we would have uh the FlyAway K capability to augment uh the services and the installations if they're necessary So within a year were langly to happen again there'd be some ability to respond that's my goal his predecessor Glenn van herk says the Pentagon White House and Congress have underestimated this massive vulnerability for far

too long it's been one year since Langley had their drone incursion and we don't have the policies and laws in place to deal with this that's not a sense of urgency why do you think that is I think it's because there's a perception that this is Fortress America two oceans on the east and west with friendly nations North and South and nobody's going to attack our homeland it's time we move beyond that assumption why it is so hard to stop drone incursions there are gaps in capability there are gaps in policy at 60 minutes overtime.com