-5
$\begingroup$

For anyone who doesn't know, I will try to summarize the issue: This month we have seen a surge in unusually large "drones" of unknown origin in the US, UK, and other countries.

While mainstream media has been unusually quiet about the topic, it has garnered a lot of attention just about everywhere else. A lot of people are voicing their concerns and disapproval of the US and UK governments' response to the matter. The official response is essentially "no comment".

Recently Donald Trump addressed this, stating that the government knows what they are, and that there's no way they couldn't know, considering the capabilities of military intelligence to track aircraft, including drones. His stance is that the government should speak openly about what they know. This sentiment is shared by many.

My question is: How can we (civilians or anyone non-military), track the flight paths of these drones? What mapping/reporting tools exist to help us share OSint about these drones?

Update

I will address the points that were raised in comments, because my question has been falsely marked as opinion-based. I will also explain how my question differs from a similar existing one. And I will acknowledge the points commenters brought up which I felt were helpful.

Opinion-based?

Everyone seems fixated on Amazon's comment pointing out that I'm wrong about mainstream media coverage. Fair enough! When the information first came to me, people were commenting on how unusually quiet the press had been, and that stuck with me. But a lot can change in a few days, and now it looks like everyone is talking about it. Fine. But that little detail is not what's important. So I ask that people here stop attacking my question by picking at this detail. Certainly it is a far stretch to conclude that the question "how can we track drones" is opinion-based, only because I inaccurately assessed the amount of press coverage this is getting. Give me a friggin' break! Is that really the culture around here?

Other comments

@sophit - You pointed out that my question is similar to "Can you track drones online?" Yes, I agree it is similar. I was not aware of this question at the time I posted mine. I did find it helpful, so thank you for bringing it to my attention. One difference in nuance is that the asker of the question seems to specifically be interested in online flight data broadcasting services, whereas I extend my query to also include repositories of public reports/OSint. My question leans more toward looking for a place where citizens can share and corroborate data.

@Giacomo Catenazzi - Good points about the legal issues. I definitely don't think anyone should be taking drones down. Following, fine - but at one's own legal risk. As for what to do when you identify a landing point - post about it so others can corroborate the data. And this brings us back to the need for a platform where people can do this.

@Darth Pseudonym - you bring up some good points. There is too much hysteria. And you're right that people should not be shooting at them or pointing lasers. "Ordinary lights"... I don't agree that they all fall into the category of ordinary, if you actually watch some of the footage of these things.

@Dave Gremlin - Thanks for the FlightRadar24 suggestion. Seems it won't help us track drones that aren't broadcasting data. But maybe it's a place to start.

New contributor
immaculate constipation is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering. Check out our Code of Conduct.
$\endgroup$
5
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ What do you mean "mainstream media has been unusually quiet about the topic"? They have been running stories on it nonstop, including interviewing all sorts of "reliable" people and "honorable" politicians claiming to see "mysterious lights" in the skies above them. They have even published the footage taken be these "reliable" sources, most of which clearly shows manned airplanes and helicopters, and the rest are mostly footage of well-documented constellations of stars. $\endgroup$ Commented 22 hours ago
  • $\begingroup$ This question is similar to: can you track drones online?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem. $\endgroup$
    – sophit
    Commented 22 hours ago
  • $\begingroup$ Most of the problem is not technical but legal. Easy way: you use a drone and you follow them. The problem: who do it? local law enforcement? Military? Of FAA? And what you do when you identify the landing point? -- Note: FAA can revoke your license, but it is not really a law enforcement agency (if you got in protected airspace or no radio answers, they may just call air force). -- But also if you take them down, you pay for damages on ground? -- it is a question for law.SE not aviation, not technical but a legal problem $\endgroup$ Commented 21 hours ago
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ The problem is that the drone thing has now reached the level of a public hysteria, where people are looking up and paying attention for the first time in decades, and being terrorized by completely ordinary lights in the sky. Even trained observers cannot determine the distance to a sky light just by looking at it. Worse, some people have decided to take things into their own hands and fire guns or lasers at unidentified things above them -- which may be airliners, helicopters, or astronomical objects, so they might be blinding pilots or shooting bullets at Venus (which come down somewhere!) $\endgroup$ Commented 12 hours ago
  • $\begingroup$ "My question is: How can we (civilians or anyone non-military), track the flight paths of these drones? What mapping/reporting tools exist to help us share osint about these drones?" Well FlightRadar24 is a good place to start since most of them are broadcasting ADS-B transponder information, including flight numbers and aircraft make and model. Failing that I'd have a look at Stellarium and see where Venus and Jupiter are at the moment... $\endgroup$ Commented 8 hours ago

0

Browse other questions tagged .