Thinking about the drone drama

Let’s have some fun! Let’s talk about the recent drone drama but apply some critical thinking to one of the conspiracy theories: that of the Iranian “mothership” off the eastern shore of US.

This narrative was spouted by one of the New Jersey politicians where I believe the bulk of the sightings occurred. He postulated that an Iranian “mothership” was sitting off the eastern shore and was sending drones to…what? To launch kill shots? That hasn’t happened yet. To spy on us? Most of the drone sightings were over civilian areas so I can’t believe the Iranians find that information helpful.

There are a number of issues with that theory.

But the thought that really came to mind when I first heard of it was that if that theory was true, then we are in deep trouble because a ship managed to sail all the way from Iran without ever being detected. Unless the ship had some form of invisibility cloaking capability, I find it hard to believe that no country detected the presence of an Iranian ship sailing out in the seas.

At some point we have to trust in the capabilities of our government until news come out that a ship really was undetected. Until that point, I’m not going to be unduly worried about it; I will just keep an eye on the news for updates. We have to have some form of trust.

So, here are some possibilities of what could be going on:

• I wager that most people do not look at the sky, especially at nighttime, as a regular habit so it is possible that the sightings were mistaken sightings of planes.
• I think drones came out within the last decade, so they are gradually becoming more present as more people buy these things. Combine that fact with the fact that most people do not look at the sky, most people would probably not be able to distinguish a drone from a plane without guidance.
• I am sure that once news of drone sightings came out, more people started to look at the skies and due to not looking at the skies in a while, started to mistake planes, or other objects, as drones. This is kind of a social phenomenon where there is a hysteria developing out of a few initial sightings.
• I read somewhere that the FAA began allowing people to fly drones around 2023. If that is true, then it would not be farfetched to imagine a bunch of people starting to fly drones in the past year.
• Also, the drone sightings have been occurring during the Christmas season. I can imagine a scenario where parents buy drones for their children but first want to “test” them out to make sure they know how to operate the equipment. And hey, heck, wouldn’t it be fun to do a test flight?
• Now I can imagine a “spying” event where the drones from Iran could be flying as a way to distract from the real activities. But what activities could that be? And so far, nothing untoward has happened.

The politician who first postulated the Iranian “mothership” really need to think through his stories if he wants to retain credibility.

That’s not to say that there could never be any nefarious reasons for all of those drones flying around in the skies. That’s still a possibility but we have to trust that the government is on top of these sightings and is working to identify what is going on. As of now, nothing has happened to indicate maleficent intents.

By the way, I believe the FAA has put some restrictions on flying drones over New Jersey, so that should calm down the atmosphere and let the drama die away.