At the end of December 2019 going into the start of January 2020, there was a series of strange, unexplained drone sightings in northeastern Colorado and western Nebraska. Flocks upwards of 20 small to medium drones lit up the night sky in a grid formation. No one came forward to claim responsibility for the drone flights. Though nighttime drone flights are prohibited by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), technically these drones weren’t breaking any laws. They stayed out of restricted airspace and were not used to spy on any people or come near their homes. All official organizations like the military and the FAA said they had no involvement in the mystery drones.

The local police, FAA, and the FBI launched a massive investigation into the situation, but it was soon dismissed. There seemed to be no foul play and frankly, as the world entered a time of crisis due to a global pandemic, the media attention that would have driven further investigation shifted. Basically, the public was told that since authorities didn’t find any serious issue that it would just be ignored for the time being. Fortunately, someone from the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) was able to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to gather all pertaining information and recently made his findings public.

Douglas D. Johnson volunteers as a researcher for the SCU, an organization that studies Unidentified Aerospace Phenomenon (UAP). As explained on their website, “SCU is a cooperative of scientists, former military and law enforcement officials and other professionals, many of whom have decades of experience looking into UAPs, believe there are many unanswered questions, and that a serious examination is warranted.” In 1967, an amendment to the Administrative Procedure Act was made that allows the public to have full or partial access to documents and information that had been previously unreleased due to ongoing investigations. Using the FOIA, Johnson was given access to hundreds of emails, documents, and conversations between police, the FAA, the FBI, and other government agencies about the Colorado/Nebraska mystery drone sightings.

The documents begin by accounting for eyewitness reports of the incidents from civilians and police officers. These stated that between the hours of 7 pm to 10 pm multiple groups of drones with bright lights would fly over fields, maintaining an altitude between 200-500ft. The drones were estimated to have a 6ft wingspan and be relatively quiet. In an email from FAA aviation safety officer Michael Sanford he stated, “There is also an unverified report of the larger ‘drone’ potentially landing and taking back off from an airport in Imperial, Nebraska (Chase County). This larger drone, also described as a ‘Mother Ship’, is said to hover while all the others fly around in close proximity. The large drone, as described, is about 5-6 feet in diameter with a cylindrical shape and a red front.” The drones would fly in what is described as a grid formation for periods of up to 3 hours.

Based on the size of the drones, it is safe to assume that they are not hobby drones, or even ones used commercially by photographers, inspectors, or agriculturists. Drones of the size seen in the Colorado/Nebraska area would need to be specially registered and would most likely be of military-grade. This led many to speculate that the mystery drones were part of a covert military training program from the nearby Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. When initially asked the military denied any involvement, and the documents procured by Johnson go further to confirm the military had nothing to do with these drones.

Two peculiar details brought up in the reports is that the drones made little to no sound and were able to stay airborne for hours at a time. Drones are notorious for being noisy. The rotor blades that keep them aloft create a loud hum, and it has become a goal of many drone designers to come up with a solution to make quieter drones, especially ones that will eventually be used in residential communities. Drones are also known to have short flight times because of their batteries. A drone can not support a battery larger than its body, so most drones can only fly for 20-30 minutes. A few can stay in the air for close to an hour, but not ones as big as those described in the reports collected by Johnson.

To maintain flight as long as those seen in the mystery sightings, the drones would have needed power from a grounded tether or solar panels. Seeing that the drones were not stationary, no tether could be used. And since the sightings were at night, there would be no way for solar panels to regenerate power. It could be that the unverified “Mother Ship” drone that would go to meet the groups of smaller drones could have somehow been remotely recharging the airborne drones. But as far as public knowledge goes, this type of technology does not yet exist. Again making one think that these drones were military experiments, even though all records obtained by Johnson point to the military having nothing to do with it.

Another possibility could have been a company looking to use drones commercially chose to test them in the minimally populated regions of northeastern Colorado and western Nebraska. It is well known that companies like Amazon, Google, and Walmart are vying to use drones for wide scale deliveries. Amazon even has patents of large “Mother Ship” drones that could be used to stock and recharge smaller delivery drones. However, the documents that Johnson was able to get cleared any private enterprises from an involvement. It’s also hard to believe that a company like Amazon or Google would take such a brazen risk to test their drone capabilities, a risk that if they were caught taking could be disastrous for any future drone operations.

So what did the investigations and Johnson’s research reveal? Not much of anything. Since there were no federal laws broken, the FBI did not feel compelled to continue their investigation. Once the sightings stopped, local police and sheriff departments had no need to continue investigating. All previous information turned up cleared any military or private involvement. One of the main documents Johnson got through the FOIA was a conversation between Joshua Holtzman, a then-second-ranking official at the Assistant Secretary of Health, and FAA Administrator Steve Dickson. In the document, it states, “The FAA understands the interest in identifying the operator(s) and mitigating any potential risks these UAS [Unmanned Aircraft Systems] could pose to the safety of other aircraft and people and property on the ground.”

While the true identity and purpose of the drones mysteriously flying over Colorado and Nebraska have yet to been identified, some good has come out of the situation. The first is that the information that Johnson reviewed clarified that at no point were any people in danger from the drones. The second positive outcome is the FAA’s push to create a remote identification process for all drones in US airspace. This would include hobby, commercial, police and rescue, government, and military drones. This system would allow the FAA to have a record of all and any drones. If a drone is spotted in the air, a scanner would be able to determine whom the drone belongs to and if it is authorized to be flying. In theory, a remote ID would prevent further unexplainable drone events.

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