Reality Checking—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, January 2025
2024's Drone flap, of all things...
by: Brent Raynes
Wow, from November into December over 5,000 reports of unidentified "drones," some described as big as an SUV or bus. In the beginning, the reports seemed concentrated in New Jersey, but as the weeks went on reports were coming in from New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, recently one was reported to me from Alabama, and from elsewhere of course. Some, whether we're talking straight UFO/UAP phenomena or drones, have proven to be misidentifications of Venus (even by an ABC news film crew), as well as stars (former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan's recent video of suspicious objects was determined to be Orion's Belt and the Orion Nebula), and regular aircraft (video of strange lights over Washington, D.C., turned out to be airplanes making their final approach to Reagan Airport) or regular drones, which is to be expected when you're dealing with such a massive quantity of reports and there becomes so much concern by the public and frenzy in the news media over the sightings. A recent joint statement of the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, the FAA and FBI, stated they "do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk." One engineering professor named Missy Cummings of George Mason University, who has been involved in drone research for 25 years, dismissed the many sightings reported. She was quoted by CBS News: "If you're actually looking at lights from a drone, it means you're definitely not looking at a foreign adversary because they're sophisticated enough to turn the lights off."
"If I go on the news and tell you have something to worry about, then you have something to worry about. But in this case, right now its really things are operating as usual," Professor Cummings said.
I must admit the report the year before, in December 2023, of a swarm of unidentified drones flying low over Langley Air Force Base, one of the largest concentrations of national security and defense facilities, 17 nights in a row, and Pentagon officials described as baffled and not able to identify who it was who did it sounded rather concerning and suspicious, and not long ago I recall Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s airspace got shut down for around four hours due to drone activity in the area.
A lot of people have expressed concerns, and more than a few have voiced their suspicions that the government knows more than it's saying. Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew claimed a source had informed him that the drones were being launched from an Iranian ship off the eastern seaboard. Witnesses had claimed seeing them coming in from the Atlantic Ocean flying in "organized formations," though the Pentagon denied that there was any ship from Iran or any other foreign nation operating off the Atlantic Coast. On the other hand, some have speculated that perhaps drones are being flown in from our own military ships in the Atlantic conducting whatever maneuvers or operations they've been instructed to conduct.
On the other hand, out of this vast quantity of reported sightings, that gets treated by government and military officials as has long happened through the decades with standard UFO/UAP reports, many of us in this field wouldn't be too awfully surprised if that is exactly what's partly in the mix here as well, though with drones being the current buzzword and a technology that is increasingly becoming prevalent in our skies, it's not hard to see how our attention could in a certain percentage of cases become hijacked here by the emphasis on drone technology in this current discussion. Just as it did with past UFO scenarios involving Venus, once again, weather balloons, and, oh yeah, let's not forget distracting hoaxes, rumors, and questionable, unproven claims of a sensationalistic nature.
We certainly have those in the current mix too. Like an alleged US Army whistleblower who has posted videos under the name "Unspoken Will" claiming: "We are launching the drones in New Jersey, Texas, everywhere," claiming however that our drones are being shot down by "orbs" that are under the control of "real-life aliens."
Noted novelist turned self-described alien experiencer, Whitley Streiber, author of the best seller Communion, spoke out recently on the significance of the "drone" mystery in his view. [His video YouTube is included in the News Links of this issue] "Drones. What are they? Well, the government has spun it this way, spun it that way, its spun the other way. Nuclear material has been lost. The drones are a secret program trying to find it. Turns out the nuclear material was medical waste. It had no significance. It was not even particularly dangerous. So that ship sank. Then it was a NASA program. That ship sank."
Streiber goes on to claim that there will be other scenarios brought out by the media, especially what he called the "captive media," the ones he claims follow the government's lead, using the New York Times as an example. He cites evidence that he explains reveals to him that some of these so-called "drones" are not that at all, that they're connected with the ET aliens, what he calls the Visitors.
What is the "drone" flap about?
Strieber points out that most abductees, and he includes himself, have found two major concerns that the Visitors communicate to them again and again about. "One is nuclear weapons and the other is climate," he says. He finds it significant that the mysterious "drones" first showed up over Bedminster, New Jersey where Trump's golf course is located, spreading out from there. "President Trump has said that he doesn't believe in climate change and he's not going to do anything about it. In fact, he's going to undo a lot of the things that have been done. The exact opposite of what they want."
He concludes, "I don't really know what will happen next, but I know this. We will continue to make up stories until they are finally sitting on the seat beside the President with their arms folded saying, 'You better listen guy because you are in a lot of trouble." Steiber's next final words on this were, "We the people aren't in trouble. We belong to the future. Every single one of us and all of our children. Remember this, the Visitors would not be trying on our behalf if they did not want us to survive." Well, that sounds like a better plan than what the aliens described in the old and new classic The Day the Earth Stood Still had up their sleeves for us.
Confusing times, eh? There's so many talking heads (us and aliens too?) spinning many different scenarios. Who do you believe? What do you believe? What should you believe?
"Tis a tangled web they weave," John Keel wrote my teenaged self-back in 1970, referring to the mischievous ultraterrestrials. "Small wonder that so few people have been able to deal with it effectively,"
To him the ultraterrestrials, down through human history, have worn many different masks; appeared in many different guises. He also borrowed from the occult world, calling them elementals. To him they were deceptive, the classic trickster. As Carl Jung wrote many years ago: "Something is seen, one doesn't know what."
I've been researching this thing myself for 58 years this month. I still don't have the big ultimate answer to this enigma. I'm not the only one though. We're all searching for it. Though some have been called UFO experts, I've never come across such an animal. But thousands of us since 1947, the beginning of the so-called "flying saucer era," have been driven to do the research and investigations needed to attempt to uncover who or what is the Oz that hides behind the curtain of this very strange mystery. We're convinced it's something real and significant, but it's so very damned complex, elusive, and with many moving parts. Too many moving parts actually.
"Something is seen, one doesn't know what."
Do you? Is this new drone flap revealing something new and unique, or is it the same old reality game, just presented in different packaging, upgraded from previous time periods? Remember the Airship waves of 1896-97, 1909-10, the Dance of the Sun at Fatima, Portugal in 1917, or Ezekiel's Wheel-within-a-Wheel in the Bible? Who is doing the packaging? Is it us, psychologically projecting onto natural phenomena, like Venus, Orion's Belt, and man-made machinery and objects in our skies that may be misinterpreted by some as something else.
While many witnesses make faulty observations, there remain a good number of credible witnesses through the years whose observations remain totally anomalous and unexplained.
Yup, that's right. "Something is seen," and though many times we can figure it out (Project Bluebook was right), but then again, the field of ufology continues to remain relevant because we indeed don't know the answers to all of it, to a remaining significant number of cases from all over the globe.
I'm hopeful we're getting closer to the ultimate big answer, though frustrating and challenging the endeavor often seems. But Oh, what the hell - on to the next case!
We mustn't stop now! I've got 58 years invested in this weird stuff. There may indeed be no fool like an old fool but there's another old saying, where there's smoke there's fire. Of course, if we're dealing with plasma energy forms, maybe intelligent plasmoids even, then we may be dealing with a curious smokeless fire!
Who knows. On to the next!
