Little Known Facts

Previously on OBSCURUM: Invasion of the Drones.

The items were in a I guess what you would call kind of a mesh bag, and then there was a frozen mass in there. They were picked up in an area where drones had been seen traversing, you know, back and forth.

So what do you really think is going on with all?

Though?

I don't know. But the weirdest thing is is, you know, people are seeing strange lights in this area forever.

I know that one sheriff's office put out a notice thing they wanted to have people looking for such and such a vehicle. Within an hour, that whole thing had been reversed and they said, there's nothing to see here.

Do you feel like this drone was targeting you specifically?

Yeah? Absolutely?

Yeah.

I took this alien blow up doll and I filled it full air and put it out in front of my house with Christmas lights on it, just so it's sparkled because everybody's driving around looking for these drones and this big old It lit up pretty good. So but I wanted to take some helium and put in it and hang it in Dead's cornfield to let it up there about one hundred feet in the air, but he said he'd get shot down.

So what started out is a few eerie reports about unknown objects in the nice sky was quickly sparking more coverage in local news outlets to add speculation into what was behind the sightings. By the first full weekend of twenty twenty, the mysterious aircraft were increasing an area in number. They now spread from northeast to Colorado and southwest Nebraska into central Nebraska and parts of Kansas. I learned a few key things. Witnesses may have been victims of illegal activity, strange aerial occurrences had happened in the region before the flying objects had chased vehicles, and if drones were dropping anything, they weren't dropping track logs. None of the unknown craft had posed a direct threat to scheduled flights, but that was about to change when something nearly collided with a helicopter Chapter seven Game of Drones.

It was a routine medical call out East when a mission to save a life almost ended in disaster.

And a drone just went right underneath us, probably about one hundred feet.

It all happened within a couple of seconds. Like for Life pilot Kirk People's.

It happens very very fast.

Couldn't even see what type of drone it was.

They're not telling anybody who they are, where they're going, what they're doing.

When the sun sets, people's and the team rely on night vision goggles and each other.

I watched a video of the report, then work to set up an interview with an FAA official. Coincidentally, while coordinating the time, I heard about a cluster of unexplained aircraft that was even more concerning. These were spotted near Denver International Airport, where planes constantly take off and land. After a few emails, I was put in touch with Commander Carl Smalley of the Adams County Sheriff's Department in Strasburg.

When you first started to hear about these things, what did you think was going on? I didn't really know because we've had we've had so many reports. There's definitely something there. On January fourth, one of our deputy's deputy bishop received a call for service. He was able to see several strange lights in the area that appeared briefly stationary and then would move in various and random directions. He tried to count the number of objects with the same light pattern he was guessed in the elevation to be about three to five hundred feet.

With his description of strange lights, Smally was careful when giving information about the craft.

Were these things drones? He said, Well, I couldn't tell for sure. Okay, yeah, I get that. I mean, all we got to do is just report the facts, you know, referred to as objects with the same light pattern. Well, he was trying to count the objects, you know. It says that he heard a buzzing sound, and of course it was a real windy night, so that's really odd that they would be out flying on a windy night. So they disappeared just as quickly as they had appeared. That location there is probably about ten miles east of Denver International Airport.

I could tell Commander Smally wanted answers just as much as me. My next conversation was with Bill Bowerley, with his experience flying in and out of DIA, he'd have a unique point of view on what I learned. What do you know about drones in defense? Like as far as like if a drone would come into an airspace like it DIA.

I know of nothing there. The only thing I can tell you is from my profession. The big area we had trouble was a quarter going into New York. We had a lot of near missage of airlines coming in on final approach, so many miles out, so they're down low, and drones want to go and by the windshield, you know, one of those going in an engine, even though it's gonna be a couple of pounds, can take that engine out. That engine can take out another part of the airplane and bring an airplane. So I don't know what the defense mechanisms they've got for them. The rumor and some of the articles we had access to said the Israelis aircraft had basically transmitters around the airplane that put a bubble around it so that if anything got within so a certain distance of that airplane, that transmitter would break the ground control of it. Great idea, but don't certainly have to have somebody controlling them. They could be pre programmed.

There was another scenario I wanted to run by Bill. Commander Smalley's deputy seemed sure the unknown aircraft he'd seen weren't tiny airplanes, but could they be? After all, they were seen near the third busiest airport in the world.

What's the percentage of people that actually saw something that was a drone and not an airplane or a satellite or a star or anything else. You know, it's tough. It's tough to say, yeah, that's one right there. That's why I don't trust my naked eye on it, because I've been fooled. I mean, flying into Europe, you're coming out at nighttime, the sun is coming up, which happens very fast. It goes from dark all of a sudden, you start getting light. You get the morning star. Venus pops up first, one up and as it comes through the atmosphere, you're traveling east. It's traveling this way, and the rotation of the Earth makes sunrise happen extremely fast. I have won a lot of bets for who's going to buy the refreshments and that that is not an airplane, that's a planet because it's setting there, blinking off and on red white, red white, red white, red white, red white, red white, bah it's Venus. It's moving through that atmosphere so fast going upward that it changes and it looks like it's blinking. I mean, I first time I would have believed so relate that to this and there's some of this is like explanations and it is not a drum. But people, I think tend to believe what they want to go out and believe.

Chapter eight brush. When I finished talking with Bill, I checked the social media group brod Miller and his crew were active on. There were now hundreds of people sharing candid observations about the sightings. Before I had time to go through the posts, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor agreed to visit with me.

I bet you've just been Yeah, just been totally flaunted. Yeah, pretty much in your investigations so far into what's been happening in northeast color Out. Have any laws been broken?

I've given that we don't have any real concrete evidence of what's been occurring. I do not want to speculate about anything to do with these reports. I just I don't want to weigh in on whether it's something does or does not or Quota could not comply with the regulations, because you know, absence concrete reports is really nothing to base the determination on it this time. Sorry, I'm meant to say concrete evidence. I really don't want to speculate it. I really don't want to speculate about whether you know something whether a report of a certain activity would potentially comply or violate the regulations, because we just don't have any any concrete evidence to base an assessment on at this time.

What confirmation and evidence have you seen that would suggest that these in fact or ones or could they be something else?

Well, you know, at this point, we have reports, we don't have any concrete evidence. So, you know, rather than try to speculate about what people might be seeing, I'm just gonna I'll just say that at this point, we don't know.

Ian told me he had no idea what was happening in the airspace the FAA regulates. Given the number of sidings that was disturbing.

We can see flocks of birds on weather radar.

Would you.

Not be able to see what people are describing as six to nine foot drones on radar?

Well, there's a couple of things at play here. First of all, if you're not near an airport, the purpose of radar is to look way up into the sky to track aircraft. If you are closer to an airport, you know radar would radar does catch your aircraft that are closer to the ground. But you know, a small a small object such as a drone typically would not get picked up on the regular radar.

There was a report out of Fort Morgan that a helicopter was flying Flight for Life and had a drone come within one hundred feet of that aircraft. Would that constitute an f AA violation?

One of the one of the key rules for drone operation is that you cannot interfere with the flight of any manned aircraft. You know, we in twenty nineteen, we you know, it's not it's not uncommon for pilots to report drones in flight. We received about twenty one and fifty drone siding reports from pilots nationwide in twenty nineteen. And well, you know, we don't doubt the veracity of the reports that we received. We're not able to validate the mind.

What is your you know what?

Hang on kind of day?

There you go.

While we while we don't doubt the veracity of the reports we see we receive, we're not unable. So boy or boy, try that one more time.

You're great.

While we're while we don't doubt the veracity of the reports so that we receive, we are unable to verify the vast majority of them.

As I listened to Ian, I couldn't help but feel as if he'd been briefed on what to say.

And I know, and I understand, there was an aircraft that went up and tried to gather some some data based on these reports. Can you can you explain a little bit more about that?

You know, going forward, we are not going to talk about any of the details of the initiatives that that any of us undertake to try to get to the bottom of what's going on.

When Ian and I finished visiting, I was connected to Mickey Trost from the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management to get perspective on the ongoing investigation.

There was an airplane that went up last night to investigate. Can you tell me a little bit more about the plane and what exactly happened.

So, the Colorado Department of Public Safety has several divisions. All of these divisions are supporting the efforts to identify what's happening with the drones in Northeast Colorado. So as part of that, we have technology and experts that are supporting the efforts. But because it's an investigation, I can't go into any of the specifics from that technology or what they're finding or how they're finding information.

To this point, Nicky works as the strategic communications director. At first, she wouldn't share many specifics. I pushed harder, is there anything.

That would suggest outside of the planes that these are in fact drones?

You know, last night as part of joy In operations, we were able to get all of those calls from the local community, send folks out to identify them, and we did not identify any verified drones last night during any of the operations.

If Homeland Security couldn't verify these aircraft or drones, then what was everyone seeing.

We have analysts who pull together information from local, state, and federal partners and verify it, analyze it, and turn it into actionable intelligence for local law enforcement.

To work offers.

There are all these agencies that are involved with this. We're going on, I believe week four now. How can those divisions in Colorado not be aware of something that could potentially be picked up on radar?

I would say that we are aware that something is happening that isn't part of the discussion. What we are trying to do is work with all of the partners in this joint operation to identify what is happening. Is it truly drones? You know, we've had several of the objects of the drones that have been reported that are simply commercial aircraft. Really, we have to either find one of the drone operators or be able to get something to absolutely verify what is happening in Colorado.

It seemed like there was confusion in many unanswered questions. I felt like these agencies should have a better handle on what was happening.

Do you feel as though this could be some type of government agency or foreign power controlling these drones?

I can't answer that. We haven't been able to identify at this point who it is, and our partners have shared that they are not involved in the activity, So that is what we currently are operating from.

I started hearing rumblings of a meeting that was set to take place in Brush, Colorado. Apparently there were going to be representatives from at least seventy agencies, including the Air Force, FAA, and FBI, to discuss one topic, drones. I did everything I could to be there, but I wasn't allowed inside. The first piece of information to come out of the January sixth meeting was the following message posted to the Phillips County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.

A strategy meeting was held today in Brush, Colorado, with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies regarding the drone issue. None of the agencies can confirm that the drones are malicious. A task force has been organized and we are asking for your assistance. Specifically, we are looking for the command vehicle. We are looking for a closed box trailer with antennas or a large van that does not belong in the area. If you see anything that resembles this description, please call the Phillips County Sheriff's Office.

Two days later, on January eighth, a separate message was shared on the same page.

The information in the Phillips County Sheriff's Office previously posted requesting the public's assistance and locating command vehicles associated with the drone issue is no longer pertinent or irrelevant. The Phillips County Sheriff's Office is not the task force, and our jurisdiction does not extend past Phillips County, Colorado. We will no longer be making any statements or press releases about the drone incidents. Thank you.

In the posted comments, many folks pose the same questions. Had someone told the Sheriff's department to retract the post? I was able to get Commander Smally to shed some light on the situation.

Were you at that FAA task force meeting in Brush was? What was your takeaway from that and how did the whole task force help with the situation.

We had a big, big turnout. People were getting scared. I mean, there was a guy from FAA there that said that they had reports of shots fired at drones. There was I guess the report that there was one shot down in Nebraska. Somebody admitted to it but later said he just wanted to attention on social media. That's right, So that didn't pan out. Sheriff Elliott and Phillips County had a report, you know, a couple of bands with a report of drones located at a gas station up there in Phillips County had a Nebraska license plate. They've had reports of a van in you Ma County. The driver didn't want to make any eye contact with the cops. You know, Oh, if I don't look at him, you won't see me.

This sounded like a scene straight out of the Jason Bourne films. Only thing missing was the Treadstone logo branded on the side of those vans.

Question came up, can they be controlled by his satellite? It's possible. They also talked about could this be a government agency that's doing this. Well, obviously everybody's denying that. I mean, we had guys from the FBI there, FAA, Homeland Security. The FBI says they have no information that this is occurring.

With everyone at the meeting. Something had to have been said about that special plane used to search for drums.

Colorado has what they call a multi mission aircraft, they call it an MMA, and it's utilized a lot for wildfires, so they can go out and map that by air. We thought, oh, this is this would be a good use for it. So they went out and flew this, I think for two nights and come up with nothing. They can pinpoint of a stray cap in the middle of a wildfire somewhere. Oddly enough, as our Air Force representative this meeting didn't seem to be a bit concerned about them, So that's odd. So we have more questions than answer here.

Have you had any follow up from that task force meeting?

Did the FAA.

Follow up or did that kind of fizzle out.

This thought, I mean fizzled out, and we haven't heard another peak pen.

Following the meeting in Brush, the Colorado Department of Public Safety released a report breaking down the mysterious drone sightings. It was presented in two main parts. The first focused on all the reports received in Colorado, and the second analyzed data gathered during a field investigation. The information was a bit confusing. I did my best to break it down. From November twenty third to January thirteenth, twenty twenty, there were ninety drone reports. Of those, fourteen were confirmed to be hobbyist drones and none fit the description of large wingspan drones traveling in groups in eastern Colorado. When the Colorado Department of Public Safety conducted its field investigation from January sixth to January thirteenth, there were twenty three drone reports. Thirteen of those were determined to be planets, stars, or small hobbyist drones, six were ruled as atmospheric conditions or airplanes, and four four were confirmed to be sightings of something, but officials weren't able to figure out what witnesses saw. Stan Hioke, the executive director, of the CDPs was quoted as saying, despite all of the reported activity, we're still unaware of any crime being committed. Well, I can't conclusively say that we've solved the mystery. We have been able to rule out a lot of the activity that was causing concern. Math may not have been my strongest subject in school, but I could tell there were still a large number of reports from before the CDPs field operation that didn't appear to be analyzed, and that was just in Colorado. Groups of mysterious aircraft continued to be seen nightly by hundreds, if not thousands of people through January fifteenth, twenty twenty. While sightings decreased after that, many folks continued to see weird objects in the night sky. I wasn't able to assess what I didn't know, but going forward, I couldn't rely on government agencies I'd connected with to share transparent information related to the sidings. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, it was time for me to stop covering this mystery and begin actively investigating it. I owed it to my hometown to get answers, and I wasn't stopping until I had them coming up on obscure invasion of the drums.

Is that gunshots are He was saying, there were the ones you know that we're doing this stuff.

Now something found out more from it, and they just kind of.

Disappear, he wrote, rather than going out at night to look up at the lights, look at the ground to see what these drums are hunting. We want to hear from you if you have any information surrounding the events detailed in this podcast or other obscure stories in rural America we should look into. Please visit our website at obscurumseries.com and send us an email. To connect with us. On social media, you can follow @obscurum_series and @gabelenners on all social platforms. OBSCURUM is produced by Imagine Entertainment and Lenners Entertainment for iHeartMedia. This series is written, hosted, and produced by Me Gabe Lenners. It's executive produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Carl Welker, Nathan Kloke, Nicki Etour and Me. Additional production by Jacob Plough. Music and sound effects courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Brand management and digital design by Labyrinth Brand Co. Video editing by Alex Semi Kopenko. This project was mixed and mastered by Jacob Plough. Special thanks to Dan Bodanski, Josh Hiller, Keeton Storts, Bryson Keyes, Ailey Birchfield, Dave vid Wasserman, Katrina Norvel and my family. OBSCURUM: Invasion of the Drones is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Follow now.