We Have Been Warned – Unidentified Drones Over Sensitive U.S. Installations At Home And Abroad

Some time back we reported that drones had swarmed over a variety of sensitive U.S. military bases in Virginia. The incursions continued for 17 days straight. No one ever identified where the drones were coming from or why they were there. The U.S. military seemed generally disinterested in finding out.

The incursions have not stopped. They have spread to other locations.

On November 18^th several unidentified large drones were detected over the U.S. Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in northern New Jersey. Military and police helicopters responded. The drones were not identified. No explanation for their appearance has been provided. The size of the drones and the duration of their flight times seem to indicate they were dramatically different from normal commercial or recreational aircraft.

Picatinny is home to several very sensitive U.S military research and development facilities like the Joint Center of Excellence for Guns and Ammunition, the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Armaments Center, and one of the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC)’s research and development laboratories. This is one of the places where the U.S. military is doing work on directed energy weapons. One of its projects involves firing a lightning bolt down a laser beam.  This is where our people are working hard to transform the very nature of warfare and give us a qualitative advantage over our adversaries.

It is the kind of place an enemy would really like to penetrate and from which our enemies would like to steal design data and technical specifications.

Now we are hearing that the same kind of drone incursions detected at multiple locations inside the United States are also occurring in the United Kingdom in the vicinity of sensitive American facilities there. Unidentified drones have been spotted over three airbases in Britain, the United States Air Force (USAF) has confirmed.

The incidents, which occurred last week, saw "small unmanned aerial systems" spotted over three British bases where U.S. assets are located Royal Air Force (RAF) base Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, and RAF Feltwell in the neighboring county of Norfolk. The U.S. Air Force has personnel and aircraft based at all three locations.

RAF Mildenhall is home to the U.S. Air Force’s refueling wing in Europe. Any long-range strikes on targets any significant distance from Britain, such as say in Russia, would have to involve aerial refueling and aircraft from this base.

RAF Lakenheath is home to USAF F-35A and F-15E fighter jets. These are aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons. RAF Feltwell is dedicated to logistical support for U.S. Air Force operations in the United Kingdom.

A U.S. Air Force spokesperson confirmed the drone intrusions but could provide no information on where the drones came from, what they were doing, or where they went.

Of note, RAF Lakenheath has been designated as a storage facility for US nuclear warheads and security is being enhanced there in preparation for receipt of those weapons. It has been fifteen years since the U.S. has based nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom. The U.S. also intends to put in missile defense batteries at this location.

Reports from the US indicate F-35 aircraft like those at Lakenheath have been cleared to carry the latest variant of the B61-12 thermonuclear bomb. According to the defense publication Janes, the B61-12 has an explosive power of up to 340 kilotons or more than twenty times that of the Hiroshima bomb.

The Air Force’s FY 2024 budgetary justification package, dated March 2023, noted the planned construction of a “surety dormitory” at RAF Lakenheath. “Surety” is a term commonly used within the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to refer to the protection of nuclear weapons. The justification documents showed that the Air Force would build a 144-bed dormitory to house enlisted personnel dedicated to the Surety mission.

Since Lakenheath previously housed nuclear weapons prior to their withdrawal in 2008 it already has advanced storage facilities for nuclear weapons. These include elevators that descend into concrete storage vaults each of which can house four nuclear weapons. A total of 33 such vaults exist at this location. As Harold Smith, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs stated in 2008, these vaults were “mothballed in such a way that if we chose to go back into those bases we can do it.”

All of this is happening against the backdrop of the dramatic escalation of tensions with Russia over the Ukraine war. Following Russia’s use of a nuclear-capable missile against Ukraine last week, NATO has now announced an emergency meeting with Ukraine on Tuesday to discuss next steps. In this context, only an idiot would think the continuing drone incursions are unrelated. Our enemies understand just how close to war we all are, and they are preparing to win. We have been warned.