A fleet of unidentified drones reportedly breached restricted airspace at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia for 17 consecutive days last year, baffling military officials and raising national security concerns.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A mysterious fleet of drones swarmed restricted airspace at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia for 17 straight days last December, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The drones, which entered the airspace nightly, have left Pentagon officials perplexed as to their origin, raising concerns about national security and defense vulnerabilities.
U.S. military personnel stationed at the base, located along Virginia’s coast, reported seeing the drones arriving around 45 minutes to an hour after sunset each night. The unmanned aircraft flew over a stretch of restricted land at Langley, home to some of the U.S. Air Force’s most advanced fighter jets, including the F-22 Raptors.
Air Force General Mark Kelly, who witnessed one of the first drones, described it as being about 20 feet long, flying at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour and maintaining an altitude of approximately 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Kelly recounted that up to a dozen drones followed, crossing Chesapeake Bay toward Norfolk, Virginia. The fleet passed through airspace overlooking the base for the Navy’s SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval base in the world, according to the Wall Street Journal report.
Military officials have yet to determine who was behind the drone activity. Speculation has ranged from hobbyists to adversaries such as China or Russia, but no conclusive evidence has been found. The incidents caught the attention of top U.S. officials, prompting two weeks of high-level meetings at the White House in December 2023. Those discussions involved the Defense Department, the FBI, and the Pentagon’s UFO office, along with external experts, all of whom were tasked with assessing the potential threat posed by the drone fleet.
The Wall Street Journal report notes that this was not the first time restricted U.S. airspace had been breached by drones. Just two months prior, five mysterious drones violated airspace over a government nuclear weapons experiment site in Nevada. Four of those drones were detected by the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site near Las Vegas, while the fifth was observed by employees on the ground. Despite upgrading their detection systems, authorities have not yet identified those responsible for the Nevada incident.
The Pentagon has not officially commented on the Virginia drone swarm, and when Fox News Digital reached out for further information, the Department of Defense referred inquiries to Langley Air Force Base. However, Langley officials did not immediately respond. Similarly, the White House has also remained silent on the matter.
The unresolved drone activity has raised serious concerns about the U.S. military’s ability to secure its airspace from unidentified aircraft, leaving officials scrambling to better understand and counter the growing threats posed by advanced unmanned aerial systems.
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