Drone swarms inside the U.S. could be spying — and the ability to detect, track them is lagging

Officials in Washington have underestimated the threat posed by drones in U.S. airspace, despite several cases of mysterious drone swarms over sensitive military sites, warned Glen VanHerck, the former joint commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command.

Elusive drones flew over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia over 17 nights in December 2023, well before drones over New Jersey captured the attention of the nation late last year, yet the U.S. still doesn’t have policies and laws in place to deal with the swarms, retired U.S. Air Force general Glen VanHerck said. A senior official in the Biden White House later downplayed the Langley intrusions to 60 Minutes as likely the work of hobbyists, but VanHerck did not believe they were hobbyists based on the evidence he saw. 

“It certainly could have a foreign nexus, a threat nexus,” VanHerck said. “They could be doing anything, from surveilling critical infrastructure, just to the point of embarrassing us from the fact that they can do this on a day-to-day basis and then we’re not able to do anything about it.”

Last month, VanHerck’s successor, Gen. Gregory Guillot, testified during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that he needs increased authority to better protect military installations from drones.

“The primary threat I see for them in the way they’ve been operating is detection and perhaps surveillance of sensitive capabilities on our installations,” Guillot said. He did not say who was operating the drones. 

Drone swarm incidents date back years

U.S. Navy warships training off the California coast were shadowed by dozens of drones for weeks in 2019. For years, the Pentagon did little to dispel speculation that they were UFOs, even referring videos of them to their “UAP Task Force” for analysis, but ships’ logs show they were identified as drones at the time. The Navy suspected the drones came from a Hong Kong-flagged freighter sailing nearby, but couldn’t prove it.

Since then, The War Zone, a defense news site, has documented dozens of drone intrusions at sensitive infrastructure and military installations, including the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona and an experimental weapons site in Southern California where defense contractors are building the next generation of stealth bombers. 

In December of 2023, Jonathan Butner was at his family cabin on the James River in Virginia when he spotted what he describes as dozens of mysterious orbs over Langley Air Force Base, one of the most critical on the East Coast — home to dozens of F-22 Raptors. Butner said he’s familiar with different types of military aircraft. What he saw on Dec. 14, 2023, was unlike anything he had seen before. 

“They started really coming in, like, almost, like, on a conveyor belt,” Butner said. 

He took iPhone videos of the objects coming and going for nearly an hour and a half. Butner says he shared the video with the FBI for its investigation.

Retired four-star Gen. Mark Kelly was the highest-ranking officer at Langley to witness the swarm. A veteran fighter pilot, he identified them as drones, and says they varied in size, speed and altitude. 

“The smallest, you know, you’re talking about a commercial-size quadcopter,” Kelly said. “And then the largest ones are probably [the] size [of] what I would call a bass boat or a small car.”

Then, late last year in northern New Jersey, the Army confirmed 11 drone sightings starting in November over the Picatinny Arsenal where advanced weapons are designed and built. The sightings ignited a public frenzy, sparking reports of drones all over the region.

While much of the U.S. was fixated on New Jersey, another swarm of drones was disrupting operations at an air base in the U.K. where U.S. nuclear weapons have been stored. 

Prior to his Inauguration, President Trump promised to get to the bottom of the mysterious drone sightings over New Jersey and along the East Coast. In her first White House press briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt relayed an update she said was directly from President Trump: the drones were “authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons” and were “not the enemy.” 

Why the drones are a concern 

Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said it’s clear there’s a military intelligence aspect to the drone swarms. When 60 Minutes interviewed him in December, he said that the Pentagon and national security advisers are mystified by the swarms. 

There’s also a new wartime reality: drones that can spy can also destroy. In Russia and Ukraine, advanced aircraft have been destroyed by drones. Drones could do the same thing in the U.S., Gen. VanHerck said. 

“Absolutely it’s a concern. A small UAS (unmanned aircraft systems), or drones, can do a myriad of missions,” he said. 

Some of the F-22s stationed at Langley were moved to a nearby air base for their own protection. 

Hard to detect, track, shoot down

VanHerck, who was charged with protecting North American airspace at the time of the Langley incident, found himself ill-equipped to respond to the drone swarm. NORAD’s radar systems, designed during the Cold War to detect high-altitude air, space or missile attacks, were unable to detect low-flying drones that could be seen with the naked eye.

“They can come and go from any direction,” he said. “The FBI is looking at potential options. But they don’t have an answer right now.”

In overseas war zones, the U.S. military has broad authority to bring down menacing drones with gunfire, missiles and electronic jamming. Here at home, any of those actions would pose a threat to civilians on the ground and in the air. 

“Firing missiles in our homeland is not taken lightly,” VanHerck said. 

Guillot, who took control of NORAD and NORTHCOM last February, ordered a 90-day assessment of operations. He said a new strategy is needed to counter the threat of drones. 

“I think the threat got ahead of our ability to detect and track the threat. I think all eyes were, rightfully, overseas, where UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) were being used on one-way attack to attack U.S. and coalition service members.”

Federal Aviation Administration and NORAD surveillance technologies still lack the capabilities to detect a drone swarm at a low-altitude over a military facility in the U.S., he said.

In addition to the technological challenges, there’s the bureaucracy. When the drones flew outside the perimeter of Langley Air Force Base, other agencies had jurisdiction: the Coast Guard, FAA, FBI, and local police. There was no one agency in charge. 

This past November, Guillot was given the authority to cut through the red tape and coordinate counter drone efforts across multiple government agencies. He says new, more sensitive radar systems are being installed at strategic bases. NORTHCOM is developing the latest anti-drone technology to be delivered quickly by air to bases besieged by drones.

“My goal is inside of a year, that we would have the flyaway kit capability to augment the services and the installations if they’re necessary,” Guillot said. 

His predecessor, VanHerck, doesn’t believe there’s been a sense of urgency around the issue. 

“I think it’s because there’s a perception that this is fortress America: two oceans on the east and west, with friendly nations north and south, and nobody’s gonna attack our homeland,'” he said. “It’s time we move beyond that assumption.”