Speaker 1: Previously on OBSCURUM: Invasion of the Drones.
Speaker 2: The items were in a I guess what you would
Speaker 2: call kind of a mesh bag, and then there was
Speaker 2: a frozen mass in there. They were picked up in
Speaker 2: an area where drones had been seen traversing, you know,
Speaker 2: back and forth.
Speaker 3: So what do you really think is going on with all?
Speaker 4: Though?
Speaker 5: I don't know. But the weirdest thing is is, you know,
Speaker 5: people are seeing strange lights in this area forever.
Speaker 6: I know that one sheriff's office put out a notice
Speaker 6: thing they wanted to have people looking for such and
Speaker 6: such a vehicle. Within an hour, that whole thing had
Speaker 6: been reversed and they said, there's nothing to see here.
Speaker 5: Do you feel like this drone was targeting you specifically?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I took this alien blow up doll and I filled
Speaker 7: it full air and put it out in front of
Speaker 7: my house with Christmas lights on it, just so it's
Speaker 7: sparkled because everybody's driving around looking for these drones and
Speaker 7: this big old It lit up pretty good. So but
Speaker 7: I wanted to take some helium and put in it
Speaker 7: and hang it in Dead's cornfield to let it up
Speaker 7: there about one hundred feet in the air, but he
Speaker 7: said he'd get shot down.
Speaker 1: So what started out is a few eerie reports about
Speaker 1: unknown objects in the nice sky was quickly sparking more
Speaker 1: coverage in local news outlets to add speculation into what
Speaker 1: was behind the sightings. By the first full weekend of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, the mysterious aircraft were increasing an area in number.
Speaker 1: They now spread from northeast to Colorado and southwest Nebraska
Speaker 1: into central Nebraska and parts of Kansas. I learned a
Speaker 1: few key things. Witnesses may have been victims of illegal activity,
Speaker 1: strange aerial occurrences had happened in the region before the
Speaker 1: flying objects had chased vehicles, and if drones were dropping anything,
Speaker 1: they weren't dropping track logs. None of the unknown craft
Speaker 1: had posed a direct threat to scheduled flights, but that
Speaker 1: was about to change when something nearly collided with a
Speaker 1: helicopter Chapter seven Game of Drones.
Speaker 8: It was a routine medical call out East when a
Speaker 8: mission to save a life almost ended in disaster.
Speaker 7: And a drone just went right underneath us, probably about
Speaker 7: one hundred feet.
Speaker 8: It all happened within a couple of seconds. Like for
Speaker 8: Life pilot Kirk People's.
Speaker 1: It happens very very fast.
Speaker 8: Couldn't even see what type of drone it was.
Speaker 7: They're not telling anybody who they are, where they're going,
Speaker 7: what they're doing.
Speaker 8: When the sun sets, people's and the team rely on
Speaker 8: night vision goggles and each other.
Speaker 1: I watched a video of the report, then work to
Speaker 1: set up an interview with an FAA official. Coincidentally, while
Speaker 1: coordinating the time, I heard about a cluster of unexplained
Speaker 1: aircraft that was even more concerning. These were spotted near
Speaker 1: Denver International Airport, where planes constantly take off and land.
Speaker 1: After a few emails, I was put in touch with
Speaker 1: Commander Carl Smalley of the Adams County Sheriff's Department in Strasburg.
Speaker 4: When you first started to hear about these things, what
Speaker 4: did you think was going on? I didn't really know
Speaker 4: because we've had we've had so many reports. There's definitely
Speaker 4: something there. On January fourth, one of our deputy's deputy
Speaker 4: bishop received a call for service. He was able to
Speaker 4: see several strange lights in the area that appeared briefly
Speaker 4: stationary and then would move in various and random directions.
Speaker 4: He tried to count the number of objects with the
Speaker 4: same light pattern he was guessed in the elevation to
Speaker 4: be about three to five hundred feet.
Speaker 1: With his description of strange lights, Smally was careful when
Speaker 1: giving information about the craft.
Speaker 4: Were these things drones? He said, Well, I couldn't tell
Speaker 4: for sure. Okay, yeah, I get that. I mean, all
Speaker 4: we got to do is just report the facts, you know,
Speaker 4: referred to as objects with the same light pattern. Well,
Speaker 4: he was trying to count the objects, you know. It
Speaker 4: says that he heard a buzzing sound, and of course
Speaker 4: it was a real windy night, so that's really odd
Speaker 4: that they would be out flying on a windy night.
Speaker 4: So they disappeared just as quickly as they had appeared.
Speaker 4: That location there is probably about ten miles east of
Speaker 4: Denver International Airport.
Speaker 1: I could tell Commander Smally wanted answers just as much
Speaker 1: as me. My next conversation was with Bill Bowerley, with
Speaker 1: his experience flying in and out of DIA, he'd have
Speaker 1: a unique point of view on what I learned. What
Speaker 1: do you know about drones in defense? Like as far
Speaker 1: as like if a drone would come into an airspace
Speaker 1: like it DIA.
Speaker 9: I know of nothing there. The only thing I can
Speaker 9: tell you is from my profession. The big area we
Speaker 9: had trouble was a quarter going into New York. We
Speaker 9: had a lot of near missage of airlines coming in
Speaker 9: on final approach, so many miles out, so they're down low,
Speaker 9: and drones want to go and by the windshield, you know,
Speaker 9: one of those going in an engine, even though it's
Speaker 9: gonna be a couple of pounds, can take that engine out.
Speaker 9: That engine can take out another part of the airplane
Speaker 9: and bring an airplane. So I don't know what the
Speaker 9: defense mechanisms they've got for them. The rumor and some
Speaker 9: of the articles we had access to said the Israelis
Speaker 9: aircraft had basically transmitters around the airplane that put a
Speaker 9: bubble around it so that if anything got within so
Speaker 9: a certain distance of that airplane, that transmitter would break
Speaker 9: the ground control of it. Great idea, but don't certainly
Speaker 9: have to have somebody controling them. They could be pre programmed.
Speaker 1: There was another scenario I wanted to run by Bill.
Speaker 1: Commander Smalley's deputy seemed sure the unknown aircraft he'd seen
Speaker 1: weren't tiny airplanes, but could they be? After all, they
Speaker 1: were seen near the third busiest airport in the world.
Speaker 9: What's the percentage of people that actually saw something that
Speaker 9: was a drone and not an airplane or a satellite
Speaker 9: or a star or anything else. You know, it's tough.
Speaker 9: It's tough to say, yeah, that's one right there. That's
Speaker 9: why I don't trust my naked eye on it, because
Speaker 9: I've been fooled. I mean, flying into Europe, you're coming
Speaker 9: out at nighttime, the sun is coming up, which happens
Speaker 9: very fast. It goes from dark all of a sudden,
Speaker 9: you start getting light. You get the morning star. Venus
Speaker 9: pops up first, one up and as it comes through
Speaker 9: the atmosphere, you're traveling east. It's traveling this way, and
Speaker 9: the rotation of the Earth makes sunrise happen extremely fast.
Speaker 9: I have won a lot of bets for who's going
Speaker 9: to buy the refreshments and that that is not an airplane,
Speaker 9: that's a planet because it's setting there, blinking off and
Speaker 9: on red white, red white, red white, red white, red white,
Speaker 9: red white, bah it's Venus. It's moving through that atmosphere
Speaker 9: so fast going upward that it changes and it looks
Speaker 9: like it's blinking. I mean, I first time I would
Speaker 9: have believed so relate that to this and there's some
Speaker 9: of this is like explanations and it is not a drum.
Speaker 9: But people, I think tend to believe what they want
Speaker 9: to go out and believe.
Speaker 1: Chapter eight brush. When I finished talking with Bill, I
Speaker 1: checked the social media group brod Miller and his crew
Speaker 1: were active on. There were now hundreds of people sharing
Speaker 1: candid observations about the sightings. Before I had time to
Speaker 1: go through the posts, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor agreed to
Speaker 1: visit with me.
Speaker 5: I bet you've just been Yeah, just been totally flaunted. Yeah,
Speaker 5: pretty much in your investigations so far into what's been
Speaker 5: happening in northeast color Out. Have any laws been broken?
Speaker 10: I've given that we don't have any real concrete evidence
Speaker 10: of what's been occurring. I do not want to speculate
Speaker 10: about anything to do with these reports. I just I
Speaker 10: don't want to weigh in on whether it's something does
Speaker 10: or does not or Quota could not comply with the regulations,
Speaker 10: because you know, absence concrete reports is really nothing to
Speaker 10: base the determination on it this time. Sorry, I'm meant
Speaker 10: to say concrete evidence. I really don't want to speculate it.
Speaker 10: I really don't want to speculate about whether you know
Speaker 10: something whether a report of a certain activity would potentially
Speaker 10: comply or violate the regulations, because we just don't have
Speaker 10: any any concrete evidence to base an assessment on at
Speaker 10: this time.
Speaker 5: What confirmation and evidence have you seen that would suggest
Speaker 5: that these in fact or ones or could they be
Speaker 5: something else?
Speaker 10: Well, you know, at this point, we have reports, we
Speaker 10: don't have any concrete evidence. So, you know, rather than
Speaker 10: try to speculate about what people might be seeing, I'm
Speaker 10: just gonna I'll just say that at this point, we
Speaker 10: don't know.
Speaker 1: Ian told me he had no idea what was happening
Speaker 1: in the airspace the FAA regulates. Given the number of
Speaker 1: sidings that was disturbing.
Speaker 5: We can see flocks of birds on weather radar.
Speaker 4: Would you.
Speaker 5: Not be able to see what people are describing as
Speaker 5: six to nine foot drones on radar?
Speaker 10: Well, there's a couple of things at play here. First
Speaker 10: of all, if you're not near an airport, the purpose
Speaker 10: of radar is to look way up into the sky
Speaker 10: to track aircraft. If you are closer to an airport,
Speaker 10: you know radar would radar does catch your aircraft that
Speaker 10: are closer to the ground. But you know, a small
Speaker 10: a small object such as a drone typically would not
Speaker 10: get picked up on the regular radar.
Speaker 5: There was a report out of Fort Morgan that a
Speaker 5: helicopter was flying Flight for Life and had a drone
Speaker 5: come within one hundred feet of that aircraft. Would that
Speaker 5: constitute an f AA violation?
Speaker 10: One of the one of the key rules for drone
Speaker 10: operation is that you cannot interfere with the flight of
Speaker 10: any manned aircraft. You know, we in twenty nineteen, we
Speaker 10: you know, it's not it's not uncommon for pilots to
Speaker 10: report drones in flight. We received about twenty one and
Speaker 10: fifty drone siding reports from pilots nationwide in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 10: And well, you know, we don't doubt the veracity of
Speaker 10: the reports that we received. We're not able to validate
Speaker 10: the mind.
Speaker 5: What is your you know what?
Speaker 10: Hang on kind of day?
Speaker 5: There you go.
Speaker 10: While we while we don't doubt the veracity of the
Speaker 10: reports we see we receive, we're not unable. So boy
Speaker 10: or boy, try that one more time.
Speaker 4: You're great.
Speaker 10: While we're while we don't doubt the veracity of the
Speaker 10: reports so that we receive, we are unable to verify
Speaker 10: the vast majority of them.
Speaker 1: As I listened to Ian, I couldn't help but feel
Speaker 1: as if he'd been briefed on what to say.
Speaker 5: And I know, and I understand, there was an aircraft
Speaker 5: that went up and tried to gather some some data
Speaker 5: based on these reports. Can you can you explain a
Speaker 5: little bit more about that?
Speaker 10: You know, going forward, we are not going to talk
Speaker 10: about any of the details of the initiatives that that
Speaker 10: any of us undertake to try to get to the
Speaker 10: bottom of what's going on.
Speaker 1: When Ian and I finished visiting, I was connected to
Speaker 1: Mickey Trost from the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and
Speaker 1: Emergency Management to get perspective on the ongoing investigation.
Speaker 5: There was an airplane that went up last night to investigate.
Speaker 5: Can you tell me a little bit more about the
Speaker 5: plane and what exactly happened.
Speaker 3: So, the Colorado Department of Public Safety has several divisions.
Speaker 3: All of these divisions are supporting the efforts to identify
Speaker 3: what's happening with the drones in Northeast Colorado. So as
Speaker 3: part of that, we have technology and experts that are
Speaker 3: supporting the efforts. But because it's an investigation, I can't
Speaker 3: go into any of the specifics from that technology or
Speaker 3: what they're finding or how they're finding information.
Speaker 1: To this point, Nicky works as the strategic communications director.
Speaker 1: At first, she wouldn't share many specifics. I pushed harder,
Speaker 1: is there anything.
Speaker 5: That would suggest outside of the planes that these are
Speaker 5: in fact drones?
Speaker 3: You know, last night as part of joy In operations,
Speaker 3: we were able to get all of those calls from
Speaker 3: the local community, send folks out to identify them, and
Speaker 3: we did not identify any verified drones last night during
Speaker 3: any of the operations.
Speaker 1: If Homeland Security couldn't verify these aircraft or drones, then
Speaker 1: what was everyone seeing.
Speaker 3: We have analysts who pull together information from local, state,
Speaker 3: and federal partners and verify it, analyze it, and turn
Speaker 3: it into actionable intelligence for local law enforcement.
Speaker 10: To work offers.
Speaker 5: There are all these agencies that are involved with this.
Speaker 5: We're going on, I believe week four now. How can
Speaker 5: those divisions in Colorado not be aware of something that
Speaker 5: could potentially be picked up on radar?
Speaker 3: I would say that we are aware that something is
Speaker 3: happening that isn't part of the discussion. What we are
Speaker 3: trying to do is work with all of the partners
Speaker 3: in this joint operation to identify what is happening. Is
Speaker 3: it truly drones? You know, we've had several of the
Speaker 3: objects of the drones that have been reported that are
Speaker 3: simply commercial aircraft. Really, we have to either find one
Speaker 3: of the drone operators or be able to get something
Speaker 3: to absolutely verify what is happening in Colorado.
Speaker 1: It seemed like there was confusion in many unanswered questions.
Speaker 1: I felt like these agencies should have a better handle
Speaker 1: on what was happening.
Speaker 5: Do you feel as though this could be some type
Speaker 5: of government agency or foreign power controlling these drones?
Speaker 3: I can't answer that. We haven't been able to identify
Speaker 3: at this point who it is, and our partners have
Speaker 3: shared that they are not involved in the activity, So
Speaker 3: that is what we currently are operating from.
Speaker 1: I started hearing rumblings of a meeting that was set
Speaker 1: to take place in Brush, Colorado. Apparently there were going
Speaker 1: to be representatives from at least seventy agencies, including the
Speaker 1: Air Force, FAA, and FBI, to discuss one topic, drones.
Speaker 1: I did everything I could to be there, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed inside. The first piece of information to come
Speaker 1: out of the January sixth meeting was the following message
Speaker 1: posted to the Phillips County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.
Speaker 11: A strategy meeting was held today in Brush, Colorado, with federal, state,
Speaker 11: and local law enforcement agencies regarding the drone issue. None
Speaker 11: of the agencies can confirm that the drones are malicious.
Speaker 11: A task force has been organized and we are asking
Speaker 11: for your assistance. Specifically, we are looking for the command vehicle.
Speaker 11: We are looking for a closed box trailer with antennas
Speaker 11: or a large van that does not belong in the area.
Speaker 11: If you see anything that resembles this description, please call
Speaker 11: the Phillips County Sheriff's Office.
Speaker 1: Two days later, on January eighth, a separate message was
Speaker 1: shared on the same page.
Speaker 11: The information in the Phillips County Sheriff's Office previously posted
Speaker 11: requesting the public's assistance and locating command vehicles associated with
Speaker 11: the drone issue is no longer pertinent or irrelevant. The
Speaker 11: Phillips County Sheriff's Office is not the task force, and
Speaker 11: our jurisdiction does not extend past Phillips County, Colorado. We
Speaker 11: will no longer be making any statements or press releases
Speaker 11: about the drone incidents. Thank you.
Speaker 1: In the posted comments, many folks pose the same questions.
Speaker 1: Had someone told the Sheriff's department to retract the post?
Speaker 1: I was able to get Commander Smally to shed some
Speaker 1: light on the situation.
Speaker 5: Were you at that FAA task force meeting in Brush was?
Speaker 5: What was your takeaway from that and how did the
Speaker 5: whole task force help with the situation.
Speaker 4: We had a big, big turnout. People were getting scared.
Speaker 4: I mean, there was a guy from FAA there that
Speaker 4: said that they had reports of shots fired at drones.
Speaker 4: There was I guess the report that there was one
Speaker 4: shot down in Nebraska. Somebody admitted to it but later
Speaker 4: said he just wanted to attention on social media. That's right,
Speaker 4: So that didn't pan out. Sheriff Elliott and Phillips County
Speaker 4: had a report, you know, a couple of bands with
Speaker 4: a report of drones located at a gas station up
Speaker 4: there in Phillips County had a Nebraska license plate. They've
Speaker 4: had reports of a van in you Ma County. The
Speaker 4: driver didn't want to make any eye contact with the cops.
Speaker 4: You know, Oh, if I don't look at him, you
Speaker 4: won't see me.
Speaker 1: This sounded like a scene straight out of the Jason
Speaker 1: Bourne films. Only thing missing was the Treadstone logo branded
Speaker 1: on the side of those vans.
Speaker 4: Question came up, can they be controlled by his satellite?
Speaker 4: It's possible. They also talked about could this be a
Speaker 4: government agency that's doing this. Well, obviously everybody's denying that.
Speaker 4: I mean, we had guys from the FBI there, FAA,
Speaker 4: Homeland Security. The FBI says they have no information that
Speaker 4: this is occurring.
Speaker 1: With everyone at the meeting. Something had to have been
Speaker 1: said about that special plane used to search for drums.
Speaker 4: Colorado has what they call a multi mission aircraft, they
Speaker 4: call it an MMA, and it's utilized a lot for wildfires,
Speaker 4: so they can go out and map that by air.
Speaker 4: We thought, oh, this is this would be a good
Speaker 4: use for it. So they went out and flew this,
Speaker 4: I think for two nights and come up with nothing.
Speaker 4: They can pinpoint of a stray cap in the middle
Speaker 4: of a wildfire somewhere. Oddly enough, as our Air Force
Speaker 4: representative this meeting didn't seem to be a bit concerned
Speaker 4: about them, So that's odd. So we have more questions
Speaker 4: than answer here.
Speaker 5: Have you had any follow up from that task force meeting?
Speaker 4: Did the FAA.
Speaker 5: Follow up or did that kind of fizzle out.
Speaker 4: This thought, I mean fizzled out, and we haven't heard
Speaker 4: another peak pen.
Speaker 1: Following the meeting in Brush, the Colorado Department of Public
Speaker 1: Safety released a report breaking down the mysterious drone sightings.
Speaker 1: It was presented in two main parts. The first focused
Speaker 1: on all the reports received in Colorado, and the second
Speaker 1: analyzed data gathered during a field investigation. The information was
Speaker 1: a bit confusing. I did my best to break it down.
Speaker 1: From November twenty third to January thirteenth, twenty twenty, there
Speaker 1: were ninety drone reports. Of those, fourteen were confirmed to
Speaker 1: be hobbyist drones and none fit the description of large
Speaker 1: wingspan drones traveling in groups in eastern Colorado. When the
Speaker 1: Colorado Department of Public Safety conducted its field investigation from
Speaker 1: January sixth to January thirteenth, there were twenty three drone reports.
Speaker 1: Thirteen of those were determined to be planets, stars, or
Speaker 1: small hobbyist drones, six were ruled as atmosphereic conditions or airplanes,
Speaker 1: and four four were confirmed to be sightings of something,
Speaker 1: but officials weren't able to figure out what witnesses saw.
Speaker 1: Stan Hioke, the executive director, of the CDPs was quoted
Speaker 1: as saying, despite all of the reported activity, we're still
Speaker 1: unaware of any crime being committed. Well, I can't conclusively
Speaker 1: say that we've solved the mystery. We have been able
Speaker 1: to rule out a lot of the activity that was
Speaker 1: causing concern. Math may not have been my strongest subject
Speaker 1: in school, but I could tell there were still a
Speaker 1: large number of reports from before the CDPs field operation
Speaker 1: that didn't appear to be analyzed, and that was just
Speaker 1: in Colorado. Groups of mysterious aircraft continued to be seen
Speaker 1: nightly by hundreds, if not thousands of people through January fifteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. While sightings decreased after that, many folks continued
Speaker 1: to see weird objects in the night sky. I wasn't
Speaker 1: able to assess what I didn't know, but going forward,
Speaker 1: I couldn't rely on government agencies I'd connected with to
Speaker 1: share transparent information related to the sidings. Whether I wanted
Speaker 1: to admit it or not, it was time for me
Speaker 1: to stop covering this mystery and begin actively investigating it.
Speaker 1: I owed it to my hometown to get answers, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't stopping until I had them coming up on
Speaker 1: obscure invasion of the drums.
Speaker 6: Is that gunshots are He was saying, there were the
Speaker 6: ones you know that we're doing this stuff.
Speaker 2: Now something found out more from it, and they just
Speaker 2: kind of.
Speaker 1: Disappear, he wrote, rather than going out at night to
Speaker 1: look up at the lights, look at the ground to
Speaker 1: see what these drums are hunting. We want to hear
Speaker 1: from you if you have any information surrounding the events
Speaker 1: detailed in this podcast or other obscure stories in rural
Speaker 1: America we should look into. Please visit our website at
Speaker 1: obscurumseries.com and send us an email. To connect with us.
Speaker 1: On social media, you can follow @obscurum_series and @gabelenners on
Speaker 1: all social platforms. OBSCURUM is produced by Imagine and Lenners
Speaker 1: Entertainment for iHeartMedia. This series is written, hosted, and produced
Speaker 1: by Me Gabe Lenners. It's executive produced by Ron Howard,
Speaker 1: Brian Grazer, Carl Welker, Nathan Kloke, Nicki Etour and Me.
Speaker 1: Additional production by Jacob Plough. Music and sound effects courtesy
Speaker 1: of Epidemic Sound. Brand management and digital design by Labyrinth
Speaker 1: Brand Co. Video editing by Alex Semi Kopenko. This project
Speaker 1: was mixed and mastered by Jacob Plough. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Dan Bodanski, Josh Hiller, Keeton Storts, Bryson Keyes, Ailey Birchfield,
Speaker 1: David Wasserman, Katrina Norvel and my family. OBSCURUM: Invasion of
Speaker 1: the Drones is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Follow now.