Drone mystery deepens as witnesses report alarming sightings over US military bases years ago

Mysterious drone sightings in the US have been recorded as far back as 2019 — including when dozens of unidentified aircraft hovered over the country’s most sensitive military sites for 17 straight days, according to a new report.

The drone sightings — similar to ones over the Eastern Seaboard months ago — involved stalking naval warships off the California coast to more recently over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, home to dozens of highly advanced F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets, CBS’s “60 Minutes” reported.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) indicated to anchor Bill Whitaker that the drone swarms over Langley — some of which were recorded with an iPhone — could very well have been spying on the US’s military capabilities.

“I am privy to classified briefings at the highest level. I think the Pentagon and the national security advisors are still mystified,” he said in a December interview that aired Sunday night.

“Clearly, there is a military intelligence aspect of this,” said Wicker, who chairs the Armed Service Committee overseeing the Pentagon.

While at his family’s cabin on the James River in Virginia in December 2023, eyewitness Jonathan Butner recorded nearly 90 minutes of footage showing “upwards of 40-plus” drones on a direct path to Langley, video he later shared with the FBI to aid in its investigation.

“I’m very familiar with all the different types of military craft. We have Blackhawks, we have the F-22s. And these were like nothing I’ve ever seen,” he told the outlet.

Butner wasn’t the only one who saw the unidentified aircraft swarming the key military installation.

“The reports were coming in 20-to-30 sightings, same time every evening, 30-to-45 minutes after sunset,” said retired four-star Gen. Mark Kelly, who witnessed the drones with his own eyes at Langley.

“What you saw was different sizes of incursions of aircraft. You saw different altitudes, different air speeds. Some were rather loud. Some weren’t near as loud,” he shared, noting the sizes of the drones ran the gamut from small to alarmingly large.

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

During the 17-day period where the drones were spotted before suddenly vanishing from the night skies, the military, apparently aware of the risk, moved some of the F-22 Raptors to another air base nearby, according to the outlet.

Retired Gen. Glen VanHerck rattled off a laundry list of potential threats, including that the drones could be used to bomb or otherwise disable the stealth jets, and that drones could be equipped to “do a myriad of missions.”

He dismissed the idea that the drones were piloted by hobbyists, due to their size and the duration of the flights, but wouldn’t rule out something more sinister.

“It certainly could have a foreign nexus, a threat nexus. 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,” he said.

Gen. Gregory Guillot — a combat veteran who oversaw a 90-day operations assessment at NORAD and NORTHCOM — said the drone flights over Langley became the central focus of the investigation.

While he says the investigation is still ongoing, addressing the security gap is a high priority for NORTHCOM.

“It is alarming. And, I would say that our hair is on fire here in, in NORTHCOM, in a controlled way. And we’re moving out extremely quickly.”

The White House in January took pains to reassure Americans that the waves of drones seen over New Jersey over the winter were “not the enemy,” with President Trump chalking them up to “hobbyists” or individuals conducting “research.”

However, these assertions only raised more questions, including among elected officials and former military leaders.

Asked how it was possible for such an incursion to take place over an American Air Force base, VanHerck pointed to a “capability gap” due to NORAD radar systems being unable to detect the low-flying drones.

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

That gap was also the reason the military didn’t simply shoot the invading aircraft out of the sky.

“Well, first, you have to have the capability to detect, track, identify, make sure it’s not a civilian airplane flying around. If you can do that, Bill, then it becomes a safety issue for the American public. Firing missiles in our homeland is not taken lightly,” the retired general said.

Gen. Guillot said updated radar systems capable of detecting drones are being installed at select strategic sites, and that he’s hopeful they’ll be up and running “inside of a year.”

VanHerck, Guillot’s predecessor, said the US government — from the Pentagon to the White House to Congress — has not treated the glaring security vulnerability with the seriousness it deserves.

“It’s been one year since Langley had their drone incursion and we don’t have the policies and laws in place to deal with this? That’s not a sense of urgency,” he said.

“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. It’s time we move beyond that assumption.

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Stephen Collopy

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