Friday, June 7, 2013

Caught in the act

4 pm, Thursday afternoon, June 6. I was out in the garden when I heard the sound of a low-flying aircraft.

This is nothing unusual. We have a neighbor who's a pilot and has been known to circle around the neighborhood. We usually wave to him.

But the sound of this aircraft, for whatever reason, made me look up... and then my jaw dropped. My sunhat fell off as I craned my neck skyward. It was a DRONE. An honest-to-goodness drone, with an unmistakeable profile. It flew straight over me, directly south-to-north, and disappeared over the horizon.

Shocked, I walked into the house and said, "You'll never guess what I just saw."

Don did some hasty research and asked if this was the aircraft.


I can't attest to the color since it was above me against a bright sky, but that was certainly similar in shape. He asked me what size it was. I said, "My dad used to fly Cessnas and it was about half the size of a Cessna."

Don also found this article entitled Drones Take Off in Idaho.

Frustratingly, it was one of the few times I did NOT have my camera on me, because it would have been an easy thing to photograph. It was low and slow enough to focus and shoot (with a camera, folks, not a firearm).

Whatever the nature of this drone, I'll confess: it caught me in the highly subversive act of weeding the strawberries.

I hope they got an eye-full.

41 comments:

  1. Does the SPLC own drones! ;-)) And of course you would only ever shoot it with a camera LOL........

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  2. Patrice,

    We have them flying over and around us here in Oklahoma. I would have given them something to talk about, lol........

    I hope Don is feeling better, have a beautiful day.

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  3. Does George Orwell come to mind?

    Huggs..

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  4. They are just checking to see if all your new cows are giving off too much methane gas..........
    (global warming, 'ya know)?

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  5. Hmmmmmmm - that drone was heading straight for us. I better be more careful about availing myself of the great outdoors for my occasional bathroom break (it's sometimes a long way to the house when I'm working outside.) ;-)

    Linked...

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  6. hmm, gives new meaning to "big brother" is watching you. Guess Obama wants to know what you do on the farm.

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  7. So much for privacy and personal freedoms....I agree with Sandy....moon them next time!

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  8. Just make sure your noncombatant!
    It's the one inch drones you have to watch out for!

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  9. Surveillance state...what surveillance state?

    Even though they are ostensibly being used for harmless geographic and animal husbandry purposes now, they can be re-purposed just by uploading a new program -- even while in mid-flight.

    Didn't I read recently that the 60th anniversary of Orwell's novel, 1984, just occurred?

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  10. Patrice someone most likely reported potential terrorist activity in your area. LOL and dead to rights, you were terrorizing those weeds!!

    Like the others, next time "shoot'em the moon"

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  11. Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air: and like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces, thee solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a a rack behind.

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  12. Is it just me or does anybody else here find the hair standing up on their forearms?

    A.McSp

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  13. Wow, just wow. We live near a Marine base and hear helicopters go over a lot. I always wonder what they are up to flying around and around.

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  14. Wonder when they start billeting the troops with the civilians....

    We are pretty sure we have heard them around here, too.

    Have a good weekend. ♥

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  15. And I'm sure Big Brother is reading this now. Just despicable.

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  16. Welcome to the world of 1984. Did you ever think the USA would come to this?

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  17. Hope your shirt was tucked in yer britches 'cause them drones don't take pichers too good in a full moon. :)


    Steve Davis
    Anchorage, Alaska

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    1. You shouldn't have covered up all your signs with dirt. You could have laid down and "become" part of the sign. And then the next time they flew over you could "hide" in another sign. Where's Waldo.

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  18. To many jokes?... Does anybody realize what this means?....
    At what point should you feel the freedoms our fathers fought for has been take away, at what point do the American people realize .... Well frankly, our freedoms are Gone.
    GOD BLESS AMERICA ..... Were going to need it my friend (your on the list- we all are)

    "T"

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    1. Your right,but allow us a little humor as it helps to stay momentarily sane! Day after day is more government crap and that's a part of their agenda to wear down the people!
      Prayer is what we can do and the best to do along with reading the Holy Scriptures 'The Everlasting Father' knows all about it!

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    2. Yes, most people who are responding to this knows what it means. Sometimes you have to laugh, and laugh I did at some of these comments. Stress of everything that is coming is weighing on all of us.

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    3. To be clear ... I'm a realist Christian with my eyes wide open.

      But when they took the family 2 blocks over (soCal)..... You didn't really know them anyways ...
      When they came and took the neighbor at the end of the street .(Oklahoma)..... Well they had ratty kids anyways?
      When they pulled in your driveway (northern Idaho?). It must be a mistake? ... Then again who stands with you ... Everybody's gone

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    4. Yeah... if we don't laugh, we'll cry, and that will do us no good.

      So we laugh... and pray... as we buy another chicken and learn how to can...

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  19. One flew over me last fall while I was deer hunting in remote Eastern Tennessee......guess they were looking for terrorist moonshiners.....

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  20. We have military choppers and such flying low over our farm all the time too. Usually in threes. I have no idea why... Maybe they are checking out the big boobies on my newly freshened goats!!! Or maybe the chickens and turkeys are planning a revolt! Big brother is really getting big. We live in a police state. It has been evolving into that over the last many years. We are there now but because of the slow progression most of the population does not even realize what kind of coutry ours has become. Now even though you have a right to a lawyer the cop will just try to intimidate you into bypassing your attorney. I know first hand!

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  21. We've had the "fortune" to see them several times as we're practically next door to a base where they train the "pilots". Always been less than thrilled, to put it mildly.

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  22. So Patrice do you think your farmstead just happened to be under the drone's flightpath or was your farm the target???

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  23. Drones were discussed at our last Farm Bureau meeting. There was legislation proposed that would require the police to obtain a search warrant before using drones for surveillance. Unfortunately, it was pointed out that there is a company making drones in our state and that ANYONE could buy one and use it in any way they wished. Privacy no longer exists.

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  24. Step by step by step by step we are losing the country our forefathers meant for this great land to be.....

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  25. I wondered when this would start. One concern I had about moving to the Redoubt is that it's a sitting duck, as a concentration of "anti-government" types, and easily targeted by our paranoid and too-powerful feds. So, although it is not good living in the petri dish called Illinois, we have thus far not seen drones in our area, perhaps because we have so much violent crime in our county, and too little money; e.g. the PTB are busy elsewhere. They pay no attention to the law abiders -- so far -- and are happy we can take care of ourselves. Let me put it this way: I know almost exactly when the sheriff's deputy drives by our house everyday ... Hang in there, and camo-up!

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  26. Unfortunately you can't run and hide anymore. The Feds will follow you wherever you go.

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  27. I see a run on 10 gauge goose guns with 37" barrels.

    Jeff - Tucson

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  28. I live down the road from you in Lewiston. I had read this post a few days and I just can't stop thinking about it! With the latest from snowdon, it's not surprising, although still very disturbing! I do have a possible explanation for you however...the other day, in the Lewiston morning tribune, there was an article about students at wsu who had built and were flying a drone that looked very similar to your sample picture above. The article didn't mention the range of the drone, but I suppose it's possible that it could be the one you saw. Maybe I'm just living in a fantasy world though...it's probably more likely that it was a govt drone and not a college project flying over you. :(. By the way, I love your blog and have been reading it faithfully for some time now!

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  29. There was a helicopter type drone seen for several weeks near our farm in Missouri in 2012. Lots of theories, but no one ever figured out who it was and what they were up to.

    Your neighbor who is a pilot should be very concerned about this. I'm sure he does not need to deal with drones in the sky when he is flying in and out of his property.

    I wonder what will happen when someone finally shoots one of these things down. We all know at some point this will happen. It will be interesting to see who (or what agency) comes forward as the owner and what will be the outcome of any federal charges. I don't want to be the first one, but I have to admit I'll admire the first person who takes one down.

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  30. That is incredible. As the previous poster said, I would love to shoot it down. I wonder if you could say, shoot it down because you mistook it for a fox :-)

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  31. That is incredible. As the previous poster said, I would love to shoot it down. I wonder if you could say, shoot it down because you mistook it for a fox :-)

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  32. http://rt.com/usa/fbi-director-mueller-drones-947/

    Patrice, not sure if you check for comments on older stories, but when I saw this article today, I thought of you.

    Em

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  33. Naruto Fightin DreamerJuly 27, 2014 at 10:22 PM

    I have a rather long Clothesline that saves me a ton of money on PG& E Gas Bills. So I'm not taking A BIT of responsibility, legally or financially if the operator of one collides wit my clothesline one night or afternoon and either damages it or hangs it up and a Patrol Unit has to come into my yard to retrieve it. Since I'm something of an Un-Official Straight Edger Boy. I have nothing to hide from them but, I still wouldn't pay out any money to them for their screw-up.................Saw the deployment of Police Drones here in Tracy, California on New Years Eve 2013. Tracy P.D. doesn't have the budget to purchase that many or any at all. So I'm guessing this was a Corporate Experiment Tracy P.D. Allowed. Furthermore what were they going after? People shooting off illegal bottle rockets that could burn my or a neighbors house down or Underage Drinker's and Pot Smokers? If you're tryig to bust people playing around with illegal bottlerockets I can understand but, that doesn't give you the right to look down into the Law Abiding Neighbor's Yards next door and on either side! If you spend money to bust the Underage Drinkers and Pot Smokers you're a complete brainless jackwagon whom I might believe had a lobotomy performed on yourself!

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