Encounters with small unidentified “objects,” sometimes in swarm-like groups of as many as eight. Sightings of other objects, including some characterized as drones, flying at altitudes up to 36,000 feet and as fast as Mach 0.75. Another apparent small drone actually hitting the canopy of an F-16 Viper causing damage. These incidents and many more, all occurred in or around various military air combat training ranges in Arizona since January 2020.
The events are described in reports from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) filed over roughly a three-year period. Overall, the data points to what are often categorized as drones, but many of which are actually unidentified objects, as well as what do appear to be drones, or uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), intruding into these restricted warning areas with alarming regularity.
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Marc Cecotti, a contributor to The War Zone, has been able to obtain additional partially redacted reports about a number of these incidents from the U.S. Air Force’s Safety Center via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that provide additional insights. Cecotti, together with Adam Kehoe, another one of our contributors, had first begun to notice a clustering of reports of unusual aerial encounters in southwestern Arizona back in 2021. An interactive online tool they created for The War Zone that leverages the FAA’s public database of drone-related incident reports helped highlight that trend.
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