24.03.2021

Hundreds of pages of documents provide consistent detailed descriptions of the drones and conclude the military wasn't behind the operation.

As covered in previous reports by The War Zone, law enforcement agencies in numerous rural counties in eastern Colorado and adjacent areas of Nebraska and Kansas received an influx of reports of large drones flying in formations at night for a period of several weeks during December 2019 and early January 2020. Many law enforcement personnel were among the reporting witnesses. In short order, the “mystery drone” wave also elicited serious expressions of concern from at least two U.S. senators and attention from Colorado’s governor and state public safety agency. The activity soon drew the attention of regional and later national news media, as well. 

Now, The War Zone can offer an unprecedented inside look at what was going on behind the scenes within the FAA, which was leading a task force to solve the drone mystery. Not only is the confusion within the agency made clear, but we now have multiple highly credible official reports from trained observers from the timeframe when the objects were present in the region. Many of them match to a remarkable degree and they allude to a unique arrangement in which a large drone seems to have been accompanied by a fleet of smaller ones. We also have the latest conclusions, or lack thereof, of what the FAA thinks actually was happening over those peculiar weeks last winter. 

Over the past several months, Douglas D. Johnson, a volunteer researcher affiliated with the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU), has utilized the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain many hundreds of pages of emails and other pertinent documents from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other federal agencies regarding the mystery-drone flap and has made them available to The War Zone. In addition, hundreds of additional relevant pages have been located, but are still being processed by the FAA. The FAA is also currently withholding some key documents, citing FOIA exemptions.  

Nevertheless, the documents already released suggest that the FAA, despite a short-lived, but strenuous effort, was unable to determine the origin of the flying formations of sizable aerial devices reported by many credible witnesses in December and January. Senior FAA officials were able, however, to conclude that "there is high confidence these are not covert military activities."

The released documents contain no evidence that any federal criminal laws were broken by whoever was operating the devices, although the FAA has withheld at least one key document discussing the legal issues surrounding the case. No document yet released suggests that the mystery drones ever encroached on any U.S. military installation, or even into any airspace that was under special FAA restrictions.

In a statement to The War Zone, Johnson summarized his impressions after months of research into a subject that he still considers far from closed:

"For at least a couple of weeks, the mystery drone flap had the serious attention of top FAA leaders, and at least two U.S. senators. The FAA assigned apparently capable investigators, and mobilized resources from multiple FAA components. The assistance provided by other federal agencies such as the FBI, DHS, and military was apparently quite limited, because of the absence of evidence of criminal intent, or of a proximate threat to military assets or other critical infrastructure. Once the aerial activity stopped, it appears that both federal and state agencies quickly dropped the matter - I have not yet seen any evidence of a continuing federal investigation, although there are many documents still not released."

Law Enforcement Officers Provided Detailed Descriptions

Some of the communications received by veteran Special Agent Michael Bumberger of the FAA's Law Enforcement Assistance Program (LEAP), situated within the Office of Security and Hazardous Materials Safety, or ASH, and his associates contain detailed descriptions of the unusual formations of unmanned aerial devices that were reported by law enforcement officers and other credible witnesses.  

[FAA Bumberger]1-2020-006226 First Release_Redacted.pdf

Bumberger Second Release 1_Redacted.pdf

Bumberger Second Release 2_Redacted Reduced.pdf

Bumberger Third Release_Redacted (7-6-20).pdf

Bumberger 1-14-20 activity drops away -Third Release_Redacted 152.pdf

For example, a Jan. 5, 2020, email from Bumberger said an FAA LEAP agent had spoken to sheriffs in 16 counties in Colorado and Nebraska and "each agency contacted advised at least one deputy has witnessed the activity." The email went on:

The activity reported occurs primarily between the hours of 1800 and 2200 MST and demonstrate the pattern of multiple “drones” flying a grid type pattern and remaining airborne for several hours at a time in less than optimum flying conditions (high winds and storm-like conditions). The number of drones reported operating at one time range from between 2 and 16 and appear to be approximately 6 feet width and length. Flight time has been 2 to 3 hours continuous. All reports indicate flight is between 200 and 300 feet. However several people interviewed stated it was hard to determine height due to the darkness and lack of clouds. Other sightings lights were also reported to be either flashing or steady white, red, or green. One report mentioned flashing blue lights. They have not been described as operating in a manner that place persons on the ground in danger."

An email from FAA Chief of Staff Angela Stubblefield contained a late December 2019 report from Nebraska:

"The Lincoln FSDO [Flight Standards District Office] has received a call regarding multiple, larger sized drones flying over rural western Nebraska...The caller reported there were maybe 12 or more drones with a 6 foot wingspan flying approximately 200 feel AGL, in a grid pattern. From his contacts, the drones seem to have covered 10 to 20 square miles. Some farmers/ranchers reported the drones flying over their farmsteads. The caller stated he saw the drones December 29 approximately from 1900-2230 MST. He was unable to get a photo or video. The caller does have an aviation background; he is a private pilot."

A Dec. 31, 2019, email written by FAA aviation safety officer Michael Sanford stated:

"The drones are reported to have 6’ wingspans and there are several reports that indicate the drones are operating in coordination with a ‘Big Drone’ that may be stationary in the area. There is also an unverified report of the larger ‘drone’ potentially landing and taking back off from an airport in Imperial, Nebraska (Chase County). This larger drone, also described as a ‘Mother Ship’, is said to hover while all the others fly around in close proximity. The large drone, as described, is about 5-6 feet in diameter with a cylindrical shape and a red front."

A Bumberger memo, also from Dec. 31, stated that a "Chase County Nebraska sheriff deputy reported observing 30 to 50 flying independently of each other with a larger ‘mothership’ hovering for hours. The deputy stated it the larger drone appeared to be way over 55 pounds."

An early January 2020 email from a lieutenant in the Kansas Highway Patrol described a sighting "by one of our K-9 Troopers" near Oakley, Kansas:

"He said one of the drones had a really bright light on it, like a spot light. That drone stayed relatively stationary at that location. He then said there were anywhere from 10 to 15 drones that flew all kinds of patterns around that stationary drone. At one point one of those drones flew directly over his house. He had his night vision with him so he tried to look at it. Some of the lights on the drone drowned out a good picture with the NVG’s, but he said he thought he saw 4 rotors on the drone as well as a horizontal stabilizer or wing. The wing appeared to be about 10 foot in length. He said the drone was about 200 feet in the air and made absolutely no sound at all, even though the wind was calm."

A report from Jan. 6, 2020, in Lincoln Nebraska described a dozen or more smaller UAVs flying alongside a larger aircraft estimated to be four to six feet in diameter.

Lincoln NE witness Brumley 1-6-20- Third Release_Redacted 160.pdf

One of the releases also contains a telephone report of a sighting in Eglin, Illinois, on Jan. 8, 2020. That sighting was mentioned in a few other FAA emails, although the summary of the call ultimately concludes that "the reports about these drones were not carried over to the next shift because they were dismissed as UFO sightings by others at the Police Department."

Elgin PD report 1-8-20 - Third Release_Redacted 78.pdf

Even top FAA officials invoked the term "UFO" on at least one occasion. In a December 31, 2019 email from FAA Administrator Steve Dickson to FAA Chief of Staff Angela Stubblefield, Dickson observed that "not too long ago we would have called these 'UFOs'." Stubblefield responded "Yep! Now everything is a drone!"

FAA Launched Investigation As Media, Senators Pressed For Answers

It appears that public reports of night-flying drone formations began to surface around Dec. 17, 2019.  Some lower-level FAA components may have become aware of such reports within a few days, but it took some time, and media attention, before the issue registered with top-level FAA officials, judging from the emails.

Elwell 2nd interim - Resp_2020-006224 Prod 2 20200622_Redacted.pdf

On Dec. 29, FAA Administrator Steve Dickson emailed senior managers a link to a press account on the Colorado events with his comment, “I’ve seen several of these reports. Do we have any information about these purported sightings? The rumors seem to be spreading rapidly.”  

Dickson’s inquiry was forwarded to others by the head of agency’s internal security branch, Associate Administrator for the Office of Security and Hazardous Materials Safety Claudio Manno. Manno added his own question:  “[D]oes this potentially link to incidents other than in Colorado and Nebraska?” The FAA documents provide no further clues on the “incidents” to which Manno referred, but The War Zone is currently actively pursuing inquiries into several incidents in which drones of unknown origin showed up at unexpected places during the past year.

FAA ASH Claudio Manno 1-16-20 email summarizing FAA investigation.pdf

The FAA quickly emerged as the lead federal agency seeking to get the bottom of the Colorado-centered flap. The investigation was conducted by FAA-ASH, with the field investigation run by Bumberger, who was assigned to the case about Dec. 26. Ian Gregor, public affairs manager for the FAA Pacific Division, served as the agency’s public spokesman during the investigation. The emails show that Gregor was in constant touch with both Bumberger and senior FAA officials in Washington, and constantly fielding inquiries from news media of all kinds, including sometimes cryptic e-mail responses to The War Zone’s editor.

FAA [Gregor] Response.2020-005892_Redacted_Reduced.pdf

The documents Johnson obtained reveal a high level of interest in the investigation on the part of U.S. Senators Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, and Deb Fischer, another Republican from Nebraksa. On Dec. 30, Leesa Papier, director of the Office of National Security Programs and Incident Response, a part of the Office of Security and Hazardous Materials Safety, or ASH, emailed Bumberger that “the drone issue is really ratcheting up. Some of the drones flew near Senator Gardner’s house [in Yuma County, Colorado]."

Both Gardner and Fischer made public statements expressing their concerns during the height of the drone flap. “I’ve been in contact with the FAA and I’m encouraged that they’ve launched a full investigation to learn the source and purpose of the drones,” Gardner said in a Dec. 31 press release. “I will continue to closely monitor the situation.” 

On the same day, an FAA congressional relations officer emailed the FAA chief of staff that Gardner's office was "hearing from the local farm bureau that the drones have been disturbing cattle operations and may have caused injuries, and that the drones are flying closely to some of the general aviation airports in the area. They may elevate this to a call from the Senator to the Administrator [Steve Dickson] given the level of concern in the area. They are also just concerned that it’s taking this long to identify such a large number of drones."

On Jan. 8, 2020, Gardner stated, “I think this shows a significant gap in our understanding and national security understanding of the threat drones pose. If we can't find out who they are, how they are being controlled, who is controlling them, what is to keep a nation like Iran or North Korea from looking at this instance and saying ‘Boy now we should come out and do the same thing with cameras and sensor equipment to find out the kinds of things that would help with international security' so I think it is a concern.” The Senator's concerns are not unfounded. The threat that lower-end drones pose to national security is something The War Zone has been highlighting for years. The War Zone reached out to Sen. Gardner's office for comment and will update this article when we hear back.

In early January, the national media attention escalated, including reports by CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. On Jan. 9, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, said that he had asked the Colorado Department of Public Safety (CDPS) to ramp up its monitoring of the aerial activity. “I think we need to find out what is happening before an accident occurs,” Polis said.

Memo for FAA Adm Steve Dickson from ASH 1-3-20.pdf

One of the key documents uncovered by Johnson is a four-page memorandum written by the then-second-ranking official at ASH, Joshua Holtzman, and sent to FAA Administrator Steve Dickson [misspelled as “Dixon” on the memo] to bring the FAA chief up to speed on the issue for “a telephone call with Senator Fischer this afternoon [Jan. 7].” Among the memo's talking points was that “The FAA understands the interest in identifying the operator(s) and mitigating any potential risks these UAS [Unmanned Aircraft Systems] could pose to the safety of other aircraft and people and property on the ground.”

The mystery drone investigation reached its public climax with a large meeting convened by Morgan County Sheriff Dave Martin in Brush, Colorado, on Jan. 6.  According to FAA notes, the closed-door meeting was attended by 77 people. Federal representation included personnel from the FAA, FBI, DHS, Air Force Office of Special Investigations from F.E. Warren Air Force Base, and the office of Senator Gardner. State and local representation included sheriff's office personnel from 12 Colorado counties and six Nebraska counties, the Nebraska State Patrol, the Colorado Information Analysis Center (a division of CDPS), and Colorado Fish and Wildlife.

FAA notes 1-6-20 Brush meeting.pdf

Bumberger wrote that “the meeting did not provide an answer or new leads” but that “several good things came from it." It was agreed that an ad hoc "Drone Sightings Task Force" would continue the work of the meeting in facilitating coordinate of an expanding investigation.

However, in the days that followed the Jan. 6 meeting – which was widely publicized by regional and national news media – the reports of unidentified drones flying in formation tapered off rapidly. In a Feb. 5 email to a reporter, Gregor said, “As far as I know, the reports dried up around the middle of January. We have not received any information that enabled us to determine what exactly it was that people were seeing and, if they were drones, who was flying them.”

Sheriff Martin on March 6 confirmed to SCU’s Douglas Johnson that drone reports stopped “shortly after we had the [Jan. 6] meeting.” Without evidence that any criminal activity had been involved, Martin set the matter aside, and the working group was discontinued, Martin said, adding,  “I’m not in charge of airspace.”

The CDPS had posted a final update on its website back on Jan. 13, saying “CDPS will scale back proactive operations but will continue to respond to and investigate reports of suspicious activity... Despite all of the reported activity, we are still unaware of any crime being committed.”

FAA Concluded No Military Involvement

Much initial speculation about the strange aerial activity centered on the military, in part because some early drone sightings were only about 30 miles from ICBM missile fields controlled by the 90th Missile Wing of F.E. Warren Air Force Base. In public statements at the time, an F.E. Warren spokesman denied having any role in the sightings. Internal emails obtained by SCU’s Douglas Johnson and reported by The War Zone on Feb. 24, 2020, confirmed that officers at the base were mystified by the drone reports. 

The Air Force emails, while heavily redacted, showed the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Force for Strategic Deterrence and. Nuclear Integration, abbreviated AF/A10, as well as Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC), the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), and other Air Force components, queried and assured each other that no component of the Air Force was responsible for the aerial activity or knew its origin. Johnson has appealed some of the Air Force redactions.

The early January talking-points memo to FAA Administrator Dickson said “AFOSI from F.E. Warren AFB have also confirmed no DOD involvement in or knowledge of the [mystery drone] operations.”

In a Dec. 30, 2019 email, FAA Chief of Staff Angela Stubblefield wrote that "NORTHCOM/NORAD has been contacted and does not have any information, other than they are aware of the reports." U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) is tasked with command and control of Department of Defense homeland defense activities and the coordination of civil authorities in relation to defense. It is co-located and shares command with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which is a bi-national command with both American and Canadian personnel.

USNORTHCOM - 20-R-030 Response Letter_Reacted.pdf

Johnson filed a FOIA request with NORTHCOM, asking about the Jan. 6 meeting and any information about the aerial activity. The command responded that “NORAD personnel received an invitation for the Jan. 6, 2020 meeting; however, no one attended because the invitation arrived too late.” NORTHCOM said that Johnson’s broader question about the drone activity “led only to NORAD records,” and those records were not reviewed because NORAD, as a bi-national command, is exempt from FOIA.

FAA ASH Claudio Manno 1-16-20 email summarizing FAA investigation.pdf