The Drone Dilemma
It wasn't too long after Christmas when my brother-in-law, Kent, invited me to join a Facebook group known as "Mystery drone swarm chasers." It started as a reaction to numerous reports of drones flying in formation after dark, mostly over northeastern Colorado and southwestern Nebraska. I had heard some accounts about the mysterious drones, but I was about to hear a lot more. A drone is a fairly small, unmanned aircraft, like this one, used by hobbyists, commercial or government entities, or the military, to take aerial photos, map the terrain, deliver packages, or even spy on the people below them. I didn't accept the invitation to join the group, but, apparently, a simple invitation was enough for me to receive all of their posts. At first, the posts came at a fast and furious pace, reporting sightings of large drones, several feet in diameter, flying after dark in groups of four to six, or even as many as a dozen. The obvious problem was that no one knew w...