Got Buzzed, Last Night

[Minstrel]

Last night, around midnight, I was on the back porch, smoking, when I heard a light buzzing, then noticed the lights of a small drone moving along (and, at the height of) the power lines in the alley behind my house.

When it neared my house, it began to climb, then continued climbing (to, 200' - 300') while moving east, past me, 3 more houses.

It hovered over that 3rd house for a minute or more, then moved over the house next-nearer mine, and hovered another minute or so.

I moved out from under the eave, to observe, as it had positioned almost out of my line of sight...and, it took off in an east-southeasterly direction (toward downtown)...'til out of sight.

I did not see it turn, or return.

From the time I noticed it, to where it went out of sight, it had probably traveled a little less than a mile.

I purchased a couple of drones for family members, some years back...and don't recall them able to travel as far as this must have.

The only way I see it working, is if, whoever was flying it, was staying within range, in a vehicle...or, if it was owned/operated by someone other than 'civilians'.

Any thoughts?

[BIAD]

Weird. It may be someone young who's just acquired a drone for Christmas and is farting around
with it... that's my only guess. I'm not up on the laws on flying over private properties.

[Minstrel]

Weird. It may be someone young who's just acquired a drone for Christmas and is farting around
with it... that's my only guess. I'm not up on the laws on flying over private properties.

That was my first thought, as well.
I wasn't really concerned (so much) about invasion of privacy, as I was 'someone casing the joint'.
Midnight would not be the best time to voyeur in this neighborhood...
I figure that whomever was controlling the little beast, likewise saw me observing 'it'...else, why the methodical-looking approach, only to zoom away, with another 15+ houses left un-cased on the same side of the block.(?)
Was also thinking it could be a 'Repo' company, trying to spot collateral (most of the homes have alleyway entries to their garages) - Why drive the pot-hole maligned alley, and possibly give yourself away...when you can sit in a vehicle far from the target, with little-to-no chance of tipping your prey?

[BIAD]

That was my first thought, as well.
I wasn't really concerned (so much) about invasion of privacy, as I was 'someone casing the joint'.
Midnight would not be the best time to voyeur in this neighborhood...
I figure that whomever was controlling the little beast, likewise saw me observing 'it'...else, why the methodical-looking approach, only to zoom away, with another 15+ houses left un-cased on the same side of the block.(?)
Was also thinking it could be a 'Repo' company, trying to spot collateral (most of the homes have alleyway entries to their garages) - Why drive the pot-hole maligned alley, and possibly give yourself away...when you can sit in a vehicle far from the target, with little-to-no chance of tipping your prey?

Good points and far more logical than my own naive suggestions!
My initial idea was based on the midnight factor... what does one glean from aerial monitoring at that
time of night unless it's ideal for not being seen by someone held in regard by the flyer?

But of course, the unawareness of a 'target' may well be the reason for such an hour.

[F2d5thCav]

Minstrel--

'casing the joint', yeah.  I've seen one running the length of the road I live on, and it is a couple of miles long.  Flying at power line level and slowly cruising by.  I suspect it is collecting video footage.  No idea if it is the police or someone casing the neighborhood, looking for goodies to steal from people's yards or approaches to properties that aren't obvious from the streets.

In Europe, I can't use a true firearm, but I've considered getting one of those "super pellet guns" that fires plastic balls for, eh, "air defense" operations.

It pisses me off to have these things flying near or over my property as it is an invasion of privacy if nothing else.

[Ninurta]

Here in Virginia, it's still - as far as I know - illegal for government entities to use drones for surveillance. I do know that the next county over from here -the one on the other side of my creek - bought one a couple of years ago for aerial surveillance of active crime scenes (citing officer safety), but got shut down cold by the law, and the drone has remained in their possession, but grounded, ever since.

My first thought was some kid or teenager flying a Christmas gift to play, but if that were the case, why fly it at night when visibility is limited? On the other hand, some folks do that. One night as I was leaving work a few years ago at my last job, I heard something that sounded like a lawn mower, but up in the sky. Then I noticed a vehicle way out in the corner of the parking lot, so I went to investigate, and found the drone operator sitting on the hood of his vehicle, flying it at night. I told him to get the hell off my lawn - we had a problem with folks coming to "park" there in the night, I reckon the object was to test the springs in their shocks, because they'd rock the hell outta their cars... so company policy at that time was to knock on their window and run them off the property.

There was a helipad about 150 yards away they could do that sort of shit on, and usually remain hidden, unless a chopper was coming in.

My best guess is that this guy was probably scouting for elk to poach. We had a herd that liked to hang out in the fields there. He probably figured that since my car was the only other car in the parking lot, that no one was home.

Yet another possibility was the power company checking lines for problems, or looking for "power thieves". That would be easier to detect in the night without getting caught by the folks stealing the power. I recall that in the aftermath of Helene, when all our power was out, I did see a drone surveilling a work crew down at the mouth of this holler as they worked to remove trees from the power lines and get the lines hung back up on what power poles were left.

OR - it could be someone casing the neighborhood for avenues of approach where shadows are heaviest. Shadows don't generally change after sundown, because the lights don't move the way the sun does, so one could conceivably map out approaches that take best advantage of shadow lanes, and be fairly certain they wouldn't change. The way to combat that is motion-detecting flood lights directed into shadowed areas. Overhead drones don't set 'em off, so any nefarious actors get a surprise when they try to infiltrate through the shadows on the ground. Everyone like surprises, right? They might not appreciate the brightened field of fire, but the sheer surprise ought to delight them! Give a little joy - it's the neighborly thing to do!

OR - I'm not saying it was aliens, but it could be... aliens!

Here, I take the position that I own not just the land, but all of the airspace above it to infinity and beyond. So anything flying over my patch is fair game as far as I'm concerned. It's well established that I don't own what's under the land towards the core of the Earth, which is why I no longer have a well - a coal mine running under the house cut the bottom out of my well so that it no longer held water, and not a damned thing I could do about it. The coal company finally did pay to have our house and several others in the general area put on county water as compensation after enough threats and intimidations.

But anything flying over, that's fair game to me. Even the law around here won't fly over my patch on helicopter surveillance runs. The last time they did that, September of 2024 I think, they kept a respectful distance and flew about 100 or 150 feet directly over the road on the other side of the creek (roads being government land) which technically is in another county, so probably out of jurisdiction and illegal if it was county cops instead of State Boys. They make those surveillance runs every so often looking for moonshine operations or excessively large weed patches (more than 4 plants), It was obvious what they were doing, because something in this vicinity caught their attention, and they flew backwards and forwards a couple of times right here, trying to get a better view I reckon. Whatever it was must not have been worth the effort, because no raids followed.

So, no telling what your drone was doing - might have been innocent, might have been nefarious. There's really no way of knowing which, for sure. I personally would lean towards nefarious, though, because I have a suspicious nature to being with, and night-flying drones don't get as good of a view for hobbyists as day flying drones do (unless they are equipped with thermal or NOD tech cameras). So, I have to assume there is a reason for the night flight beyond mere recreation.

.