alt Hacker NewsNo reports are from UFODAP sensors.[1]
UFODAP supposedly has about a hundred automatic cameras around the world, mostly in the US. You can buy the hardware. It's a pan-tilt-zoom camera under a plastic dome, with hardware that looks for moving objects in the sky, photographs, and tracks them. Analysis software recognizes birds and aircraft. If two sites connected to the same control program lock onto a target, they can triangulate. It's possible to use ADS-B data for filtering out known aircraft. The hardware is good enough to detect and track the International Space Station.
But they don't see to be catching much.
Incidentally, hobbyists have been flying triangular jet-powered high speed drones since at least 2017.[2] Watch the video. That would look like a UFO if it wasn't a clear day and the pilot wasn't making low passes. Many of the "flying triangles" are probably something like that.
Russia, Ukraine, and Iran all use something similar, in various sizes.
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This is great for skywatching but at 32GB it only takes brief photos, and rarely video.
A real setup needs multiple 4K cameras, some kind of LWIR, MWIR, etc. as well as SDR with proper antennae for each of their respective performance envelopes.
I think it's good, but it will not be good at picking up the "targets of opportunity".
> Incidentally, hobbyists have been flying triangular jet-powered high speed drones since at least 2017.
There's advanced hobbyists who have much more sophisticated drones as well [1]. Nothing outside the reach of more advanced advanced engineering with fuel cells. Though it could be some covert government program or research group and possibly even foreign governments.
The drone in Tuscon AZ outran police helicopters for over an hour:
> Typical commercial drones cannot travel 100 mph even under the best conditions. > Eventually, the helicopter ended up flying toward Mount Lemmon at an altitude of 14,000 feet, thousands of feet above the helicopter. The pilot wrote the drone would circle the helicopter at 100 mph. > "[T]his did not appear to be any off-the-shelf" drone, the pilot wrote. > Another helicopter crew member wrote it appeared to be a "very sophisticated/specialized" drone that was "able to perform like no other...I have observed."
1: https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/tucson-poli...