Droning On

The key question nobody seems to be asking about these drones which have supposedly kept Gatwick Airport closed for the better part of two days is this: do they actually exist?  I'm moved to ask this because the actual evidence for their existence seems pretty scant.  We keep getting told that two drones were seen flying over the perimeter fence some time yesterday - but seen by whom?  Were these sightings from multiple sources or just from a single individual?  We just don't know.  Then we keep hearing that every time the airport is ready to reopen, there is another drone sighting.  Again, sighted by who?  Is there photographic evidence of their existence?  Apparently not.  Which seems odd, given the prevalence of smart phones these days, all of which come with a camera.  You'd think that at least one of the mysterious witnesses to these drone incursions would have thought to photograph or film it.  Moreover, surely the airport itself must have large numbers of CCTV cameras dotted about for security purposes - did none of these capture images of these mystery drones?  OK, it is perfectly feasible that such evidence exists, but isn't yet being released by the authorities as it forms part of an ongoing investigation, but in this age of social media, this sort of stuff tends to reach the public domain very quickly.  Add to this statements from the police that they haven't been able to identify the exact type of drones involved, let alone track down their operators and I'm left questioning their very existence.

It all reminds me of the 'phantom rockets' which were allegedly seen in the skies over Europe in the immediate post war period.  As with these drones, there seemed to be plenty of anecdotal evidence  in form of alleged sightings, but no physical evidence.  Certainly there were no photographs or radar traces of these 'rockets'.  They seemed to be some kind of collective hallucination resulting from the tensions of the nascent Cold War and the turmoil and upheaval in the aftermath of World War Two.  That these fears manifested themselves as 'rockets' was hardly surprising bearing in mind the Germans' V2 missile attacks on London and the Low Countries during the closing months of World War Two.  The V" quickly became a potent symbol of a new kind of warfare, focused entirely upon terrorising and demoralising civilian populations: apparently unstoppable and undetectable, it seemed some kind of 'ultimate weapon'. 

The 'ghost rockets' would, of course, be succeeded by the Flying Saucer mania of the fifties, also seemingly triggered by the paranoia which accompanied the onset of the Cold War proper.  They also had an antecedent in the 'mystery airship' sightings, stories of which proliferated in newspapers in the years leading up World War One.  Once again, a time of palpable international tension, with the newly invented airship fixed in the public imagination as a potentially terrible weapon of war, something which could inaugurate a whole new form of warfare against which there was no defence.  Which brings us back to these drones.  Perhaps they really do exist - time will tell.  But I can't help but feel that they are descendants of the 'mystery airships' and 'ghost rockets'.  Born, like them, against a background of political turmoil and international tension, with all the associated public fears manifesting themselves as a new type of technology which has been widely touted as an unstoppable weapon (just look at all those drone strikes against alleged terror targets conducted by the UK and US).  Is it any wonder that people start seeing these 'phantom drones' invading airports?