‘Drone Swarm’ Invaded Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant Last September – Twice

Coming via Energy Central, this illustrates just how vulnerable our grid really is to unconventional attacks, such as a so-called ‘drone swarm.’

Documents gained under the Freedom of Information Act show how a number of small drones flew around a restricted area at Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant on two successive nights last September. Security forces watched, but were apparently helpless to act as the drones carried out their incursions before disappearing into the night. Details of the event gives some clues as to just what they were doing, but who sent them remains a mystery.
Details of the events were obtained from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by Douglas D. Johnson on behalf of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The SCU’s main interest is in anomalous aerospace phenomena, what other people term UFOs. In this case though the flying objects were easily identifiable as drones, although their exact mission and origin are unknown. Johnson passed the information to The War Zone who give a detailed account.
Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant is the largest in the U.S., producing over three gigawatts, 35% of Arizona’s total power capacity. It supplies electricity to Phoenix and Tucson, as well as San Diego and Los Angeles. It is a critical piece of strategic infrastructure; during the 2003 Iraq War, National Guard troops were deployed to Palo Verde to defend against a possible terrorist threat. In normal times, as with other nuclear installations, it is protected by armed security guards.
The armed guards, gates, fences and barriers were useless on the night of September 29th. According to the official report: “Officer noticed several drones (5 or 6) flying over the site. The drones are circling the 3 unit site inside and outside the Protected Area. The drones have flashing red and white rights [sic] and are estimated to be 200 to 300 hundred [sic] feet above the site. It was reported the drones had spotlights on while approaching the site that they turned off when they entered the Security Owner Controlled Area. Drones were first noticed at 20:50 MST and are still over the site as of 21:47 MST. Security Posture was normal, which was changed to elevated when the drones were noticed.”
The drones departed at 22:30, eighty minutes after they were first spotted. The security officers estimated that they were over two feet in diameter. This indicates that they were not simply consumer drones like the popular DJI Phantom, which have a flight endurance of about half an hour and is about a foot across, but something larger and more capable. The Lockheed Martin Indago, a military-grade quadcopter recently sold to the Swiss Army, has a flight endurance of about seventy minutes and is more than two feet across. At several thousand dollars apiece minimum, these are far less expendable than consumer drones costing a few hundred. All of which suggests this was not just a prank.

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About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

18 Comments

  1. mike August 8, 2020 at 09:57

    And while this is going on and exposing glaring vulnerabilities, our national defense leadership is scrambling to address more urgent matters, like renaming army bases and banning Confederate flags . No wonder the Chinese are chomping at the bit to mix it up with these posers.

  2. Homer August 8, 2020 at 12:29

    Nuclear Power plants are my main concern during a cyberattack or emp event. Is there any honest real world assessments of what would happen to these plants? Would operators be able to shut them down or would they just go full on chernobyl?

    • Johnny Paratrooper August 8, 2020 at 12:39

      It takes 1,000 years for the Northern and Southern Hemisphere gases you exchange completely.

      Which is yet another reason climate change is bullshit because the northern hemisphere industrialized, and the southern did not.

      If China or Europe let our Plants melt down, they would die a very slow, and very painful death.

      They aren’t gonna nuke the power plants. They are gonna hit the military bases with low yield nukes. Low yield nukes do not produce the same EMP effect.

      Also, there are specific EMP magnified Nukes. Something about a pure Chromium shell around the device Helping to magnify the EMP effect.

      Also, we have a bunch of nuke power plant engineers. They only work 3-4 months a year, and maybe a year during a refueling of rods.

      We have plenty of Nuke Plant technicians. And they have in house machine shops.

      The Only threat From China is the 45 Million Diaspora. And their merchant fleet. Which will be equipped with torpedoes, mines, and helipads when the time comes. Just like the Japs in WW2.

      Their Blue Water Navy is untested. But has a Quantum AI Security system.

    • Scurvy August 9, 2020 at 20:12

      The power plants have all the redundancies and procedures in place, in this country, to deal with a catastrophic failure. A more concerning issue with the grid is in the vulnerability of the transmission system. Five teams performing a coordinated attack on five of the distribution nodes could bring down almost all the grid for a month. longer if they took out any transformers the operators didn’t have on hand to replace and had to order from Germany. Lead time used to be one year for some transformers.
      Fugly times.

  3. Anonymous August 8, 2020 at 12:50

    5

  4. brunop August 8, 2020 at 12:52

    Is there anything more worrisome than this grid weakness?

    I can barely believe we don’t have security measures for this: we’ve known this is a method for gathering intel for, say, ten years?

  5. Johnny Paratrooper August 8, 2020 at 13:11

    Eventually, someone is going to realize that you can fly drones down the street at night and make them look, and sound like, a convoy of Vehicles.

    At which point, it’s way too late to react to an Ariel target.

    Curious that these drones were were immune to the “GPS fencing” Aka marked restricted fly zones that disable a drone right away.

    These were not off the shelf drones. These were made in someone’s basement. I would suspect they are on the Indian reservation too…

    I would be investigating anyone who is registered, and operates, under search and rescue credentials. A good cover story for purchasing large amounts of drone parts. And, the S&R guys are very helpful. They volunteer any And all information you requested from them Because they always want to help.

    Search and Rescue guys all have drones. Really, really nice drones. Some of them are gas powered and have those $30,000 dollar thermals I like.

    • James Carpenter aka "Felix" August 8, 2020 at 18:24

      I live in Arizona, sometimes train gun dogs in sight of a large substation that sees transmission lines intersecting from two sources. I’ve set my trailer up and stayed for days (when the surrounding land was soggy from weather) on the graded gravel verge outside the fencing and never been “contacted” or challenged. Several security cameras are visible and their set is into the fenced area.
      Large, oil-filled transformers, spindly transmission towers leading in/out, a joke of a gate/fence security. Does the name “Edward Abbey” ring any bells?
      Combined with today’s ability to spoof/jam GPS, fly sophisticated drones… and who needs Det Cord when a simple cutting torch is handy? How can anyone have confidence in the reliability of systems our world is now absolutely dependent on? The next “Pearl Harbor” is going to do more than sink a few ships and kill just a “few” Americans.

      • NC Scout August 8, 2020 at 19:59

        Ed Abbey.

        Anarchist dirtbag who inspired Earth First and ELF.

        Wasn’t a terrible writer but wasn’t a great one, either.

        • Johnny Paratrooper August 8, 2020 at 21:30

          An Anarchist from PA?

          I wearing my surprised face in Maryland right now.

        • James Carpenter aka "Felix" August 9, 2020 at 10:24

          Exactly. He was the kind of bird that Howard Zinn would flock with.
          Know thine enemy when making plans.
          Because he/she will get a vote too.

  6. Anonymous August 8, 2020 at 20:20

    4.5

  7. Alfred E. Neuman August 8, 2020 at 20:23

    Why were they NOT shot down????

    • Johnny Paratrooper August 8, 2020 at 22:01

      General Orders. Plus not all soldiers are Rambo (Most are quite the opposite). Plus, they were probably half asleep anyway.

      If they were 50-60 years old, they might not even have seen a drone in person. Real talk.

      When I read the article, It states they approached with lights on, which is curious because a drone doesn’t need lights to navigate and it would just give them away. Some lights flying around in the desert? They can use GPS and terrain association to navigate. AKA, head straight towards the gigantic fucking Nuke station, make sure you clear the fences and wires.

      And then suddenly something, something the drones were everywhere. Like “Wha-is-going-on.jpeg?!?!?!?”

      The report is bullshit Homeland Security talk for the following reasons

      -Looks like headlights moving DOWN THE ROAD(important and what I would do) from the checkpoint. Flying low. No radar(if on site) tripped because it would have just looked like a car driving down the street anyway.

      I very highly doubt the drones came over the desert because the response would likely have been a bit more spicy. Search and rescue drones have a large radar cross-section for obvious reasons. Assuming of course everyone wasn’t standing around scratching their heads saying to themselves “These must be ours… I guess…” Which is 100% most likely what happened until the Sargent of the Guard said otherwise. Which I’m sure was quite a few minutes. Recon complete at that point.

      The “Noodle Loop” is real… It’s like the opposite of the OODA loop. One isn’t ready, the other is.

      Sounds like they were testing their designs, which were likely quite stealthy, but Im not sure why their lights were on, unless they were “driving” down the road. . I heard from my Search and Rescue friends that all drone flight control chips have secret modulators that are built in kill switches if they receive a certain GPS tick, or they receive a certain radio frequency, or an aircraft is in the way. It’s a snow plow protocol to clear drones out of the way of Observation aircraft, Water Bombers, and Firefighting Helos.

      If you can’t tell, I have fought a forest fire or two. The most recent was a month ago in Wyoming. I saw all the latest gear, and watched them work like a hawk.

      Airports have these tools already, and many rescue aircraft. Obviously our Nuke plants do as well. as well as places like the Pentagon.

      SIDE NOTE FOR N.C. Scout —–> I read your piece on the OODA loop concerning the SPR multiple times. Great stuff minus one caveat. You neglected to mention that mortar teams DO NOT need to set up their tubes and tap their bubbles. In fact, reading the article might give one the impression they have a minute or two(or five) before a mortar team can get set up. I’m not sure if you ever played with the 60mm Mortar, but the Mortar Leader can load a shell into his 60mm mortar before they even leave the wire and be prepared for direct lay fire missions while moving to contact. Very few people outside of the mortars teams are aware of direct lay with those things. The 60mm mortar has a trigger system, and a round can sit in that pipe until needed. You can use it like an RPG and fire directly at your target. You don’t need to do anything fancy. Just stick it in the ground, yell DIRECT LAY ON TARGET FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! then they hit that trigger and its OVER FOR YOU!!! That round has the Chemical/kinetic energy equivalent of 6 hand grenades coming your way. You”ll feel that one for sure.

      • Johnny Paratrooper August 8, 2020 at 22:07

        I blame Hollywood for everyone’s misconceptions about Mortars as well.
        You really don’t need to go through all that when someone is shooting at you.

      • NC Scout August 8, 2020 at 22:40

        I used a 60 like that a couple of times.

        There’s certain blanks that get left to fill in, so to speak.

        • Johnny Paratrooper August 8, 2020 at 22:46

          Right on. I suppose we are going to cross a lot of quick and dirty bridges in the near future.

  8. Scurvy August 9, 2020 at 19:51

    How tough would it be to get a handheld radio to tune to the 5.8 GHZ area of the spectrum and attach the appropriate directional antenna to do some fox hunting? One of those NextLink internet dishes might work.

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