The U.S. Air Force’s Plant 42 in California, America’s premier hub for advanced aerospace development work, especially highly classified military programs, has seen a wave of mysterious drone incursions in recent months. The incidents have now become serious enough to prompt the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to impose new, if temporary flight restrictions around the sprawling high-security facility. The Air Force acknowledged these incidents in response to our questions about purported sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the area which became viral on social media over the weekend and that local law enforcement appears to have received no reports about.
Palmdale Regional Airport shares the runways with Plant 42, which is home to Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works advanced projects division, as well as similar arms of both Northrop Grumman and Boeing. NASA also has a flight testing center there. As a prime example of the work that goes on at Plant 42, it is where Northrop Grumman has been building the U.S. Air Force’s new B-21 Raider stealth bombers. America’s most sensitive and ‘bleeding edge’ aerospace weaponry emerges from this facility, so security at the installation, which is located in a relatively urban area, is taken very seriously.
“We have observed multiple UAS [uncrewed aerial systems] activities over Plant 42 during the last few months. The number of UASs fluctuated and they ranged in size and configuration,” Mary Kozaitis, Chief of Media Operations for the 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base, told The War Zone. “The FAA was made aware of the incursions and Edwards continues to monitor the air space to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets. As a reminder to drone enthusiasts, overflight of Plant 42 is strictly prohibited and may result in criminal prosecution, fines, and loss of operator privileges.”
Plant 42 is overseen by officials at Edwards, which is also a major Air Force testing and evaluation hub, and is situated further to the north of Palmdale, in the Mojave Desert.
The temporary flight restrictions were “initiated because of the increase in UAS activity, [but] we can’t talk specific numbers,” Kozaitis continued. “We are definitely monitoring the situation to determine if there is any ill intent and, even if not, we are trying to find out why or who is doing it.”
The temporary flight restrictions went up around the airport in Palmdale, extending two nautical miles in all directions and “from the surface up to and including 1000 feet AGL [Above Ground Level],” on August 14. The FAA’s notice on the restrictions, which are currently scheduled to be lifted on September 15, says that “no UAS [uncrewed aerial systems] operations are authorized in the areas covered.” Information about how to go about securing a waiver to fly drones through the area for certain reasons is provided, as can be seen below.
When contacted for additional information about the temporary flight restrictions around Palmdale Regional Airport, the FAA directed us to contact the Department of Defense. The U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) also told us that it was not involved in the situation around Palmdale.
“As far as a response specifically to UFOs / UAPs [unidentified flying objects / unidentified aerial phenomena], it’s quite likely that any UAPs in our area are small unmanned aerial systems, or drones. We’ve not received any UAP reports, but we take such reports seriously,” Kozaitis added. “Generally, we don’t attempt to investigate such sightings unless the report comes from a trained eye, for example, a commercial or military pilot. The Defense Department also has an office to handle such reports – the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.”
AARO was established in 2022 specifically to focus on issues relating to what are now officially termed unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), but are still commonly referred to as unidentified flying objects (UFO). Reports from the office routinely assess large percentages of UAP sightings to have actually been drones, as well as balloons and other lighter-than-air craft. Some leading voices in the UFO community believe this office is not fully truthful or accurate with its findings.
“We’ve seen some of the news reporting about the social media posts, but we have nothing to offer,” Sue Gough, a Department of Defense spokesperson, told The War Zone when asked if the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) or anyone else in the Department was tracking any unusual aerial activity over Palmdale or the nearby city of Lancaster.
The “social media posts” that Gough mentioned are reports of something unusual having been spotted in the skies above Palmdale and nearby Lancaster that emerged on Saturday. The @661LASDCalls account on X had shared apparent screenshots of individuals in the area posting messages about UFOs on Neighbors, a community crime and safety alert app from Ring, best known for its doorbell cameras.
“Me and my daughter were hanging out in the backyard when we both thought we saw a shooting star falling east it stropped very abruptly and zigzagged going north. Checking to see if anyone else saw it or if we’re both going crazy,” on the posts from Neighbors said.
“I was intrigued by the first neighbor who posted that he saw a UFO from his yard so my mom and I went to ours to see if we’d see anything,” another says. “We counted 6 after being out there for 10 minutes.”
“You guys, I saw [a] UFO, I was walking my dog in my backyard and saw a bright light up in the sky. At first I was like omg [oh my god] what a cool plane that Northrop assembled but to my dismay it was a hovercraft! Please tell me I’m not the only one who saw !!!” the last of the messages shared on X reads.
The veracity of the reports from the Neighbors app remains unclear. At least one set of videos that subsequently began circulating online has turned out to be unrelated, having been shot on Friday somewhere in Northern California.
Another dramatic video that grabbed a lot of attention claimed to show something in the sky over the Palmdale/Lancaster area this past weekend looks to be footage of a Pokemon-themed drone light show at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort in Hawaii.
A spokesperson for the Palmdale Sheriff’s Station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) told The War Zone that they had no records of any calls for service relating to UFO sightings or anything similar on or about August 17. He also noted that relevant reports may have come in, but not have gotten elevated to a call for service and subsequently logged.
The LASD’s station in Lancaster did not receive any UFO-related 911 calls or calls for service around the time of the reported sightings, either, a spokesperson there also told The War Zone.
The spokesperson at the Palmdale LASD station noted that such calls happen “very rarely,” in general, because there is “a lot of aerospace industry and testing” in the area and “most of [the] residents understand that to some degree.”
This is one element to this event that does lend some weight, if indeed many people saw strange things in the sky. Citizens in the Palmdale/Lancaster area sit under ‘flight test valley,’ and see all types of military aircraft, including exotic ones, regularly and they do not result in such a reaction.
Regardless, we now know that Plant 42, the site of a host of highly sensitive advanced aerospace projects, has been subjected to an increasingly serious volume of drone incursions for months now. This is the latest evidence of a larger and growing trend in worrisome drone activity over and around military bases and critical civilian infrastructure, as well as inside military training ranges, within the United States in recent years.
This is not the first time that a major spate of unauthorized drone incursions over a sensitive facility has emerged just this year, either. In March, The War Zone was the first to reveal that Langley Air Force Base in Virginia had been swarmed by drones for weeks last year. Those alarming incidents prompted a major whole-of-government response that you can learn more about here.
As another example, in 2019, U.S. Navy warships experienced a series of highly concerning drone swarm events in areas off the shore of southern California.
Still, there is nothing to say that what people supposedly saw on Saturday were drones of any kind. At the same time, there is considerable evidence that a substantial portion of reported UAP sightings are actually drone incursions, including ones involving uncrewed aerial systems that adversaries are using to gather intelligence, an issue that The War Zone has explored in great detail in the past. Just recently, a Chinese national and graduate student at the University of Minnesota pleaded guilty to charges under the Espionage Act in relation to using a drone to collect imagery of U.S. Navy vessels at multiple shipyards in Virginia.
Even if the craft that have been flying over Plant 42 recently turn out to be benign, it still underscores the ever-growing threats that uncrewed aerial systems present on and off traditional battlefields. In addition, the incidents around Palmdale highlight the growing demand for new counter-drone defenses at U.S. government facilities and other critical infrastructure inside the United States. NORAD’s response to our queries also underscores the current morass of sometimes overlapping and often confusing authorities that still govern responses to potentially hostile uncrewed aerial systems domestically despite continued efforts to streamline them.
Much about what has been happening in the skies over Plant 42 still remains unknown, but the Air Force has now confirmed that what has been plaguing the facility are very real and concerning incursions.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com