September 4, 2014

The curious incident of the drone in the nighttime

For a week or two, we wondered if a "guy with a flashlight" was wandering around our property at night. What we saw was so strange, we couldn't grasp its nature.

A large area of light - in various colors - was moving around. My nephew was the first to see it. His initial take was that someone was wandering around the neighborhood with a flashlight. At 10 or 11 pm, this can seem a bit threatening. We were all at the windows, trying to figure out what it was. It was a vague light. It lit a large area but not brightly. And sometimes the light was blue while at other times it was a soft white.

Personally, I thought it was a couple who live nearby. They're rather odd, in that they take a boat out on the pond at night and keep a constant light running on the boat. The light doesn't shine ahead of them but lights up the boat itself, as if they need to see what they're doing aboard their craft. (And just what are they doing out there?) I figured they got a weird new light, one that shines in various colors. I couldn't see their boat, but what else could explain the roving light? This continued for about a week.

Then one night, my nephew saw four small lights hovering in the sky over the pond. They weren't moving. That pretty much clinched it. One of the neighbors was playing with a drone. On a night soon after that, I heard a whining, smallish engine moving overhead, then veering here and there in the air. Yup, a drone.

It's kinda creepy. It didn't seem like the drone's intention was to approach houses closely - to look in windows, or anything like that. It was just playing overhead, roving around and probably shining the light here and there so a camera could record images for the operator. Maybe the person was looking for animals. Or maybe he was just bored.

But yeah, it's kinda creepy. I don't think I'm going to enjoy this new era of drones. Life is strange enough already. On the other hand, they sure do take interesting videos when there's an accident or a fire or something else out of the ordinary.

The creepiness doesn't go away once you know what it is. At least, it didn't for me. I haven't seen it for a couple of weeks. Maybe it crashed and died. If that's the case, I hope the operator doesn't buy a new one.

Drones near my house. Ugh. Have you seen any in your area? Do tell.

1 comment:

Anna Guess Pick said...

Creepy for sure. I don't go out much except for my daily walks and grocery shopping once in awhile, I prefer home to malls.

But on those rare public outings sometimes I do take note of the cameras that are about, not the ones that people tote about in their smart phones but the ones that are mounted in public spaces and along the roadways.

Now with the addition of overhead drone surveillance we will probably never walk, sit or eat alone again. I guess it is good on one hand to have a record of untoward events, but still, yes, it is creepy. Especially when your neighbors join the surveillance team.