INDIANAPOLIS — What a FOX59/CBS4 viewer recently saw flying recently above his southern Marion County home and neighborhood concerned him.
He can be heard saying, “That is scary,” on video he provided to FOX59/CBS4. It shows a lighted object hovering and sometimes moving slowly in the evening sky.
“That’s exactly what they’ve been seeing on the East Coast,” the man could be heard saying in the video.
Since early December, there have been reports of large drones in the air above New Jersey. The flights have been at night and drones have been spotted near a military research facility and President-Elect Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster.
The federal Department of Homeland Security and FBI are investigating but so far have offered few answers. When asked at a Tuesday meeting of the US House Homeland Security Committee whether the drones are a public safety threat, the FBI’s Assistant Director of the Critical Incident Response Group said in part, “There is nothing that is known that would lead me to say that, but we just don’t know and that’s the concerning part.”
A spokesperson for the Indianapolis FBI office told FOX59/CBS4 that it is “not aware of any reports” of nighttime drone flights in the area.
But what was that captured on video of the night sky of Marion County?
FOX59/CBS4 shared the video clips with Indianapolis drone pilot Mark Bianchi, whose business is Indy Drone Video.
In a brief telephone interview this afternoon, Bianchi told us it was definitely a drone.
“Because they do have the navigational lights on them,” Bianchi said. “The green lights and the red lights which is standard for most drones.”
Bianchi observed the night-time flight possibly broke FAA regulations for drone pilots.
“I did not see a flashing beacon on the drone… which means that the person flying them is certainly flying them illegally,” Bianchi said.
Given the apparent size of the drone captured in the video, Bianchi guessed it could be an agricultural drone, which is larger and used for things like crop dusting.
The federal agency that deals with complaints about aircraft is the FAA’s Flight Safety Office. There is one such office in Plainfield. If you wish to inform the office about a drone sighting, you can call them at 317-837-4400 or if you wish to email them, the office can be reached at 7-AGL-IND-FSDO@FAA.GOV.
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