As much as "it was all a false alarm" would make a killer headline (and clearly has, even in speculation), it doesn't seem that anyone actually believes that. Just a poor choice of works.
The Police in the UK often say the most ludicrous things in statements, and the basic public speaking skills of the people they choose to put out is often very limited. They always look like they're caught in the headlights while trying to sweatily stumble through reading some words off a page.
I'm not sure what institutionally causes this, but it must be something causing it as it's always the same.
Remember when recently a senior Police officer in a statement just decided to call some extremely serious allegations they were looking into 'true' as if they had already had the trial and preempting the whole judicial process? I can't understand how you can accidentally 'misspeak' like that.
Yeah, considering they found a damaged drone near Gatwick airport... it is strangely possible with 67 witnesses that there is no video "proof", but unlikely there were no drones.
On the other hand, I won't be surprised if the couple that were released use the fairly strong libel laws to punish early press shaming.
I just still can’t wrap my head around the fact that in 2018, with a camera attached to every waking persons hand (and some sleeping people too), how is it that there is not a single public photo or video published of this specific drone. Kind of reminds me of when I found out that tipping cows wasn’t a real thing...
> I just still can’t wrap my head around the fact that in 2018, with a camera attached to every waking persons hand (and some sleeping people too), how is it that there is not a single public photo or video published of this specific drone.
I’ve been in many debates about this in the drone flying community (and with friends who know me and how much I fly) and I keep coming back to this point. I’d even take a blurry “UFO sighting” photo under consideration, but even that doesn’t exist.
Virtually every single “close call with a plane” has thankfully (thankfully both for the safety of passengers and for other UAV pilots who would be impacted by the irresponsible party’s actions) been proven later to not have been a drone.
PS, cow tipping is real (as in its “possible”, not that folks are successful), but it’s much harder than folks realize (I grew up in a farm state and have seen it done once with multiple big guys involved, but also seen many a drunken fool fall on their face trying too).
Human eyesight is much more acute than a phone camera, especially filming video at 1080p. The runway at Gatwick is two miles long, plus taxiways and the apron. To a passenger in the terminal building, a drone flying over the runway is likely to appear as little more than a tiny speck.
There is a daily mail video of a drone at the North Terminal Bus station. DM is hardly a good source, and I was sceptical at first but I'm 95% sure its the right location. The question is now, is the footage fake and is it from last week.
One UK precedent for reparation is the treatment of retired teacher Christopher Jefferies who was arrested for the murder of his tenant Joanna Yeates. His character was totally assassinated by the UK media before he was released without charge (Vincent Tabak was later convicted of the murder) [0]. Jefferies' only crime was to be 'unconventional' in the opinion of the media. He launched legal action against six newspapers and accepted substantial damages. His story was turned in a TV drama [1] in 2014.
The paper's that did that made clearly libellous claims - because the couple had not yet been charged with an offence when their names were published. Those paper's can now expect libel claims against them, although given the clear breach of libel law I expect they will wish to settle out of court rather than take on the extra expense of a court case they can't win.
Interestingly I heard that 'some media' had published their names yesterday and I thought that was pretty crass. I know several media organisations are that though so its not really a surprise, and I hope they manage to sue them for undue distress or whatever.
Today though, the BBC are saying "<full name> and <full name> from Crawley are saying that they feel completely violated by the media attention". I can't understand what is going through the editors mind when they approve sentences like that.. there is literally no reason any member of the public would need to know their names, and having the BBC repeat them on the hour every hour is just kicking them when they are already down.
Yep, UK and US are abhorrent when it comes to this. Where I'm from(Poland) it's literally illegal to print the full name and show the face of the accused until after the trial. Once someone is arrested all the newspapers can do is say "Arthur G. was arrested on suspicion of X" with a blurred out photo of their face. The penalties for breaking that law are substantial and newspapers have paid extremely heavy fines for breaking it so it's generally adhered to.
When I read about this, the intense pressure the police were under, that they arrested two people then released them due to iron clad alibis, it makes me wonder if they panicked and tried to pin it on the first couple of people to pass within their sights. Reading about English police corruption recently, this doesn't surprise me if it were true.
Could it have been a mass psychosis? First a real drone sighting and the closure of the airport; then when the news spread, tens of people reported more sightings. There are two densely populated towns on both sides of Gatwick airport, within a couple of kms from the runways. After the first sighting, any other within that range must have been considered a risk worth closing the airport for. A drone is just a black dot in the sky, I wouldn't be surprised by false reports.
"Despite going down the wrong avenue with the arrest, investigators do have more to work with after they recovered a fallen and damaged drone from the north side of the airport. It is being tested for clues on who piloted it, according to The Guardian."
“always a possibility that there may not have been any genuine drone activity in the first place.”
Don't these two contradict? The best consistency possible between them is that the damaged drone was placed there rather than flown, at a different time. In all likelihood it probably did crash, though. Given the timing of finding it, it would seem related to this incident. Perhaps there should be some skyward-facing CCTV-like cameras at airports to remove some ambiguity in situations like this.
The suggestion is that the airports were under major terrorism threat, which is why the army was involved.
They didn't say this to avoid spooking the public, and having a whole lot of people cancel their flights and holidays (plus it would have been major fuel for the Yellow Vests).
This country ( UK ) is highly prone to mass psychosis. Not really ascribing anything negative there, just an observation.
A few winters ago there was minute by minute updates on Bird Flu.
The press was covering swans and ducks found dead on the ground. Each individual fowl corpse was covered in breathless detail amongst infographics and timelines
The government was manoeuvred into buying close to a billion pounds of Tamiflu treatment. Some of that was returned, but £500m wasn’t (thanks to commentators below )
This isn't mass psychosis because 'seeing a drone', even when mistaken, is not a symptom of anything. 'Mass delusion' may be closer to what you're referring to. But there's a certain aspect of fear or panic in the concept that just doesn't fit here: presumably, nobody would feel panic at the sight of a far-away drone unless they were about to board a plane?
In general, I doubt the UK is any more susceptible to such phenomena (cf Americans and their panic at the sight of a turban, or beard). You may also just be profiting from the benefits of hindsight, and throwing in a conspiracy theory for what exactly?
I think it maybe that you're watching certain TV and reading certain newspapers?
I remember coverage. And no doubt the Sun had one of their helpful infographics, and the Mail blamed immigrant birds etc etc. Meanwhile most of us got on with our lives.
This is a terrible, terrible example. Tamiflu is not a vaccine, it’s a treatment. It’s use is recommended in some cases according to clinical best practices, and purchases were not due to the government being “manoeuvred”. And further, the fact that an outbreak didn’t happen doesn’t mean that planning for an outbreak is bad.
[+] [-] merricksb|7 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18745624
[+] [-] Edd314159|7 years ago|reply
> During a conference call between ministers, chaired by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, it was agreed the 67 drone sightings were legitimate.
(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46670714)
As much as "it was all a false alarm" would make a killer headline (and clearly has, even in speculation), it doesn't seem that anyone actually believes that. Just a poor choice of works.
[+] [-] chrisseaton|7 years ago|reply
I'm not sure what institutionally causes this, but it must be something causing it as it's always the same.
Remember when recently a senior Police officer in a statement just decided to call some extremely serious allegations they were looking into 'true' as if they had already had the trial and preempting the whole judicial process? I can't understand how you can accidentally 'misspeak' like that.
[+] [-] pj_mukh|7 years ago|reply
However, there's been 67 legitimate sightings and no pictures, videos? Not even grainy, badly zoomed video?
Can the control tower see these using a simple set of binoculars?
[+] [-] kurthr|7 years ago|reply
On the other hand, I won't be surprised if the couple that were released use the fairly strong libel laws to punish early press shaming.
[+] [-] wrinkl3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigwheeler|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsjohnst|7 years ago|reply
I’ve been in many debates about this in the drone flying community (and with friends who know me and how much I fly) and I keep coming back to this point. I’d even take a blurry “UFO sighting” photo under consideration, but even that doesn’t exist.
Virtually every single “close call with a plane” has thankfully (thankfully both for the safety of passengers and for other UAV pilots who would be impacted by the irresponsible party’s actions) been proven later to not have been a drone.
PS, cow tipping is real (as in its “possible”, not that folks are successful), but it’s much harder than folks realize (I grew up in a farm state and have seen it done once with multiple big guys involved, but also seen many a drunken fool fall on their face trying too).
[+] [-] huffmsa|7 years ago|reply
Pics or it didn't happen
[+] [-] jdietrich|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickjackson|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alt_f4|7 years ago|reply
There should be some sort of penalty for blatantly lying to the public, even if it is done to save face about your incompetence.
[+] [-] soneil|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Angostura|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barry0079|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KineticLensman|7 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Joanna_Yeates
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3429354/plotsummary
[+] [-] redcalx|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackweirdy|7 years ago|reply
Newspapers reported their names, usually that happens off the back of neighbours tipping off the papers for cash about the police knocking on doors.
[+] [-] clort|7 years ago|reply
Today though, the BBC are saying "<full name> and <full name> from Crawley are saying that they feel completely violated by the media attention". I can't understand what is going through the editors mind when they approve sentences like that.. there is literally no reason any member of the public would need to know their names, and having the BBC repeat them on the hour every hour is just kicking them when they are already down.
[+] [-] gambiting|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sys_64738|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Udik|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfoster|7 years ago|reply
“always a possibility that there may not have been any genuine drone activity in the first place.”
Don't these two contradict? The best consistency possible between them is that the damaged drone was placed there rather than flown, at a different time. In all likelihood it probably did crash, though. Given the timing of finding it, it would seem related to this incident. Perhaps there should be some skyward-facing CCTV-like cameras at airports to remove some ambiguity in situations like this.
[+] [-] rasz|7 years ago|reply
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/21/drone-believed-t...
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/04/drone...
[+] [-] monochromatic|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imron|7 years ago|reply
"investigators do have more to work with after they recovered a fallen and damaged drone from the north side of the airport."
[+] [-] PavlovsCat|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jacquesm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beerlord|7 years ago|reply
They didn't say this to avoid spooking the public, and having a whole lot of people cancel their flights and holidays (plus it would have been major fuel for the Yellow Vests).
[+] [-] benj111|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tezza|7 years ago|reply
A few winters ago there was minute by minute updates on Bird Flu.
The press was covering swans and ducks found dead on the ground. Each individual fowl corpse was covered in breathless detail amongst infographics and timelines
The government was manoeuvred into buying close to a billion pounds of Tamiflu treatment. Some of that was returned, but £500m wasn’t (thanks to commentators below )
Tamiflu killed more people that the H5N1
So may more examples beyond this
[+] [-] yangyang|7 years ago|reply
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26954482
[+] [-] matt4077|7 years ago|reply
In general, I doubt the UK is any more susceptible to such phenomena (cf Americans and their panic at the sight of a turban, or beard). You may also just be profiting from the benefits of hindsight, and throwing in a conspiracy theory for what exactly?
[+] [-] benj111|7 years ago|reply
I remember coverage. And no doubt the Sun had one of their helpful infographics, and the Mail blamed immigrant birds etc etc. Meanwhile most of us got on with our lives.
[+] [-] matthewmacleod|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|7 years ago|reply
£9bn was about the total prescription medication budget at the time, so I think you've gone wrong somewhere.