Small Drone in Riverside Last Night?

[ben says]

I know this sounds a little whacky/conspiracy theorist...

But the wife and I were taking a walk last night in Riverside from St. Vincents to Memorial Park to Riverside Park back to Copeland. Near the Cummer we look up and above our head (a hundred yards I guess? Not good with vertical measurement. About 2-3 higher than a telephone pole) we see a frisbee sized flying object with a blinking light, just hovering there.

We wrote it off as one of those Brookstone toy drone things and forgot about it. 20 minutes and a mile or two later, we see it again. Couldn't see anyone around us with a joystick.

From my research, looks like it's a domestic drone. Probably a "new toy" of JSO or local feds.

Anyone seen this? If this what I think it is.....eerie, terrifying precedent. If it's just a toy and somebody has seen this before, let me know.

[Dog Walker]

Ben,  I think that there are a couple of companies around that take aerial photos and videos using drones.  There is a condo project scheduled for the area you were in and they might have been surveying the area for planning purposes about that.

One of the companies that uses drones used to use a small, tethered balloon with fins for the same purpose, but the drones are more versatile so they have changed over.

[MEGATRON]

[ben says]

Oy...

[Uncle Marx]

There's a big difference between a widget attached to balloons, and a disk shaped object flying around for miles in various directions.

Sir Ben's suspicion that it may be a drone is given more evidence by this news article:
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-02-11/story/jacksonville-could-be-home-new-navy-drone-operators

[Egodriver71]

Sir Ben's suspicion that it may be a drone is given more evidence by this news article:
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-02-11/story/jacksonville-could-be-home-new-navy-drone-operators

Those are BIG Global Hawk drones, not something that could hover over Memorial Park.

[Egodriver71]

Ben,  I think that there are a couple of companies around that take aerial photos and videos using drones.  There is a condo project scheduled for the area you were in and they might have been surveying the area for planning purposes about that.

One of the companies that uses drones used to use a small, tethered balloon with fins for the same purpose, but the drones are more versatile so they have changed over.

Drones are used for things other than law enforcement/spying.


Plus ANYONE can go buy one of these and mount a camera to it if they wish.

http://www.nitroplanes.com/quadcopters.html

[Uncle Marx]

The link you provided are to drones that look like play toys. We'll have to see if Ben confirms that the drone he saw looked like those.

I don't think the Navy limits itself to one size drone...

[funwithteeth]

I've alerted the authorities to this thread. Expect to not hear from Metro Jacksonville user ben says for a long, long time.

[ben says]

The drone didn't look like any of those on the link.

[Cheshire Cat]

Clearly we are being invaded by teeny tiny aliens.  Admit, we all knew this day was coming........

[acme54321]

They make a $300 quadcopter that has a camera and can be flown from a iphone over wifi.  It was probably someone's toy.  For a little more investment you can upgrade one to be able to fly miles away using video goggles.

[JayBird]

Clearly we are being invaded by teeny tiny aliens.  Admit, we all knew this day was coming........

OMG Batteries Not Included was real!!!! (80's movie reference)

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Clearly we are being invaded by teeny tiny aliens.  Admit, we all knew this day was coming........

Do they at least come with batteries this time?

[RiversideLoki]

Probably nothing to worry about, citizen. Go about your day.