Military clears up Beltway UFO mystery
Courtesy Juliee London via Instagram
The so-called "Beltway UFO" is actually an 82-foot drone.
Beltway traffic in Washington, D.C., is bad enough without adding extraterrestrial vehicles into the mix.
On
Wednesday night, Facebook and Twitter users went wild over sightings of
a saucer-shaped vessel being towed on local highways. The buzz called to mind the frenzy in 1947 Roswell, albeit in a much more modern way.
Drivers spotted the craft on I-270 and on the Beltway as it was pulled behind a tractor trailer.
But we can take the "unidentified" out of
"unidentified flying object." (And yes, we realize that it wasn't
actually flying, either.) The military has confirmed to NBC News
affiliate News4 that the 82-foot-long craft is an unmanned military
aircraft, known as an X-47B.
Maryland State Police towed it on a flatbed trailer from Garrett County, Md., to Naval Air Station Patuxent River.
The
drone had come all the way from California -- and yes, it "always
attracts attention," a military spokesperson told NBC4's Melissa Mollet.
The
craft is the second of its kind to come to the area. An X-47B arrived
in late 2011 -- although if they towed that one on the Beltway, no one
must have noticed.
Poll: Americans OK with some domestic drones
"In
the coming months, you can expect to see the X-47B flying over the base
and surrounding area along the Chesapeake Bay," said Matt Funk, lead
test engineer.
According to a military press release:
The X-47B is the first unmanned vehicle designed to take off and land on an aircraft carrier. As part of the program's demonstration, the X-47B will perform arrested landings and catapult launches at Pax to validate its ability to conduct precision approaches to the carrier. The base is one of only a few sites in the world where the Navy can run performance tests on aircraft-carrier catapult operations at a land-based facility with flight test and engineering support resources not available on a ship.
Although Maryland State Police helped orchestrate the the drone's Wednesday night commute, even they didn't know what it was at the time, police told News4.
"Don't
worry, that's not an alien spacecraft, just a flying military robot.
[That was a] totally normal sentence in 2012. I love the future," Ben Jacobs tweeted.
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Right away in clear bold letters this article spelt "COVER UP FOR ACTUALL UFOS" to me.
Do you realise they can now say it was X-47B flying over head, not a "UFO?" I see no other reason to make this X-47B prfoundly aware to the public other than to throw people off the fact that maybe, just maybe, actual UFOs will be heading in and out of Chesapeake bay in plain sight.
Just look at the thing, it's lit up like a flaming Christimas tree! It was ment to attact attendtion otherwise they would put a cover over it.
I quote:
"In the coming months, you can expect to see the X-47B flying over the base and surrounding area along the Chesapeake Bay," said Matt Funk, lead test engineer.
Connect the dots, think for yourself.
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