Dragonfly or Insect Spy?

Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801434.html?nav=hcmodule


By Rick WeissWashington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 9, 2007; Page A03

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.

"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

Gallery
DragonSpies
Robotic fliers have been used by the military since World War II, but in the past decade their numbers and level of sophistication have increased enormously.
Play Video VIDEOS</SPAN> | 'The Dragonfly'java script:void(0);java script:void(0);


Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.

"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "

That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Others think they are, well, dragonflies -- an ancient order of insects that even biologists concede look about as robotic as a living creature can look.

No agency admits to having deployed insect-size spy drones. But a number of U.S. government and private entities acknowledge they are trying. Some federally funded teams are even growing live insects with computer chips in them, with the goal of mounting spyware on their bodies and controlling their flight muscles remotely.

The robobugs could follow suspects, guide missiles to targets or navigate the crannies of collapsed buildings to find survivors.

The technical challenges of creating robotic insects are daunting, and most experts doubt that fully working models exist yet.

"If you find something, let me know," said Gary Anderson of the Defense Department's Rapid Reaction Technology Office.

But the CIA secretly developed a simple dragonfly snooper as long ago as the 1970s. And given recent advances, even skeptics say there is always a chance that some agency has quietly managed to make something operational.

"America can be pretty sneaky," said Tom Ehrhard, a retired Air Force colonel and expert in unmanned aerial vehicles who is now at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonprofit Washington-based research institute.

KOF, maybe if you didn't choose the most boring topics on the net people would actually debate in your threads.

Interesting that you find spy bugs boring.

Also the rule here is to comment on any copy and pasted news article, or it counts as spam.

Okay, here is my comment ..........READ THIS and LEARN.. NOW!!!

At least pretend to be mildly intelligent.

Off Topic.

Don't push it tonight, KOF.

I could say the very same thing to you. You don't like much of what I post, so why do you bother reading my posts?

Ok great, an interesting piece of technology. What is there to discuss? KOF, you have posted this into conspiracies, well what is the story? Did one of these sting Kennedy from the grassy knowl, then escape to the moon, only to return in the flight controls of United 11 to crash into the WTC? And now is leaving vapor trails of of depleted uranium in our flouride laced drinking water?

The conspiracy theory is that the government is hiding cameras in dragonflies to spy on American citizens (i.e. taking away our freedoms).

USMC, I know as much, Id just like to hear his thoughts, KOF as he posted it, but didnt bother to elaborate on it at all.

I understand and agree. Next time and posts a copyrighted article without any original commentary, I am going to delete the thread.

I didn't post it in conspiracies. This is a news item not a conspiracy.
You'll have to talk to the guy who moved the post.

You do have a vivid imagination. Keep posting your theories.

What are you afraid of? I guess there is no free speach here. You want everyone to be little sheep. You do know Power Corrupts don't you???

So you now consider the Washington Post a conspiracy site??
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?nav=hcmodule

KOF, instead of just continually posting article after article, give us some insight on your views of the importance of this. Otherwise I have much more important things to simply read for non-discussion purposes.

Haha, are you related to Roker? We move your thread, not delete it, and REQUEST THAT YOU EXCERICSE YOUR FREE SPEECH BY TELLING US WHAT YOU THINK OF THE ARTICLE!

No, I'm not related to Roker.

Why should you move a news article just because you don't like it? I have no problem telling you what I think. I do what I want, when I want. If you don't like what I post here, either don't read it or have the owners of this board ask me to stop posting.

If I posted it, I think it is something you need to know or think about.