"How can anyone know these aren't a threat without knowing whose they are?"
Easy. They didn't say they don't know whose they are. They could belong to a private contractor who is paid by the military but the military doesn't own the drones nor company (plausible deniability /outsourcing.) Or they could be a friendly country (e.g. UK) red-teaming the US with our consent.
I've never heard anyone apply the Five Eyes horse trading to inter-country UFO-related dynamics of operation but its fairly conceivable and has a bit of precedent, right?
The FBI explicitly said they didn't 2 days ago. There's a possibility the FBI is being purposefully left in the dark by other feds, or lying under oath at risk of prison time for perjury, but without any evidence that's just one more of MANY conspiracy theories here.
In the three-letter agency soup, it's very possible another agency called them and said: you guys don't know who these are, and you will never know. But we know.
Wow, we are getting Cyberpunk lore in real-life? The CIA, FBI, NSA, and DEA all conspired to overthrow the US government in Cyberpunk lore - though not as a united front and they also fought with each other iirc
Fair point. Another option is that the FBI knows more about the nature of the drones (size, lights, other identifiers, etc) either via visual identification or other sensors (classified, at related military installations nearby) sufficiently that they can be confident that there are no, say, explosives or guns attached and thus the drones are "safe". But they still don't know whose they are.
Another option is a variation of the above, where they might have a "person or company of interest" that is too soon to talk about, but they suspect the game being played is that they are owned by some tech startup who is trying to fly their/others drones around to drum up business by scaring people to in turn secure huge military contracts for drone-sensing and drone-countermeasures which they can sell as a solution to the problem/risk they've created. Am I too cynical?
Or as the original poster implied and some statements I've seen are clearer about than others, the wording is just sloppy in distinguishing between: "There is no evidence these drones are a threat/harmful" (ie they have been non-violent, so far) vs "There is not a threat here" (of any kind now or future... "keep calm and carry on"/"Don't panic... because we told you so; we don't see any particular reason".)
A substantial leap. Given that these are flying near military installations, wouldn't the most plausible explanation be that these are test flights? What data would be gathered from low altitude that could not be aggregated from the myriad other sensors in our environments? Or from satellites, etc.?
Seems like the U.S. military has taken to heart that in any near future conflicts, forces of any branch will need to be heavily augmented by drones for reconnaissance, offense, and defense. So, if that's true, I would expect any military site at which personnel are trained to be flying drones constantly. And it serves them no benefit to let everyone know what they're doing. If the U.S. public is "read in", so are all potential adversaries.
Easy. They didn't say they don't know whose they are. They could belong to a private contractor who is paid by the military but the military doesn't own the drones nor company (plausible deniability /outsourcing.) Or they could be a friendly country (e.g. UK) red-teaming the US with our consent.
I've never heard anyone apply the Five Eyes horse trading to inter-country UFO-related dynamics of operation but its fairly conceivable and has a bit of precedent, right?