Information – The Optimistic Conservative

Patriot missiles being removed from Turkey were hacked, given ‘unexplained orders’

Peace in our time.

There are several weird elements in the missile defense drama suddenly being played out in Turkey. Alert readers won’t be surprised that two of those weird elements are Russia and Iran.

Seemingly out of the blue, Germany announced this past weekend that the German contingent of two Patriot missile batteries, deployed to Turkey as a defensive measure in January 2013 – against the threat of Syrian Scuds – would be withdrawn ahead of schedule.

Within hours, the U.S. had made the same announcement about the American Patriot missiles that were deployed to Turkey at the same time. The German and American contingents represent four of the five NATO Patriot batteries now in Turkey (the fifth is from Spain). The four units will be gone by the end of 2015. Continue reading “Patriot missiles being removed from Turkey were hacked, given ‘unexplained orders’”

Low-flying federal surveillance planes popping up over more cities

Big Brother.

Cessna 182 N859JA over McLean, VA in July 2014. (Image: liveandietpie via imgur!, Reddit)

Just a few weeks after similar activity was reported during the Baltimore riots, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune has a story about unmarked small planes flying low-altitude surveillance patterns, in the middle of the night, over downtown Minneapolis and the Mall of America.

Aviation buff John Zimmerman was at a weekly gathering of neighbors Friday night when he noticed something peculiar: a small plane circling a route overhead that didn’t make sense to him.

It was dark, so a sightseeing flight didn’t make sense, and when Zimmerman pulled up more information on an aviation phone app he routinely checks, he had immediate concerns.

The plane’s flight path, recorded by the website flightradar24.com, would eventually show that it circled downtown Minneapolis, the Mall of America and Southdale Center at low altitude for hours starting at 10:30 p.m., slipping off radar just after 3 a.m.

“I thought, ‘Holy crap,’ ” said Zimmerman.

Bearing the call sign N361DB, the plane is one of three Cessna 182T Skylanes registered to LCB Leasing of Bristow, Va., according to FAA records. The Virginia secretary of state has no record of an LCB Leasing. Virtually no other information could be learned about the company.

Continue reading “Low-flying federal surveillance planes popping up over more cities”