Normally closed for Thanksgiving, U.S. bases in the UK have continued to monitor possible drone intrusions, while RAF Menwith Hill and RAF Fylingdales have been protected by new airspace restrictions.
Following our previous article on the topic, a number of new developments have arisen in the case of suspected small uncrewed aerial system (sUAS) sightings near U.S.-operated bases in the United Kingdom.
During the evening of Nov. 26, 2024, a new Notice to Aviation (NOTAM) was issued regarding the operation of military aircraft without lights in a 20 nautical mile radius of RAF Lakenheath. Usually, the use of anti-collision and navigation lights is a legal requirement in UK airspace, as it is in many other countries. This NOTAM is currently valid until Dec. 4, 2024. F-15E Strike Eagles from Lakenheath continued to fly missions on Nov. 27, Nov. 28 and Nov. 29, despite the Thanksgiving holiday season which usually sees U.S. bases almost devoid of any activity.
As we predicted previously, the NOTAM protecting airspace over RAF Feltwell was replaced on Nov. 29 with a new extended notice valid until Feb. 26, 2025.
New NOTAMs have been issued following UK government legislation prohibiting the operation of unmanned aircraft below 3,000 ft and within a 2 nautical mile radius of RAF Fylingdales and RAF Menwith Hill, both in Yorkshire. Much like previous bases involved in these reports, these sites are to varying degrees associated with the United States.
RAF Fylingdales houses a distinctive AN/APS-132 Solid State Phased Array Radar System (SSPARS). This radar system is tailored to space surveillance and provides an early warning capability against missile attacks. Though operated primarily by British personnel on behalf of the UK Space Command, all data from the station is shared between the UK and the United States, and the U.S. Space Force maintains a permanent liaison officer at the base. It forms part of a ballistic missile detection system that includes other radar sites at Beale Air Force Base in California, Cape Cod Space Force Station in Massachusetts, Clear Space Force Station in Alaska, and Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule) in Greenland. Fylingdales is notable for being the only part of this chain with three radar arrays providing 360 degree coverage.
Meanwhile, RAF Menwith Hill is staffed by a large complement of personnel from the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intelligence agency, U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Air Force. This base is, unlike Fylingdales, operated directly by U.S. personnel. As well as being a ground station for U.S. intelligence satellites, there is also evidence that the base is directly involved in GCHQ and NSA electronic and signals intelligence monitoring programs.
Both bases have long drawn attention from protest groups opposed to the positioning of American forces in the United Kingdom, raising their media profile by a significant degree.
On the morning of Nov. 29, F-15E Strike Eagles departed RAF Lakenheath on a sortie that would take them to the Vale of York. The Vale of York is a designated Area of Intense Aerial Activity (AIAA), and as such would routinely be used by American and British aircraft during training exercises. However, the timing of this launch, as well as the fact that this AIAA includes airspace directly overhead RAF Fylingdales (with RAF Menwith Hill just outside the boundary) strongly suggests the Strike Eagles were involved in the current counter-drone operation.
Anonymous U.S. officials have again remarked that the drones being monitored are not suspected to belong to hobbyists, further specifying that they appear to be of quadcopter or octocopter configuration, but more sophisticated than those commercially available.
British Bases Also Targeted
Thanks to scanner audio of unencrypted communications provided by a friend of The Aviationist who wishes to remain anonymous, we know that RAF Shadow intelligence aircraft flights have continued to monitor ongoing events. From the same source, we can additionally report of a sighting of 3 possible UASs operating over RAF Marham, home to the UK’s F-35B Lightning II force. Intelligence assets were quickly notified and routed towards the airfield, which is only 16 miles to the north of RAF Lakenheath.
It is likely that a great deal of communications traffic is being transmitted via encrypted and/or frequency hopping radio systems to prevent external monitoring, with enthusiasts (and potentially those operating the drones) only able to hear small snippets transmitted ‘in the clear’.
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Speaking in Parliament on Nov. 27, the Minister of State for Defence Procurement and Industry Maria Eagle MP responded to questions from fellow MPs about the ongoing situation. She said: “Protection of our personnel and bases is our highest priority. We employ multi-layered and credible force protection measures. I will not say here precisely what has been employed and where; for security reasons, I will not go into specifics, but the Chamber can be assured that we are taking steps. We are aware of what is going on and are doing our best to deal with it.”
Counter UAS technology, such as Falcon Shield or ORCUS, has already been deployed by the UK to the American bases that have faced previous instructions, and additional sets of equipment have likely made their way to a number of other bases around the country. As we noted previously, it is also likely that parts of the UK’s intelligence and security services are taking part in investigations.
False Alarms and Other Sightings
Since this topic has made its way into the UK’s mainstream news, many members of the public, often those near airbases and airports, have taken to social media to make reports of sightings. Many of these reports show lights in the sky at night, and are more likely to be normal aircraft operations, or perhaps aircraft operations tracking the drone sightings, rather than the drones themselves. While commercial and consumer operated sUAS are regularly fitted with lights to aid visibility and situational awareness, it is unlikely that drones breaching the perimeter of military airfields would be flying with these switched on or even fitted.
Someone in the Lakenheath area has sent me this video showing an alleged drone over the area. https://t.co/ugAKcTknaX pic.twitter.com/gxHonaoash
— Christopher Sharp (@ChrisUKSharp) November 29, 2024
Some of these sightings were quickly deduced to be satellites of the SpaceX Starlink internet service, which are frequently mistaken for aircraft or ‘UFOs’.
Those who believe in extraterrestrial visits to the Earth have additionally been interviewed, alleging that the sightings are non-human in origin and that others, such as one purportedly seen at Manchester Airport, are part of the same encounter. Similar theories surround swarms of unidentified objects that have been sighted over U.S. bases in the past.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) officially classifies unknown objects like this as “unidentified aerial phenomena” or UAPs, which has replaced the term unidentified flying object or UFO. The DoD All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office revealed earlier this month that 757 UAP sighting reports had been officially filed between May 2023 and June 2024.
These came following the high profile series of UAP sightings which led to the shoot-down of several objects in locations across North America. One of these was later suspected to be an intelligence gathering balloon operated by China, while another, shot down over Lake Huron by a U.S. Air Force F-16 has recently been revealed as likely to have been a U.S. National Weather Service meteorological balloon.
