I've not heard anyone claim they are breaking laws of physics, only that they are abnormal in many other ways. Very large and can fly extended distances and times well beyond the pinnacle of drone technology. Our Governor said 50 of them appeared beyond the horizon flying over the ocean. The range is incredible. Reporting now states altitudes well beyond 20,000ft, and at times 50,000ft. All this means they are extremely advanced, well beyond what the most advanced drones shared publicly by the military. I am stumped as to why they would fly something this advanced over civilian areas across the country for four weeks, where risk of foreign observation, capture, civilian crashes and general panic can commence. Military testing is not a logical answer, but I have nothing else.
sure, but name me, especially with Russia and china's growing satellite constellations, one open air area that is wholly excluded from foreign observation. And if your new drone type or swarm is to be put to service over a (large) populated area for say, gathering intel or reconnaissance, it makes little sense testing it over an unpopulated Mojave or Alaskan forest. Plus, what would the alternative be? testing it over populated China/some other foreign power? that'll result in a hight risk of them getting shot/captured and harvested for tech. So you're sort of "stuck" with your own populus for said large scale testing.
The size of the drones is actually congruent with its altitude ceiling. the lighter your plane and more wingspan you have, the higher you can get basically. add to that gen3 PV tech and/or a pocket nuclear reactor and you basically have a plane/drone that can fly indefinitely at very high altitudes, (entropy/maintenance not taken into account) at the fraction of the cost of having to launch a satellite into orbit. Plus it makes them into a multi functional asset. you can land them, equip them to do something else, and send them up again.
The russio-ukraine war and syrian conflict taught the whole militairy world a couple of very valuable lessons in less then a decade.
1, you can blow up multi-million dollar pieces of equipment or a squad of professional soldiers with an guided-RPG (which is pretty much a drone) or DJI-Mavic-the-molotov-cocktail-version at a fraction of the price, at your convinience, and from a safe distance.
2, have your army play around with cellphones, constellation-internet and slightly more advanced drones then that your kids plays with in the garden...and you can see what the enemy is doing from miles away, all the time. Hell, if they're small enough you can even drive/fly them into their respective bunkers/command centres.
it makes sense that the US militairy/intellegence agencies or any from the aforementioned countries for that matter are heavily invested in this/these concepts.
