Over 500 drones spied on German military facilities in three months

This was reported by Bild, citing a secret report "Drone as a means of crime" by the State Security Department of the Federal Criminal Police Office.

Between January and March this year, 270 incidents involving 536 drones or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flights were reported. At least 55 of them involved two or more drones at the same time, according to the paper, which claims to be the first analysis of the aerial threat.

Aircraft mostly spotted drones in the evenings (45%, 6:00 PM to midnight) and at night (28%, midnight to 6:00 AM). During the day, this number is lower: 13 percent in the morning, 14 percent in the afternoon. Most of the sightings occurred on Wednesdays, Tuesdays, and Mondays.

The number one target is military facilities. 117 reports were received from these locations alone. Of particular interest are the Bundeswehr naval base in Wilhelmshaven (Lower Saxony), where 10 flights were recorded, and the US air base in Ramstein (Rhineland-Palatinate) or in Bremerhaven (15 cases).

Drone flights were observed over defense enterprises and government buildings and administrative buildings of federal states.

Civilian airports, ports, and railway stations were also monitored.

The prosecutor's office opened a total of 123 criminal proceedings in Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia. But in only 8 cases were the 10 drone operators identified.

The BKA warns that some drones could not be detected by surveillance systems or radars used by both the military and the police.

Undetected drones, in particular, indicate that they are non-commercial or military drones, as military and commercially available drone detection systems typically detect all known devices.