Why would a helicopter fly overhead for about an hour doing sort of a figure 8?

[dutch508]

Star Member RKP5637 (58,712 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213937231

Why would a helicopter fly overhead for about an hour doing sort of a figure 8?
There is nothing going on on the ground. No police cars or anything. Just this huge helicopter going back and forth in a figure 8. Is it some type of radio surveillance or something? NO!!! I do not have a tinfoil hat. It was just really weird and it was quite dark about 10PM.

 

Star Member Historic NY (33,517 posts)

1. Was it a black helicopter?

It sounds like they are practicing search and rescue techniques for night time.

[link:https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=448277|]

Star Member RKP5637 (58,712 posts)

7. It was dark outside, but from what I can tell it was in fact black. Just had some flashing

red lights fore and aft. Usually, there's an accident, some type of activity on the ground. I'm on the 8th floor, so I had pretty good visibility.

abqtommy (5,545 posts)

2. Sounds like a flying stingray picking up cell phone data.

 

Star Member jcgoldie (5,758 posts)

12. I always think they are aiming infrared devices at my pot plants

Maybe I just have a guilty conscience...

 

Star Member csziggy (29,894 posts)

29. Hunh - that was my first thought!

Decades ago, we had a copter fly very low over our farm and hover over one of our lower pastures. It pissed me off because it was spooking the horses that I was trying to turn out into that pasture. I even called the tower for the local airport to complain. All they could tell me was that it was a Florida Department of Law Enforcement helicopter. I told them to relay to the pilot to get the **** out of my air space and that if FDLE wanted to search my property they could bring a warrant to the front gate.

Eventually I put together what had happened. FDLE had just gotten their first flir (infrared camera) and was testing it out. The pilot's father lived next door and back them everything to the east of us was plantation land, so he was using that mostly unoccupied land to learn how to use the flir camera.

In that lower pasture we had a stand of young loblolly pine trees. Apparently young pines have the same infrared signature as marijuana plants. When the crew saw that signature, they were coming down low, below tree top level, to check it out. They were excited - maybe they had a big bust of marijuana plants found by accident on their first flir flight! They didn't even realize they were not over plantation land anymore.

After the copter was gone I'd also called FDLE and raised hell with them - there was a very high chance that either I could have gotten hurt or that one or more of my horses could have gotten hurt in their panic over this sky beast hovering over their pasture. Apparently the pilot and his crew caught hell for not making sure they were over the plantation land where they had permission to fly very low.

My neighbor's son later came over and apologized but I was not sympathetic. My horses were leery of going into that pasture for months afterwards.

 

Star Member MineralMan (132,716 posts)

28. I don't know. Without knowing where this happened, it's impossible

to look for possible reasons for such activity. What kind of helicopter was it? Could you see any markings on it?

Just not enough information even to guess. No doubt it was some sort of surveillance of some kind, but why it was there cannot even be guessed at with so little information.

Star Member RKP5637 (58,712 posts)

38. Yep, and it was around 10pm. From what I could see it had no markings at all and

it was huge, very huge with two rotors.

Star Member NightWatcher (37,627 posts)

30. Could've been a private eye. We have a chopper guy that we use from time to time.

They were looking for someone or something.

LeftInTX (12,214 posts)

45. One time there was a helicopter flying over the gym where I work out

It kept flying over and over and I was standing around just starring at it.

It eventually noticed me and flew down and asked, "Have you seen a man with red hair?" (They also gave more details)

An ATM had been ransacked at a local Walgreens. There were no police cars. I had not seen a man with red hair...I'm sure they were a bit annoyed that they had wasted their time to satisfy my curiosity.