That's the recruiting pitch they use, but in all honesty, I think it's bogus. Things have changed. Researchers are now more likely to take a job elsewhere than volunteer to be locked away in the depths of Langley. We have no grand enemy and those capable of developing such technology are choosing to work for contractors instead
Background on this device: has been declassified for some time and it's main defect was that it can not function in over 2-3 knots, both from an acoustical recording quality and navigation standpoint.
I'm highly skeptical about that dragonfly from the 70s. I think it's a mock-up at best, there's no way they made something useful for surveillance etc the size of a large dragonfly. Not in the 70s. Researchers working on this for decades can barely do this today!
I'm guessing all it did was fly around loosely controlled if at all. The miniaturization is impressive, but they were not likely able to do much more than a small internal combustion engine in the 70s.
Today however I would not be surprised if such devices exist and are in practical use.
>Harvard University's Micro-robotics Laboratory claims to have created the first tiny micro-robotic fly able to generate enough thrust to take off. It has a wingspan of 3 cm and only weighs 0.06 grams.
Neither of which are in use with the US gov't! If you fools haven't figured it out, the US gov't is not a futuristic entity with all gadgets 10 years before they come out. Leading up to and shortly after 9/11 you couldn't search for multi word strings on FBI computers, and you think they have nano bots? HAH!
What's disturbing to me about this is not the technology (which is awesome), but the fact that it's been buried in the government trenches for 40 years. That kind of knowledge hoarding seems highly antithetical to the "American spirit".
The CIA's always been antithetical to the "American spirit" - an intelligence organization is, by definition.
Agreed, though - it would be nice if this had seen the light of day before now, moreso given the fact that we still can't figure out how the damn thing works.
Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in
Lafayette Square last month.
"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college
senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the
hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little
helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."
Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.
"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer
said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that
mechanical, or is that alive?' "
That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar
sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some
suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools,
perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.
