Copenhagen airport closure due to reported drone activity

I found this post from in Reddit that was interestingly posted by an active member r/UFOs. I thought it'd fit in here as it's good to see an outside (if misunderstood) view of our research and investigations as this can help us better explain our positions on these topics when queried by UAP believers etc:

It reads in part:

I realize "Metabunk" is only one group of skeptics, but they seem to be doubting the existence of "Denmark drones", despite them apparently being confirmed by multiple parties?

For example, this thread:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/copenhagen-airport-closure-due-to-reported-drone-activity.14455/

What made my eyes pop was an exchange deeper in the thread, where someone said:
The EU is not implementing drone detection and counter measures because of people reporting normal planes as drones. The EU is making these changes because actual drones are being observed.
Click to expand...
And was given the response, to that:
There is no material evidence of that.
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This article isn't that developed yet it appears:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Danish_drone_incidents

But in the news, we have figures like multiple heads of state, Danish military and police, NATO, etc. confirming the drones, to the point French Special Forces under order from Macron boarded and seized a ship of the Russian shadow fleet suspected of launching drones into EU airspace.

Is there really a skeptical angle here to debunk the presence at all of reported drones in the area?

I totally get you guys (you guys, broadly) were super active in the New Jersey, United Kingdom, and other recent drone incidents the past few years due in part to lack of public evidence and conflicting/minimizing statements from government.

But here, we have multiple countries (Denmark, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, France, Norway I believe) seeming to confirm it as happening with drones, plus intranational bodies like the EU and NATO.

What is there to debunk around the simple basic fact that drones or drone-like tech have been seemingly confirmed to be interfering with EU civilian and military airspace?
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Thankfully there were some informed members of the comment section that helped clarified our position:
Conscious-Demand-594 wrote:
"They are not doubting the existence of the drones, they are explaining what they were based on the available data. In New Jersey, all of the drones that had video evidence with time and location turned out to be aircraft. I hadn't been following this case closely but apparently some of the drones turned out to be aircraft once the data was analyzed"
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And another:
ContributionCivil620 wrote:
Exactly, whenever footage is shown it ties to airplanes. There was a recent case where drones were supposedly seen over an airbase (you'd expect reliable witnesses), but once exact details were given they matched to airplanes.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/wright-patterson-drone-documents-and-video-lots-of-planes.14327/
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I also appreciated this one:
Harabeck wrote:
"First, I'm curious as to why you seem to be addressing members of metabunk, but doing it here on reddit. It's free to sign up for metabunk, and as long as you're respectful, you can bring up your objections in the thread you linked. Why not ask them directly?

Is there really a skeptical angle here to debunk the presence at all of reported drones in the area?
Have we seen actual evidence of these drones? Or are we just being told of "reports"?

In 2018, the Gatwick airport was shut down for 3 days due to drone sightings.

The investigation was closed on 27 September 2019, citing lack of new information.[4] No culprit or evidence of drone use was found.[4] There are no known photographs or videos of the drone, and authorities have no official description of the drone.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatwick_Airport_drone_incident

The entire New Jersey flap resulted in hundreds of videos of normal aircraft, and no evidence of unusual drones, despite many statements from government officials. (Mostly civilian officials trying to get attention, to be fair.)

And even statements from military officials can be wrong.

The Chilean Navy was unable to identify thermal footage of a normal airplane.

At least one US Navy official repeatedly claimed these stars were "drones".

So if we haven't seen any evidence of these drones, why should we just accept that they exist?"
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Sometimes Reddit replies are from Metabunk members with different names.. there are not that many people who are wanting to do this work and also be active on the internet.

Bringing up Metabunk up in the 'safe' space of Reddit UFOs is an easy way to feel good about how wrong you think we are rather than actually trying debate it with us here where there are some rules on evidence etc.
 
virtualcrane said:
External Quote:
The EU is not implementing drone detection and counter measures because of people reporting normal planes as drones. The EU is making these changes because actual drones are being observed.
And was given the response, to that:

External Quote:
There is no material evidence of that.
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Objecting to that response (one of @Mendel's?) reveals that there's a breakdown of communication, the levels of indirection that exist simply aren't being understood.

The "that" is the *motivation* for the changes. And indeed there was no material evidence for that.
It doesn't mean it's not the motivation for any changes - it might be, but we're absent evidence.
It doesn't mean that there's no changes - at least now there are, and we do have evidence for that.
It doesn't mean no drones have been observed - at least now some have, and we do have evidence for that.

Too many of the reddit folk seem to just like mangling what is actually said - often with painfully pedantic precision - into straw men arguments irrelevant to the original point, which in this case is to emphasise the importantce of backing up factual claims with supporting evidence. A truism.

And I think that's why many don't want to sign up here, as they know such fallacial arguments won't stand up.
 
FatPhil said:
Objecting to that response (one of @Mendel's?)
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@jarlrmai wrote the "material evidence" quote, but I probably said something similar. We still don't have material evidence of foreign military drones operating in Scandinavia.

A drone defense for Europe is a good idea, given the incidents in Poland and Lithuania, which we do have hard evidence of.

I found Kyle's recent post in this thread very helpful, where he pointed out that in the US, certain official analyses that would've confirmed our take were never published:
Kyle Ferriter said:
The fact that analysis trended towards concluding the people on the ship actually misidentified airplanes was never reported on. The government never made it known. This was only obtained via FOIA, months later.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/drones-over-new-jersey.13770/post-350696
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Kyle Ferriter said:
As another example from the New Jersey hysteria last year, the TSA had done multiple investigations into some sightings of anomalous drones which were reported on in the news, and the TSA investigations came to the conclusion that the sightings were misidentified conventional airplane/helicopter traffic. This was never published publicly.
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It's always hard to prove a negative. Do you want to stake your reputation on "there aren't any foreign military drones in Skandinavia" when you might not have access to all the evidence that might turn up? and go against the reputation of the agencies and people who believed the news?

All you can do is point out that there is no hard evidence, and that if you feel the government might have hard evidence and not publish it, then should also be ok with the notion that the government might not have hard evidence and not publish that it doesn't. There's precedent, after all.

Metabunk hasn't yet been disproven, not on the drones, not on the UFOs. It's the best you can say of any scientific truth, per Richard Feynman.
 
This drone/planes/aliens element to this trifecta makes the whole subject fraught with inherent motte and bailey fallacies (argue for aliens, retreat to drones)

Is the person you are debating arguing for drones, or for aliens and are they using the government reports as a stepping stone to add credence to aliens?

Contradictions in arguments as well, trust governments "something" is going on, but don't trust them it's just drones and equally don't trust them that aliens are not real.

I dont think I can really express this well, the whole fluid nature of having 3 theories bouncing around just makes it harder to debate.
 
virtualcrane said:
I found this post from in Reddit that was interestingly posted by an active member r/UFOs. I thought it'd fit in here as it's good to see an outside (if misunderstood) view of our research and investigations as this can help us better explain our positions on these topics when queried by UAP believers etc:

It reads in part:
I realize "Metabunk" is only one group of skeptics, but they seem to be doubting the existence of "Denmark drones", despite them apparently being confirmed by multiple parties?

But in the news, we have figures like multiple heads of state, Danish military and police, NATO, etc. confirming the drones, to the point French Special Forces under order from Macron boarded and seized a ship of the Russian shadow fleet suspected of launching drones into EU airspace.

Is there really a skeptical angle here to debunk the presence at all of reported drones in the area?

I totally get you guys (you guys, broadly) were super active in the New Jersey, United Kingdom, and other recent drone incidents the past few years due in part to lack of public evidence and conflicting/minimizing statements from government.

But here, we have multiple countries (Denmark, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, France, Norway I believe) seeming to confirm it as happening with drones, plus intranational bodies like the EU and NATO.

What is there to debunk around the simple basic fact that drones or drone-like tech have been seemingly confirmed to be interfering with EU civilian and military airspace?
Click to expand...

Some real confusion about what "confirmation" means and what counts as evidence.

Saying that heads of state, NATO, or the Danish military have "confirmed drones" isn't evidence in itself. That's an argument from authority: accepting a claim because powerful or official people said it, rather than because verifiable data support it.

And... Let's ask a question: Have they really confirmed the existence of Mystery Drones? Or have they just been reacting to reports of Mystery Drones?

Governments and agencies often treat reports as credible out of caution, especially when airspace safety is involved. That doesn't mean they've physically verified an object. The Gatwick case in 2018 is a good example: police, military, and airport staff all said drones had been confirmed, but no drone was ever found. The investigation later concluded there might never have been one at all.

When the EU introduces new drone-detection systems, that's a policy response, not proof of past incursions. It's like installing new radar after a bird strike: it shows concern, not confirmation.

What gets me is that UFO believers and conspiracy-minded groups shift their stance toward authority depending on the situation. When an official statement supports their claims, the government and military become flawless truth-tellers. When the same institutions deny or downplay the claim, they're suddenly professional liars engaged in cover-ups. You can't have it both ways. Either those sources are unreliable, or their statements should be judged on the evidence itself, not on how convenient they are at the moment.

If solid data exists, that would change the conversation. Let's talk about radar tracks, sensor correlations, recovered devices, Pal. Until then, all we really have are reports and press statements echoing each other.

The skeptical view isn't that drones are impossible. It's simply that authority-based statements aren't evidence.

Claims, no matter how official they sound, still need independent verification through physical data and transparent documentation.

And my claim is that the evidence has all come from the most unreliable witnesses. The ones who are a misperceiving, while disconfirming evidence has been filtered out. A process which misrepresents the data as universal, implying that everyone who looked at a particular aircraft would "see" it as a mystery drone. A failure to report the denominator or context of the proportion.
See: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/co...orted-drone-activity.14455/page-8#post-353684

The official response to this bad conclusion comes from an "abundance of caution"... otherwise known as CYA.

And let's get real. There are always some scattered crackpots in any government or military organization who are too willing to jump onto a crackpot bandwagon.
 
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Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1nz4tp2/drones_above_oslo_airport_again_tonight/


This thread contained someone recording a webcam over Oslo


Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1nz4tp2/drones_above_oslo_airport_again_tonight/nhzoavx/


Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TurL1qTPO_5gKfEtMcd4tIiR07VYYpku/view


Location is here

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ecMvdHJvYvXaH7bh7

I rewound the time on the webcam and confirmed it was there, the time seemed to match around 23:55 (probably a bit before), it was fairly hard to line up Oslo time to UK time to rewind the live webcam the right amount and as there is only 12 hours history it is probably gone now from there. (please webcam owners add a UTC date/time stamp to your feed)

1759747904267.png


I pulled it up in Sitrec and no planes really seemed a good match (although there are planes they all have a downward trajectory), Betelgeuse seems positioned right, but its very bright, it's hard to tell if the light is actually moving, because the webcam is panning one direction and the clouds appear to be moving in the other, I stabilised for the light its track is level with the screen and horizon from what I can tell

1759748360835.png





It seems fairly stationary vertically, it does appear to move slightly compared to some of the lights but lens distortion and parallax might be playing a part. Another option could be a reflection although not seeing what of the ski park does have bright lights.

The next time the webcam returns to the same spot the light is not visible.

1759749805751.png
 

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Z.W. Wolf said:
The skeptical view isn't that drones are impossible. It's simply that authority-based statements aren't evidence. Claims, no matter how official they sound, still need independent verification through physical data and transparent documentation.
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pointing out that's the same approach we use when dealing with other witnesses, too

just because some witnesses are employed by the government doesn't mean we treat them differently. We consider what's plausible, given their background and what information they have access to.
 
gargamel said:
This is, I think the very first level-headed commentary I have read in Swedish media (SVT, so state media FWIW) so far:
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/...tt-dronare-startade-fran-skuggflottans-fartyg

Professor Liwång from the national Swedish Defence University says among other things that it is unlikely for any drones to have been launched from ships, in particular these so called "shadow fleet" tankers as it is not in their interest to draw any attention to themselves.

But the real "clincher" is at the end:


"I am still not convinced there's even been a single drone over any airport in Denmark"
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And similar words from Danish media:
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/f...ritisk-infrastruktur-nu-kalder-ministeren-det

Var det overhovedet droner, som blev set over Nordens største lufthavn i Kastrup og flere militære faciliteter rundtom i landet?
På et pressemøde fredag med forsvarsminister Troels Lund Poulsen og chefen for Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste, Thomas Ahrenkiel, var der pludseligt et mærkbart skifte i retorikken fra især forsvarsministeren.
- Jeg tror, at læren af det, vi har set i forhold til droneobservationer - eller det vi nu i højere grad kalder luftobservationer - er jo, at det kræver jo mange forskellige ting for helt præcist at se, om der er en drone, eller om det er nogen andre objekter.
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"Were there any drones at all seen over the largest airport of the Nordics and several military installations around the country?"

"At a press meeting Friday with defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen and the head of the defence intelligence agency Thomad Ahrenkiel, there was a noticeable shift in rhetoric, especially from the defence minister"
 
jarlrmai said:
This drone/planes/aliens element to this trifecta makes the whole subject fraught with inherent motte and bailey fallacies (argue for aliens, retreat to drones)

Is the person you are debating arguing for drones, or for aliens and are they using the government reports as a stepping stone to add credence to aliens?
Click to expand...

Its when they refer to them them 'so called "drones"...' you know they are suggesting '.... aliens ...


Source: https://x.com/UAPWatchers/status/1974912567576605082?t=VcXazZsud6kcbF8Lad6sxw&s=19


Source: https://x.com/Bertiesghost411/status/1973295614982234575?t=QU63qgBlBNXT3x_k0GqACQ&s=19
 
I guess the scale of nothing to loads in this case is something like

  1. Every case is a misidentified plane, helicopter and star.
  2. Most cases are misidentified planes, helicopters and stars but maybe 1 or 2 are just civilians using drones where they shouldn't and these only came to light because of increase monitoring after the event.
  3. The initiating cases were civilian drone errors and now we are getting planes stars etc.
  4. The initiating cases were nefarious consumer style drones launched locally used by agents of another country and now we are also getting some planes stars etc.
  5. Most cases are nefarious consumer style drones in an ongoing campaign etc and a few are planes etc.
  6. The drones are coming from long range and are more serious military hardware from a ship or even from another country direct.
  7. The drones are breakthrough technology used by another government.
  8. The drones are UFO derived technology used by another government.
  9. They are actually some sort of alien/NHI craft.

1,2,and maybe 3 would be where I think Metabunk's thread consensus is, with the strongest argument against being apparently rational powerful government entities having made statements that would indicate otherwise.

4,5,6 would be where some government reports and media reporting would be implying, but with no actual evidence and with UFO people and sceptics correctly pointing out no evidence and also pointing out this means they have "no control". They seem more rational because of the Ukraine/Russia conflict and recent prop plane drones over countries nearer the Ukr/Rus conflict zone.

7,8,9 are the where UFO Reddit/X would reside, based on going other direction from no evidence and it not making any sense that there's no evidence oh and also grabbing whatever looks weird from webcams etc
 
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jarlrmai said:
I guess the scale of nothing to loads in this case is something like

  1. Every case is a misidentified plane, helicopter and star.
  2. Most cases are misidentified planes, helicopters and stars but maybe 1 or 2 are just civilians using drones where they shouldn't and these only came to light because of increase monitoring after the event.
  3. The initiating cases were civilian drone errors and now we are getting planes stars etc.
  4. The initiating cases were nefarious consumer style drones launched locally used by agents of another country and now we are also getting some planes stars etc.
  5. Most cases are nefarious consumer style drones in an ongoing campaign etc and a few are planes etc.
  6. The drones are coming from long range and are more serious military hardware from a ship or even from another country direct.
  7. The drones are breakthrough technology used by another government.
  8. The drones are UFO derived technology used by another government.
  9. They are actually some sort of alien/NHI craft.

1,2,and maybe 3 would be where I think Metabunk's thread consensus is, with the strongest argument against over than being apparently rational powerful government entities having made statements that would indicate otherwise.

4,5,6 would be where some government reports and media reporting would be implying, but with no actual evidence and with UFO people and sceptics correctly pointing out no evidence and also pointing out this means they have "no control". They seem more rational because of the Ukraine/Russia conflict and recent prop plane drones over countries nearer the Ukr/Rus conflict zone.

7,8,9 are the where UFO Reddit/X would reside, based on going other direction from no evidence and it not making any sense that there's no evidence oh and also grabbing whatever looks weird from webcams etc
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And there's probably another axis of belief in there about the government conspiracy angle, that government officials are lying (not mistaken) about the drones; that the drones of ordinary qualities exist but they don't want to shoot them down and trigger conflict with Russia (despite Poland shooting down quite ordinary Russian drones); that government officials won't acknowledge that the adversary drones evade all attempts to be shot down or tracked; etc.

There's also an implicit or explicit suggestion as you move to the higher numbers that some international governmental "they" controls all the local narrative and is withholding information. "They" somehow confirm the existence of anomalous drones as part of their conspiracy to scare/mollify the populace by witholding information about the nature of the drones.

Have we gotten a single case of "I, a reputable individual at an airport, saw what was clearly a drone clearly within our airspace from this location at this time looking in this direction that presented a thread to aviation safety" in connection with the drone-sighting stories? All the stories I've seen have been government officials passing along third- or fourth-hand reports, like a police chief telling us that someone told an officer they saw a drone.
 
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Nice! And since we KNOW the plane was right there, if there was somehow also a drone, why do we not see them both? The video moves from being evidence of a drone to evidence that there was no drone there at all (though not conclusive proof, there always might be a drone with no lights that can't be seen that just happens to be there at the same time somebody was videoing a plane that they misidentified as a drone, however unlikely a coincidence that is!)
 
JMartJr said:
Nice! And since we KNOW the plane was right there, if there was somehow also a drone, why do we not see them both? The video moves from being evidence of a drone to evidence that there was no drone there at all (though not conclusive proof, there always might be a drone with no lights that can't be seen that just happens to be there at the same time somebody was videoing a plane that they misidentified as a drone, however unlikely a coincidence that is!)
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"air observation" if I may!
 

Source: https://youtu.be/nxQXq0r7B70



"I went out onto the balcony when I got home from work and saw them flying over the water. I live in a high-rise building in Brøndbyøster with a view of Brøndby Strand, the water, and the whole western part of Greater Copenhagen. And it was over Brøndby Strand and the water that they were flying."

But they were planes arriving at CPH, 20 and 50 kilometers away. And a star...

Again, people who live with that view and have never seen planes landing before — I just don't get it!
 

Source: https://youtu.be/hRuP1m-jNus


"We already saw something that looked like a drone on Tuesday evening around 8 p.m. I live in an area where a lot of emergency helicopters pass by. This one flew much lower, made a completely different sound, and had different lights. It flew in the direction of Nexel Energy Supply and the Evida gas storage facility nearby. Early Wednesday morning, I saw a similar thing again and thought I should film it. It stayed in place for about forty-five minutes. I've been in contact with the police, the energy company, and the gas storage facility — all of whom seem to be taking it very seriously, says Camilla Feldthusen."

---

No, it was the star Sirius (maybe that's what the police meant by "taking it serious"?) and a plane 10 km up and 40 km away.
I don't know Nexel Energy Supply and the Evida gas storage facility, but I don't think they are 8.6 light years away like Sirius?
 

Source: https://youtu.be/U0mTW6xYXS4


"When we were heading home around 8:45 p.m., I noticed a strange light over the town of Videbæk but didn't think much of it. Then, as we drove off and I looked up at the sky, I saw another light that was clearer than the first one. "That's definitely not a plane," I said to my partner. "It's way too low."
We got out of the car to film it. The drone was so close that you could clearly see its structure. At first it was hovering in the air. We only saw it for a couple of minutes. Then it flew over us. It looked really big, says Cathrine Pedersen."
-----

Nope, it was a plane she saw approaching Billund Airport.
It was 4 km from her.

She could "clearly see the structure" but couldn't see it was a Boeing 737 - it makes no sense!
 
Maybe it hits different when it's your fellow countrymen and near neighbours, I'm just doing my best to avoid it spreading here as I got a flight on Friday.
 
Brilliant work, Thomas.

And the back-pedalling is in full swing, it seems like. From "capable actor" and "hybrid warfare" to:
- Jeg ved ikke, om jeg skal le eller græde.
Det er reaktionen fra Dansk Folkepartis forsvarsordfører, Alex Ahrendtsen, på DR's oplysninger om, at der fortsat ikke er håndfaste beviser for ulovlige droner over Danmark.
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"I don't know whether to laugh or cry"
 
On a serious note is there a place for some sort of independent body to do, basically what we are doing here, in some ways Ryan Graves is right, UFO reports do affect the aviation industry and need to be taken more seriously.

And it seems the authorities are currently lacking.
 
ThomasH said:
Also a bit more serious, when you almost start a war with Russia over it! :)
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Except we have no evidence of Russian involvement outside of the earlier incursions in Poland and the Baltic states.
I'm going to post a good video analysis of the military situation in the Ukraine War thread.
 
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