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AP
This photo released on Thursday, Dec. 8, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, claims to show a U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel drone which Tehran says its forces downed earlier this week, as an unidentified colonel, right, talks to the chief of the aerospace division of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, in an undisclosed location, Iran.
While Iran claims to have taken down the U.S. drone, there is some speculation as to whether or not the craft the country is showing off is in fact legitimate.
From an AP story:
John Pike, an expert on military and intelligence technology for GlobalSecurity.org, said in an email that the drone shown on Iranian TV looked like "a parade float model of a Sentinel" rather than the high-tech robotic surveillance aircraft itself.
He said that the shape of the aircraft differed from that shown in most other photographs of the Sentinel, and that it was in better shape than would be expected after a crash. "I'm guessing this is a mock-up they have prepared for a parade," he said.
Keep in mind, this is also the country that manipulated a misslie launch image to hide the fact that one missile had failed to fire and that is suspected of welding 55-gallon drums together to look like S-300 launchers.
Read the full story here.
AFP - Getty Images
A still from a video taken from the Iranian state-run Press TV on Dec. 8, shows what Iranian officials claim is the U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel high-altitude reconnaissance drone that crashed in Iran on Dec. 4, displayed at an undisclosed location. Revelations about the US reconnaissance drone suggest Washington is stepping up surveillance and pressure on the Islamic republic over its nuclear program, media reports say. Slogans on US flags read in Farsi
Leave a Comment:
If they do have it, blast the heck out of it. Surely we know where the location is.
It is real. That is the real thing. No technology is bullet proof. Don't underestimate Iran is the conclusion from this incident. Don't try to calm yourself by telling lies to yourself that they faked it. There is no reason for them to fake a drone.
You're an idiot
Ya cause killing is the solution you ignorant bastard
Hey Blowden-381-
Did the chemicals in the vaseline from all that activity with your boyfriend affect your logical reasoning?
Killing always works against Alquaeda.
After all, every single terrorist killed has never terrorized again.
WW3 over a drone? Not a chance.
Keep to the Newsvine Code of Honor please. Refrain from personal attacks.
They claimed to have shot the thing down, yet it looks in mint condition. Something isn't right. They may have a drone, but that thing on display is not something that was shot down. If that thing had crashed, it would have at the very least, some dents. With any luck, we have a spy on the inside who can point to the location of any drones of ours they do have, and then Obama can launch a surgical strike on the thing that makes it look like an accident at the facility. Then again, I doubt our president would have the guts to do something like that. Besides, they likely already sold the thing to China.
Richard I think they have a Ion ray beam. Evoporates the carbon base fuel and causes the craft to crash.
Its like giving my dog a laptop, He'd rather have a bone..
The undamaged drone sure looks "shot down." Dont the Iranians know that "shot down" entails damage?
Something's fishy around here...
Hey gypsy, how are they terrorists if its their country. Plus they killed only 3000 on our soil as a warning, to leave them alone so what do we do? WE KILL AROUND-
109,032
This^is just Iraq alone. This is just an estimate because we killed to many to actually ever know. Ask yourself who is the terrorist in this situation. Oh, and this doesn't even include the civilians. Im not anti-soldiers I'm just anti war, soldiers are good people.
Great response,<sarcasm> We invade their air space for the purpose of spying and you suggest that we commit a blatant act of war. We've kinda had enough of bull@!$%# wars--haven't we?
And I want a stealth drone so f*cking bad....
its not real,if they shot it down then why does it look like it just came out of the showroom?, you can almost see the price sticker and smell the new drone smell.
Sweet deal on it though--under 12K miles,, good CarFax report, and the extended warranty. You can google the image of the real thing. This thing has weld marks and looks like they spend 3 days in a chop shop welding.
haha! looks like they went to MAACCO for the bodywork
Bowen-3
Sounds like you're just anti-USA...
Shut your mouth and enjoy your FREEDOM...
It is real. It did not get shot down. It ran out of gas, then went down. Of course they are going to claim to have shot it down instead of just having it crash land. Probably landed in the middle of the desert, so a nice flat place for it to skid to a stop.
The comments for by the "expert" are crazy. They created a mock-up so they could put it in a parade, and it just happens to be at the exact same time that the US has acknowledged one went down? Don't think so.
My guess is the Chinese and Russians are already crawling all over the thing. Makes it even more likely that the Chinese and Russians will never approve of sanctions against Iran.
Jim in Auburn
It is real. It did not get shot down. It ran out of gas, then went down. Of course they are going to claim to have shot it down instead of just having it crash land. Probably landed in the middle of the desert, so a nice flat place for it to skid to a stop.
The comments for by the "expert" are crazy. They created a mock-up so they could put it in a parade, and it just happens to be at the exact same time that the US has acknowledged one went down? Don't think so.
My guess is the Chinese and Russians are already crawling all over the thing. Makes it even more likely that the Chinese and Russians will never approve of sanctions against Iran.
Jim--The sanctions are toothless whether China or Russia honors them. I was watching C-Cpan and if you Google it, it's there. KBR/Haliburton are testifying about their business dealings with Iran. Arrogantly, they respond with, "That was our subsidiary in Dubai and 100% of their business is with Iran." There sure aren't the only ones--Koch Brothers Industries just received merely a verbal scolding for selling to Iran. I'm not as concerned that they sell to Iran, but do worry "what" they are selling to Iran. I'm sure there are plenty of American Corporations that are violating the sanctions. You can buy Phillip Morris Products, (cheaper than US prices) right next to those wonderful Cuban cigars in Havana.
That drone did go down. I don't doubt that and what was that technology worth? It was paid for with our tax dollars. It's not as if these defense manufacturers have much of a consumer domestic market.
hey if united states was that worried about any drones ever being captured by a terrorist country or a country we dont trust, why didnt the united state put a self destructive mechanism on it or on any other top secret thing that it builds? makes sense to me. just a thought man! oh well just another thing to add to the media.
The article say's downed, not shot down. That would be a more disturbing situation implying they were able to hijack control of the aircraft and bring it to a safe landing.
You don't have too many choices here folks.
A. The US lost satellite control along the Afghan Iran border.
B. The captured drone crashed but was in good enough shape for Iran to build a mock up or,
C. Iran was able to gain control of it and bring it to a safe landing.
Any other ideas, go for it.
It appears to be stored on a high security basketball court
My rc plane gets more dinged up than that just belly landing in the grass much less on hard desert.
I been flying R/C models for a long time. Even the slightest miss hap leaves a mark. I do not see proof of a crash. This model looks to weigh more then 30 lbs. It did not come down in a controlled manner. So it going to be bang up more then that picture
If the picture is real then they are smarter then we are as they had the means to high jack it away from it controllers and fly it to a soft landing.
I think it is a mess and they were able to get enough chunks to make a model as they did not show this right away
So Iran in conclusion go F^%k your self.
Using its GPS, send the drone's little brother with a nuke.
Yea, they definitely forgot the "we shot it down" part in that one....and, if you google RQ-170 in images....that ain't it.
MV, yeah and it wears a skirt too.
Was Cheney on board taking pictures?
JAck Colton, your are correct, I just googled the RQ-170 Sentinel images, and boy does that one in the article look faker with every pic I find, not one of them on google images has a screen mesh for a front window, they mostly have tinted shade windows, or they're not nearly that visible at front view. What, Mahmoud Ima Nutjob not have the mental fortitude to replicate the shade tint window? Jeeze, I could fake a B-2 Spirit Steatlh Bomber better than POS of a parade float!
There's always a possibility that it could be something that we have that we haven't yet admitted that we have. And those experts are probably the same individuals who said that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq...
The seams where the wings meet the fuselage don't look right. That would not be stealthy. Why are the landing gear covered up? If it does have them. Can't they lower them? or is it a mock up without them?
This is what happens when AIPAC runs CIA! They better go back doing their money vulturing business, that's the only thing they're good at!
I'm sure they have the drone but those pictures are not of the drone itself...hell I destroyed an RC plane nosediving it from 100 feet at about 40mph. This thing fell from over 50,000 feet and probably crashed at over 300mph. It would not be in that mint condition.
If you're saying this is Obma's fault, then you must also admit that Obma got Bin Laden.
Can't have it both ways now, lest you mark yourself a hypocrit.
According to this: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Nov-09/153450-speculation-continues-over-hezbollahs-ability-to-disable-israeli-drones.ashx#ixzz1g54Rdd3s
Hezbollah might have a way to " a means of jamming the data link between a drone and its ground control base or interfering with the guidance system of drones on pre-programed flight missions in order to crash them."
Hezbollah is believed to have downed at least two Israeli drones. If Hezbollah knows how to do such things then it is a good chance Iran does too. We don't know exactly what drone this is. Just because they claim it to be a RQ-170 doesn't mean a RQ-170 was being used. It could still be an American weapon.
Jesus Trevino, Mj899, daniel donahue, cpt Porkchop, giligan. Well, I guess you all you guys didn't know what the heck you were talking about. President Obama issued a statement saying we want our drone back. Nuff said.
Those silly Iranians! Come on Ahmed, you can do better than that.
Don't fly into Iran. This thing costed at least 30 million dollars to build and it is gone. Could've used the money on 1,000 computers, high speed internet, modernization of several schools in US. 30 gone like the wind without a trace. See the military budget is out of control.
That is one neat plane that has no control but can find level ground, put down landing gear, and land itself. Wow, are we smart.
Tom, would you have us get rid of the military all together? Sounds like it from your statement. There needs to be a balance for sure, but stating that because we lost an aircraft, that it proves military spending is out of control is like saying, "Because ice cream melts in the summer, spending on the stuff is out of control." Don't dare take away my chocolate and peanut butter ice cream.
Richard, you need to calm down, its OK, just a little plane, nothing to worry about. USA all the way Richard. USA strong Richard, USA very Strong, its OK Richard, really.
tom111 your a damn moron, reading through all the posts you posted today on these articles concerning Iran I'd label you either an extremist or an Iranian, oh wait... same thing. Nutjob.
Why in the world would we attack them? We admitted to being in Iran's Airspace. We occupy countries to the east and west of them. Some one. when is the last time Iran invaded anyone? They don't even have gasoline, they import it. The drums of war are feebly tinning now/
Tim, that's precious. Both Richard and Tom have valid points. Much of the money spent on defense could have been spent on education which would have been the best defense money could buy and still have enough left over to protect our country.
GASP! Nobody told me that military equipment that we spend our taxdollars on can be lost/captured/destroyed by the enemy.... we better stop all military spending immediately!
/sarcasm/
Let the propaganda begin!!
The plan was taken over remotely when it entered Iranian air space. Its about the 13 one taken. The rest were shot down since we invited ourselves into Afghanistan.
I meant plane just in case some smart ass nose picking fool thinks its cute to dis an argument with spell check bull@!$%#.
If by argument you mean totally blind coming out of your arse speculation? I think that's plenty to 'dis' without having to mention spelling errors.
Looks like an old prop from Star Trek.
merry xmas looks like the CIA or ah santa came early WHAT A BUNCH OF BOOBS
Steve, they say this may just be a replica and not the real Mccoy and don't call me Shirley.
Is that 2 pieces of tape holding it together?
No it is a drone with a stealth skin, not painted and no insignia because the US don't want it known that it come from US. The carried it on a truck and put it in the gym where there is space and there is bunch of anti-American texts next to it and the generals are inspecting and giving their analysis. It cost at least 30 taxpayer dollars.
did it have a TYCO insignia ?
Wait till they get there experts all around it and hit the self-explode switch...
We would not send a super secret spy plane loaded with super secret technology to overfly a hostile country without equipping it with a substantial self destruct device installed...................Right?....I mean that wouldn't be very smart......Right?......Right?
I don't think it is going to explode. They can analyze it with peace and sell it to China and Russia for couple of millions and they will have the same technology as US that used 100 millions to develop.
Who cares if it can explode or not? Doesn't a cruise missile do just as well? LOL!
Due to budget restraints, the self destruct device wasnt installed.. After its not like we will ever have to use it (sarc).
I don't care if it just fell from the sky. Any piece of equipment coming to earth in an uncontrolled descent, whether due to mechanical failure or being shot down, is going to show damage. There is not a dent on this thing. Nice try.
Anita, it is in perfect shape. But who knows? their is no photo of the left side of the drone
My believe is it is real drone. US lost a drone and Iran now shows a drone.
Maybe for $30M it's smart enough to land itself if it loses communication. (But not smart enough to avoid a piece of enemy ground while doing so!)
Maybe it suffered from Toyota's sudden acceleration problem.
Your assuming it crashed when in fact if the signal was jammed it was designed to land autonomously, by it self, as if we lost the signal.
With the land mode automatically engaged because of their jamming, the self destruct mode would also be blocked.
Any US person who knows the craft, knows exactly if its real or fake by just one look at the photo, the rest is fodder for the sheep and news agencies..
Actually, there is a dent.
I agree with Chris D. This appears to be real. Our military has acknowledged a loss and here it is. Even we would have a problem mocking up a fake one in a few days basing it on a wrecked one. Nope, it is real and they have it and guaranteed the Russians and the Chinese and even the North Koreans have people in Iran looking this thing over and taking paint samples back to develop their own stealth technology. Heck, I wouldn't even be surprised if Russia or China had a hand in the downing of this drone. The Chinese have stolen our secrets through hacking and they may have had enough info to bring this down.
I'm not saying this is fact, but it wouldn't surprise me. One thing is for sure...Iran has a drone.
Oh, and by the way, Iran has its own drone already. So now they have the finest example of a drone to base their next model on.
IF its real, they have our STEALTH and a Drone not to mention some usable electronics and great Ideas.
The "have blue" air plane it was designed after was more like billions of dollar to develop in the 80s.
The guts of the system is usually just a simple computer base, and it "drops" all of its sensitive knowledge the second its powered down. [Volatile flash memory]
That way we keep the real secretes we don't want falling into others hands.
But still, there is a lot of "stealth knowledge" we don't need in their hands.
I remember seeing something about the early flying wings on the History Channel that said when close to the ground they don't want to land and that they could go long distances (gliding)before landing if not almost forced to land. But in the fifties when gave up on the design because the computers needed to make them stable in the air did not exist and they had a tendency to "dutch roll" and do other things that just made them crash. So if they disabled it's computer how did it land so smoothly?
The Computer sensitive soft ware is disabled [thrown away] only after a shut down.
[Volatile flash memory] RAM .... Read only memory
The standard software is kept in memory, this allows the basics commands like flight.
When the normal signal get blocked or lost, the computer forces the plane to land. [not crash]
With out computers the plane wont fly safely which is why the Norton air craft was abandoned in the 50s, and the have blue/ tasset blue as well as the stealth 117 was remade after computers made its surge into the world. [Also the B-2]
One side of the computer is basic, while the top secrete information must be loaded for each flight because its designed as a fail safe, it dies the second it powers down upon landing or crashing.
Well considering how much people seem to know about this, I don't think anything really super secret fell into Iranian hands. Military secrets are not secret for very long in any case. If we were really concerned about equipment falling into unfriendly hands, we would never deploy it to begin with. Just because something can do something (stealth flight) doesn't mean the technology to create it is obvious. I would assume that in the design process, these kinds of occurrences are planned for. Still, I'm not convinced they have anything of much value even if this isn't an elaborate hoax.
Our real stealth lies in the soft ware which is volatile and disappears on shut down.
The Iranians learned that lesson when we left the last time leaving their bought American jets, minus the soft ware.
However in those days it was on a disk, [we stole it back before leaving] today its volatile flash memory.
Our general stealth has been around since the 80s, the F117. [tasset blue]
However to say its nothing to aid a back wards country 20 years advancement on Ideas they would have to discover for them self, but now they don't,...... is called myopia.
U.S. officials have confirmed the Iranians do have our RQ-170 drone; the idiot in the White House has been given three options to retrieve it or destroy it, but has refused to follow any of the recommendations. If what the officials say is true, then the Russians and/or the Chinese will be able to reverse engineer our technology and obtain a highly classified military secret. Way to to once again, Obama. We can't get that clown out of the White House soon enough.
youll get him out....5years from now
How on earth is this Obama's fault? You were present when Obama was presented with the alleged three options to destroy it or retrieve it? Yeah, I didn't think so.
Real Merridian, shut the @!$%# up. The only idiot here is you!!!
@RealMerridian. You are so right. This has Obama's Kenyan finger prints all over it. It's so obvious that this is all his fault. Those crazy liberals don't want to admit it, but you and I know that Obama was actually at the controls of the drone when it went down. I also agree that we should have followed one of the three options he was given, even though all of them would be considered an act of war. Lets be honest, we haven't shed nearly enough blood in Afghanistan and Iraq. Good things come in threes anyway. Am I right or what? If only you were our President.
You clowns who are so enamoured with Obama are too blind to see the truth. This drone will be reversed engineered by China and/or Russia. Obama does not have the leadership ability to make the proper decision to destroy or retrieve a very highly classified piece of equipment. His cowardice is akin to Jimmy Carter allowing hostages to be kept for 444 days under his watch. In this case our own technology can be used against us because we have a fool in the White House that is incapable of making a decision. Jfix, yours is probably the dumbest response. What have you heard from Obama in regards to this drone? Nothing. You figure it out...if you can.
TheRealMerridian
Santa left you an up date, did you leave him some milk and cookies?
I wish, I wish, I wish I knew, ohh well, Ill just make something up.
Get real Real....you are what is wrong with America....blowing hot air. You have no clue what choices Obama has but I can't stop you from flapping your gums.
This drone isn't cutting edge. The tech in it isn't anything the Russians of Chinese can't figure out for themselves.
And I'm not a huge Obama supporter, but to claim he is a coward? Have you forgotten the Bin Laden operation already? You know, the one where we entered foreign airspace unannounced and performed a SpecOps raid on a house minutes away from their equivalent of West Point. You think that decision was made by a coward? If so, you're a complete partisan fool.
Likely true. I can't see an order to violate another country's air space, especially one we are having significant issues with, coming from anyone other than the President. The question now is whether we should be sending our finest drone technology (Yes this is "cutting edge" stealth technology) into the airspace of countries that are friendly with countries like Russia and China. Russia and China are highly capable of reverse engineering anything. Iran is also, to a lesser extent. Don't be surprised if you see them flying all over the place in a year or two. This technology, which is the same technology in all of our stealth aircraft, can also be used to improve fighter and bomber aircraft as well a radar and anti-aircraft missile systems. If China and Russia were able to "figure" it out for themselves, they wouldn't be stealing our technology. Four days ago, no one had our stealth technology. Now the Iranians have it and anyone else they want to do business with will have it.
We really screwed up on this one and we are going to suffer the consequences. Our stealth technology just took two steps back.
Maybe the idiot doesn't want anymore stuff getting blown up when it enters their space. Maybe the idiot doesn't want to give Israel the excuse it wants to start a nuclear war. Maybe the idiot is more concerned about sanctions than a war. Maybe the idiot isn't listening to war mongers who neeeeedddd to blow things up. Maybe the idiot is trying to spare us the embarrassment of doing something really stupid.
Maybe if china gets a hold of it we can get a cheap r/c knockoff by next xmas. Watch out ar drone. lol
You might recall that "shoot-to-kill" order on Somali pirates holding Captain Richard Phillips came directly from Obama. A coward probably would have pushed for peaceful negotiations when it's simply the life of one man at stake.
As krazymop pointed out, you also might recall that Obama made the call not to notify Pakistan that he was about to silently enter their country with a couple of stealth choppers and commit headshot on Osama bin Laden, even tho' they never actually saw bin Laden during surveilance and were only 80% confident that he had ever even been in the house at all.
Cowards don't do these kind of things.
BTW, President Carter green-lighted Operation Eagle Claw in an attempt to rescue those hostages. Although it was a major failure primarily due to sand in the air, two other potential operations were planned and practiced, though not executed. He never gave up trying to get those people out of there, to the point that he refused to campaign for re-election until they were freed.
Today Carter is considered one of the world's most-respected statesmen in practice, and in history, as well as a humanitarian.
Your claim to fame is #netTroll.
Boss, boss, De-plane, De-plane.
Maybe it's not such a bad idea to have pilots in control of our aircraft, especially the most sophisticated. Smart by half.
I know its ancient history, but can you say U-2 incident? Planes, even the most sophisticated ones, do crash or get shot down. When they do, you'd much rather they have a wrecked top secret plane than a wrecked top secret plane AND an American pilot as a prisoner and political propaganda tool.
and they never go down with pilots?
Sorry it was the CIA not Obama check your facts!
I agree, just like Obama should get credit for cautching Osama. Do what!!!!!!!!!
We need to send Barney Frank over to check it out.
Actually, I was thinking he could be in charge of their public housing.
I don't doubt the Iranians captured one...can't tell from this but it's a fair bet it's the real deal.
Seems a bit thick in the wing to be all that stealthy I would have thought.
Looks like Steve Achmed Canyon has a US flight suit on. Must have acquired one from their Shia brothers in Iraq.
Break out the cruise missiles, time for a little "hey we're not done with that aircraft yet, you can have it in ten minutes".
It IS the real deal bos and girls. They didn't shoot it down, they took over the controls.
Damn it. Those vidio games.
Too bad they don't have a nuclear warhead on them that can be detonated from the control room for this kind of incidence.
If this is a fake, it is a very well done one. Looks like the real deal to me. The military is conducting a disinformation campaign to cover up for the sheer stupidity of not designing the drone to self-destruct if it lost communications and could not return to its GPS point of origin (or preset target GPS landing area).
I'm quite certain Iran conducted a broadband RF and GPS DOS attack to disable/kill any drones in the area. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do a broadband RF block -- Iran has a lot of rocket scientists who are quite facile. You can bet they had some ideas of the communications frequencies from sweeping areas where drones were thought to be operating, making a DOS attack relatively simple.
The military bozos who allowed our top technology to give itself to the Iranians should be fired. Everyone involved in planning, programming, and operating these systems should be thoroughly investigated for ties to Iranian interests. There is a skunk or two in here someplace.
David, you failed to blame Bush.
Earl, Bush didn't design it.
Software and systems on cutting-edge technology is constantly being updated. The only thing that matters is who is in charge of designing these things and who executes the code.
Perhaps the drone was really intended to fall into Iranian hands and when they do what they can to attempt to reverse engineer or allow the Chinese or Russians to try it, it will quietly place snooping software onto Iranian networks to allow us to spy on them even more.
...or maybe the Israelis downed it so we would have no choice but to drop a missile on it, opening the door to go ahead while we're at it and drop missiles on the nuke plants. I just had to throw in a conspiracy theory involving the Israelis.
Go get Steve Austin, he'll run in , grab the plane and fly it out before the Iranians even know what happened.
I was thinking Clint Eastwood in Firefox...
I was rooting for Wonder Woman .. she does have an invisible plane so if they capture it they won't be able to show it in the parade.
I have seen crashed planes! That ain't one of em! Neeeeeeexxxxxt!
It doesn't really have that look does it? I think the telling quote was at the end of the article:
It's like Ed Wood is in charge of their propoganda department.
FAKE!!!!!!!!!!
If it's real I wouldn't want to be standing within a mile of it. No Way NATO doesn't know exactly where it is. So there is either going to be a very load boom or the Iranians are a bunch of buffoons standing around a parade float.