Drone

I hope that this is the best place to find someone to help me because I don’t know what else to do. Anon for this one but you can write me back at my username.

So what’s been going on:

I’ve started to fly drones and get into a professional racing circuit. I’ve always been a lover of RC (racing cars and stuff) and started getting into this drone thing a couple of years back. I’ve been slowly upgrading as I save up more money from my job. Last fall for my birthday I got a DJI Phantom 3 and used that to make some more money doing flyovers of houses for a local realtor company that uses the videos for their website. Then I used that money to save up for a Walkera 210 which is what I’ve been using for the racing. I’ve been practicing at the edge of my subdivision where there’s open fields and some trees.

I figure this stuff may be useful for what I’m about to say because I haven’t been outside in more than a week and it’s still out there.

On Monday after dinner I was out there practicing my racing between the start of the treeline. Since the pro league requires obstacle running competitions I’ve been working on getting my handling skills good enough to compete in real prize tourneys. I don’t want to blow $200-$500 on entering a competition and then get smoked out because the competition is better at handling their drones through the course.

I now know that Monday was when it first saw me because that’s when I heard it. I was changing out my battery for a fresh one when I heard its buzz. It was still far off then. I looked around thinking that since it sounded like a drone there had to be someone flying it, but no one was there. That doesn’t mean much because the distance that you can get these drones to nowadays is pretty considerable. Maybe someone spotted mine when I had it up high and came to check me out.

Anyway I didn’t spot it that evening but I definitely heard it. The sound is unmistakable now.

I was back out Wednesday after classes and work but just for a bit. It was getting close to dusk but that’s OK, the Walkera has low-level night vision so I could still see obstacles. I was flying my drone through a grove of trees about 150-200 ft from where I was standing in the open field and nearly hit the damn thing at first.

Someone was flying their drone in the trees as well. I had just looped around and saw this other drone almost in front of me, so I banked and got out of the way. It was just hovering there at first, but then when I got my drone sorted out and looked back I saw it more clearly. It looked like a drone.

This thing had one circular intake but also had smaller and weirder looking propellers/intakes in a circle or cluster around the bigger one. It was a black color with some silvery patches, I couldn’t tell if they were leds or just reflective strips on it. I got a little more closer to it but when I came within 10 or so feet it backed up a bit. What was really weird to me at the time was how it backed up, it made a curving C-shape around the tree. The only way you could do that was by being really good at stick handling, and even then it looked too good. That made the image of how it was moving all the more surreal as I watched it on my phone.

The drones were just inside the treeline so I could hear them but not see them too well. I stopped approaching this other drone with my Walkera and walked the distance into the treeline to see it up close. As I came close enough to the two drones I saw it turn to me. I could make out a reflective glint from this other drone’s camera. It did look weird even from 15-20 ft away and it sounded different, more like the sound a dragonfly will make but oscillating slightly too in pitch. I wanted to get closer to it but it started slowly moving back as I got within 10 ft or so of it.

So I stood there for a bit, kinda considering what to do next. I brought my drone down and picked it up when it powered down. This thing was still hovering 10 ft or so away from me. It was getting close to dark. I said something to the effect of “Nice seeing you dude” and raised my arm to wave goodbye. I think that moving my arm was what caused what happened next.

The other drone suddenly lurches forward toward me, just flying all out. As this thing whips at me I dart to the right, and it moves toward me. I drop down as I’m doing this, and just manage to avoid it. It brushed by me within inches. The sound was massive. I felt the wind blowing by me too, a cold blast that shouldn’t have been as powerful as I felt it was. But what made me realize that this thing couldn’t be a drone was the quick glance I had at it as it came out of the inky dark of the tree grove. I only got a quick glance at it as a moved and dropped, but the thing looked organic, like something alive that resembled a drone but wasn’t.

The camera was turning and looking at me. It had black wrinkly skin and creases, and I saw it move like an eye would. You know when an eye makes small movements, it’s not like the smooth movement of a camera that tracks up or down? This jet black thing moved like that. It was looking at me as it charged at me.

On the bottom of it I saw a thing that looked like a barbed stinger. Maybe it was its tongue. About 10 or so skinny and long things that looked like miniature tentacles. They looked like they were reaching out to me.

This happened in a few seconds: waving to the thing, it lunging at me, me scrambling to the side and down, feeling the wind of its close flyby, realizing what this thing looked like close-up and getting freaked the fuck out. I kind of half-stumbled, half stood back up and took off running out of the trees.

I’m now running across the clearing, my drone in one hand and the other holding my controller/phone. I still can hear this thing.

I look behind me and see it coming out of the trees making a beeline at me. I forget all about my drone case and batteries in the field and book it as fast as I can back to my house which is like 500-600 ft.

I think that this thing could have caught up to me, no question. I think that it could have touched me with that thing it had on its underside. Maybe it didn’t because it didn’t really know what I was yet.

I get back inside my house, slam and lock the door. I looked outside all the windows but the thing is nowhere. There’s no way I’m going back out there to get my case, not when it’s dark outside. I thought about calling someone but what am I going to tell them? There’s a drone or a giant bug outside my home? I had my camera in my hand to take a video of it but the thing isn’t there anymore.

Next day (Thursday) I get up, showered, eat, go outside to the shed, grab the longest and heaviest shovel, look around to make sure the coast is clear and go to where I left my drone’s case. Nothing looks odd, I close it and head back to the house. Sit there for a while longer making sense of whatever the hell happened to me before I head off to class in my car. Come back home and start googling to see if there’s anything like this online. I saw the photos.

This. And this. These. The drone thing that I saw doesn’t look exactly like those in the photos, but it’s close enough to it that I think it could be related to it. Mine was the all-black version. The tentacle things are on the top of some of these pictures while mine were on the bottom of the drone that I saw. That spiky projection in the last photo is like what I saw on the bottom of mine but longer and wider.

I’m now thinking, maybe it isn’t a living thing. Maybe it’s a weird piece of tech that’s designed to look organic and mess up the thinking of whoever saw it.

Last night I heard it. It was around 2am and that same weird dragonfly buzzing was coming from the area of trees by my house. I know that I heard it but I didn’t see anything.

I’m thinking of flying my drone from inside my house to the treeline to see if I can see it and film it, but I don’t want to get this thing to follow me back to where I live.

This thing can’t be alive, can it? What would it be eating? Why haven’t a lot of other people seen it?

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