One of the strangest news stories developing lately is that, for the second time this month, airports in Denmark had to be shut down due to the interference caused by mysterious drones irrupting over their airspace.
The first time it happened was on September 22nd, when approximately two or three ‘large drones’ were seeing flying over Copenhagen’s airport (the biggest one in the country), causing authorities to temporarily halt operations, which delayed flights and let thousands of passengers stranded. A similar incident was also reported in Oslo, the capital of neighboring Norway.
Two days later, drone incursions now affected operations in five airports—including two that also serve as military bases. Needless to say, the Danish authorities are taking these incursions very seriously, and do not mince words when they call it the most serious ‘attack’ on their national infrastructure since perhaps the end of World War Two.
The situation has prompted the scheduling of urgent talks by tomorrow, Friday, where representatives of ten countries, including Ukraine, will discuss what measures can be taken to protect their territories from this ‘hybrid threat’, including the possibility of building a ‘drone wall’ as part of the escalating rearmament happening over Europe, as a result of the continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Protecting sensitive airspace from modern drone incursions is not an easy thing to do—as Americans have learned the hard way over the last few years— because it is not a simple matter of ‘jamming’ their signal. And shooting down drones carries a number of problems as well, from economic (spending thousands of dollars/euros to take out equipment that may only cost a few hundreds is not sensible) to the logistical if the falling debris puts civilian operations at risk.
And then there is the no small issue of detecting the drones in the first place. As explained by Thomas Regnier, the Defense spokesperson for the European commission meeting this Friday, “We’re not talking about big fighter jets and planes coming in. No, we are talking about the latest technology developments. These drones have to be detected, and then, second track [will be to decide] what will we do to fight back against these drones.”
These news from Europe show a high contrast to how similar incursions are treated by American authorities and the media: whereas the drone sightings reported in Virginia and New Jersey in 2024, and early 2025, were largely regarded with derision by news outlets and those in charge of reassuring the public, in Europe they trigger all the alarm bells—as they should.
Perhaps it is a matter of the different geopolitical situation in Europe, which makes it easier to suspect a ‘capable professional actor’ *cough Russia cough* as the one behind these incidents (even though Moscow emphatically denies any involvement); not to mention this is merely a new development of an escalating situation in which NATO countries are feeling threatened by modern drone technology, as evidenced by incursions over Poland and Estonia where some drones were shot down and recovered.
As a student of Ufology, I cannot help but notice a certain reminiscence to the famous ‘ghost rocket’ sightings in the late 1940s over the same countries in Europe. For those unfamiliar, the ghost rockets were unidentified, cigar-shaped flying objects (UFO buffs would now be tempted to call them Tic-Tacs) reported over the airspace of Scandinavian countries (mostly Sweden) which were also taken very seriously by authorities who were still recovering from the shellshock of WW2, and were worried the Soviet Union were testing secret ‘wunderwaffe’ weapons recovered from the Nazis.
Things got weirder with these alleged Soviet rockets though, because instead of following typical ballistic trajectories the witnesses reported no sounds, and the objects were said to slow down, change trajectories, move in formation with other objects, and even descend over lakes and other bodies of water—authorities were said to have recovered debris from a ghost rocket that ‘landed’ on a beach near Stockholm, but so far no evidence of this has ever been produced [source: UFOs and the National Security State, vol. 1].
Eventually, the Americans got involved and decided to investigate the Scandinavian reports; but the lack of tangible evidence—and the fact that the modern UFO era had not officially begun— caused them to disregard the credible testimony of the witnesses, concluding the ‘rockets’ were probably just meteors and public hysteria.
So we can see that a pattern began to emerge in the late 1940s that is somehow still prevalent to this day: whereas incursions of unidentified objects are (a) readily taken seriously by European authorities (particularly in Scandinavian countries); (b) interpreted as modern (manmade) technology; and (c) the fingers are quickly pointed at Russia as the most likely culprit; in the United States the preferred strategy is one of dismissal, and eventually expecting that the public will eventually forget all about those pesky things flying in the sky—which are apparently beyond the control of the powers that be.
Also—it has to be said—in the United States it is easier to find a few people who will interpret the incursions as evidence of ‘otherworldly’ intervention (“if this is beyond our control, and we are the best of the best, then it’s gotta be ET!”)
Perhaps it’s the size of their country, or the fact that no major war has been fought over their territory over the last 160 years, that which gives the Americans an arrogance that the Danes—and the rest of Europe—can’t afford.
I am aware most of the people interested in the UFO phenomenon will probably not pay a lot of attention to the ‘ghost drones’ flying over Scandinavia—the same way some of them made fun of the sightings in New Jersey a year ago. But just because these incursions are not ‘sexy’ enough does not mean they are not extraordinary, and worthy of close scrutiny. If anything, as I’ve tried to argue in previous articles, these stories are useful from a sociological perspective in helping us analyze how novel unknowns are treated in different ways, depending on social, historical and geopolitical circumstances.
To be or not to be continued? That… is the question.
