John Wiseman

Airspace closure followed spat over drone-related tests and party balloon shoot-down, sources say Pentagon officials had undertaken planning to use military technology near Fort Bliss, in El Paso, to practice downing drones.

The head of the FAA ordered the airspace shutdown without telling the White House, and then reading between the lines a bit, was ordered to open it up again as soon as they found out about it.
www.cbsnews.com/news/airspac...

Trump nominated a legit white nationalist to a top post at the State Department. I asked him some basic questions about his belief in the “erasure of white culture”. Watch this embarrassing, fumbling answer. Like he has never before been asked to explain his views.

Map showing the El Paso TFR.

TFR expert here. This is not funny, federal aviation agencies only do this when extremely distressed by CBP firing a fucking 20 kW laser into the sky without regard for civilian aircraft.

The Most Expensive Party Balloon in History A party balloon mistaken for a cartel drone shut down El Paso for hours. Here's what it cost.

Fun little analysis by @jzhao.xyz estimating the short-term, direct cost of the El Paso TFR as ~$600K. log.jasongodfrey.info/questions/Th...

Less than a month ago the NTSB made the FAA look terrible for their role in the DCA mid-air collision, the worst U.S. air disaster in a generation, because they allowed unsafe routes to stay open possibly due to pressure from the military. The FAA's tolerance for risk might be low after that.

The El Paso TFR story seems to be this: CBP started firing a high-power anti-drone laser into the sky *without coordinating with the FAA*. The FAA says WTF are these assholes doing & closes airspace like it’s never been closed before. “You don’t want to coordinate? Fine, then this is how we do it.”

Plane tracking making a difference. I'm impressed at how many plane nerds are using their specific set of skills to help make a rogue government accountable.

YouTube video by John Wiseman FUNDAR 02

You inspired me to add a radar mode to my aircraft tracking app. www.youtube.com/shorts/FtZIn...

"Trump administration officials failed Tuesday to convince a single juror that they had met the threshold to bring charges against the Democratic lawmakers"

Surprise US military plans to use counter-drone laser triggered El Paso airspace closure, Sources say | CNN A Pentagon plan to use a high-energy, counter-drone laser without having coordinated with the Federal Aviation Administration about potential risks to civilian flights prompted Wednesday’s unprecedent...

The Pentagon has been using a high-energy, counter-drone laser to shoot down mylar party balloons near the border without having coordinated with the FAA first about potential risks to civilian flights. This admin has a love of security theater plus total incompetence.
www.cnn.com/2026/02/11/u...

new reporting from CNN indicates as many as 4 party balloons were shot down by this laser system in the El Paso area in the days leading up to this emergency TFR issuance

x.com/NatashaBertr...

Jennifer Griffin ‹ @JenGriffinFNC "Earlier this week, the anti-drone technology was launched near the southern border to shoot down what appeared to be foreign drones. The flying material turned out to be a party balloon, sources said. One balloon was shot down, several sources said." @JenniferJJacobs with scoop on fight between FAA and Pentagon that led to sudden closure of air space over El Paso, Texas and equally sudden reversal. Pentagon used high powered laser to shoot down what turned out to be a "party balloon."

My DoD keeps scare maxxing itself

www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/10...

A map of the continental United States overlaid with three large, red concentric circular heat maps indicating zones of potential GPS interference. The first zone is centered over Southern Nevada and the Mojave Desert. The second covers a massive portion of Texas and the Gulf Coast. The third is centered over the Southeast, covering much of Georgia and South Carolina. The red shading fades outward from the center of each region, illustrating the wide radius of the GPS disruptions.

A satellite map of Alaska and the Yukon Territory featuring a large, transparent red circular overlay centered near Fairbanks. This zone, indicating potential GPS interference, extends south past Anchorage into the Gulf of Alaska and east into Canada.

GPS jamming exercises are pretty routine these days (perhaps unfortunately). Here are the ones active today.

Nice achievement for an extremely niche app that was only released a few weeks ago.

Screenshot of multiple Grok posts on X.

Screenshot of multiple Grok posts on X.

Grok out there telling people the El Paso TFR was related to GPS jamming. (It was not.)

U.S. Soldiers, assigned to Joint Task Force Southern Border, prepare to sling load AV’s LOCUST Laser Weapon System integrated on an Infantry Squad Vehicle to a CH-47 Chinook at Fort Bliss, Texas, July 16, 2025. JTF-SB executes full scale, agile, and all-domain operations in support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to protect the territorial integrity of the United States and achieve 100% operational control of the southern border. [Credit: U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Rynishia Lewis]

Looks like Fort Bliss was working with AeroVironment LOCUST Laser Weapon System(s) back in July, per this photo.

It's likely one of these LOCUST systems is what caused today's weird FAA/DOD dust-up over El Paso airspace.

www.businesswire.com/news/home/20...

Post by @Thenewarea51 on twitter.

Well, the ATC app and @Thenewarea51 on X. I've seen national news stories explode out of something they've posted before. x.com/thenewarea51...

You can see them by searching at notams.aim.faa.gov/notamSearch/... in "free text" mode and looking for "GPS AVBL"

A map of the continental United States overlaid with three large, red concentric circular heat maps indicating zones of potential GPS interference. The first zone is centered over Southern Nevada and the Mojave Desert. The second covers a massive portion of Texas and the Gulf Coast. The third is centered over the Southeast, covering much of Georgia and South Carolina. The red shading fades outward from the center of each region, illustrating the wide radius of the GPS disruptions.

A satellite map of Alaska and the Yukon Territory featuring a large, transparent red circular overlay centered near Fairbanks. This zone, indicating potential GPS interference, extends south past Anchorage into the Gulf of Alaska and east into Canada.

GPS jamming during exercises isn't too uncommon. Here are all the active areas today.

ATC App – Live Air Traffic Control Radio Download now!

Again I'm recommending the ATC.com app. The push notification they sent last night with an incredulous Southwest pilot being told that the El Paso airport would be closed for 10 days was the first I heard about the TFR. I checked twitter and found zero mentions. I think ATC.com drove the story.

MS NOW: "A congressional official with knowledge of the matter is telling MS NOW the cause of the shutdown of El Paso airspace is a lack of communication between the Pentagon and FAA. The official told us the FAA and DOD are 'not in clear communications with each other.'"

GPSJAM GPS/GNSS Interference Map Map showing possible GPS interference around 28.957, -100.254 on 2026-02-10.

It doesn't help that our government basically run by the same people who post to reddit saying the GPS jamming in south Texas is cartels (it's actually a false positive from U.S. military aircraft training). gpsjam.org?lat=28.95738...

"Cartels" and "drones" are favorite bogeymen. They're both real, but also often used to explain extreme measures where they're not actually present. Any justification that uses them is worth looking at twice.

Totally different type of TFR than the very unusual ones in Texas/New Mexico. Excludes only drones, low altitude, and only for part of each day. Probably for Mardi Gras?

"A modern-day concentration camp ... People have been killed by the staff here." Irish citizen Seamus Culleton has been in ICE detention since September, despite having a valid work permit and his own business in the US.

Can we hack Ring cameras to track ICE & police officers, and their vehicles?

As the Director of ICE said today, they're "just getting started."

A dark-themed network visualization map showing 3,136,858 points, representing Bluesky users organized into topical clusters. A pink circle highlights the handle "@lemonodor" in the center of the graph. The account is situated near clusters for "Cybersecurity Professionals," "Tech-Forward Early Adopters," "iOS Developers and Apple Ecosystem," and "Indie Hackers & Solopreneurs." Other distant clusters visible include "Biomedical Research Scientists," "Climate Science and Policy Professionals," "Molecular and Cell Biology Researchers," and "Geospatial Professionals & Cartographers."

My location in the Bluesky universe.

13/ At the bottom of casd-lab.github.io/en/publicati... is a demo of how they attempted to find the location of the spoofing transmitter.

12/ The letter also seems to confirm that these two phantom RAs that happened five days later are related to the original incident with eight RAs. bsky.app/profile/lemo...