Almost exactly a year ago, losangeles.cbslocal.com reported LAPD And Special Forces Conduct Military Maneuvers In The Skies Above Downtown LA. “ky9 spotted the Black Hawk in the dark, making what appeared to be a drop off at a park before quickly ascending back into the air. Throughout the exercise, the five rotorcrafts were staged at Dodgers Stadium.” Yesterday we reported military helicopters in downtown Miami flying low, firing blanks. Today, Houston. KTOR reports . . .

SkyEye 13 HD was over the south side where at first look, it appears there’s a massive SWAT scene happening. People have been calling police, as well as our newsroom, saying they’re hearing gunshots in the area of Scott and Airport.

“It turns out, the Army says, it’s a multi-agency training drill. They’re doing it at the old Carnegie High School. Helicopters were also involved. The Army isn’t giving any details of what the training is about.

Does anyone (other than our government) know what our government is up to?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

101 COMMENTS

  1. The only plausible thing I could think of would be response to terrorist attacks on schools. With the psychological response of America to the Sandy Hook massacre I would think Al Qaeda and other groups are salivating at the idea of killing an entire school.

    • Really? You think that is more plausible than the government training for attacking US citizens? We’ve had years of the government saying anyone who reads the writings of the Founding Fathers or the Constitution is an enemy and that those who think we should uphold the Constitution are the enemy. We’ve government agencies with little to no need of guns stockpiling massive amounts of ammunition. We have word from a respectable source the Obama is replacing any military leaders who will not order attacks on US citizens. We have evidence of military / National Guard units training to attack people who believe in the values and Constitution our country was founded on.

      How much more evidence do you need?

      • I agree Totenglocke: The only reason to hold these exorcizes in MIAMI, HOUSTON, BOSTON, MINNEAPOLIS and other cities across the USA is real life, real time practice on USA citizens. They could otherwise use military bases or go play out in the desert at area 51!
        I can’t believe how many people take as absolute truth anything the government tells them. No matter what their own eyes and minds should tell them!

    • Honestly, Its about God-*&^%ed F@#$%ing Time!

      One word: Beslan.

      One lunatic with a gun in a gun-free school is bad news.

      One lunatic with a gun in a gun-free school with a 20-minute response time from the police is even worse…

      Five to thirty lunatics with guns and suicide vests who have been trained in the poppy fields of Afghanistan by the Mujahideen who’ve known nothing but warfare for 30-40 years, first against US soldiers and before that Soviet Soldiers, and whose entire family tree has known nothing but warfare and who have entire lifetimes of the sights and sounds of death and destruction going back to Alexander the Great burned into their very beign, invading a gun-free school in Suburban America would make Sandy Hook look like a walk in the park.

      • Simple, don’t let them come here. Strict immigration controls and actually protecting our own border instead of policing the world would make us much safer than the “War on Terror” ever has.

    • A sane immigration policy will do more to fight Al Qaeda than all the drones and black helicopters the military owns.

    • How do you think the food will be at the re-education camps these helicopters and armored vehicles will be taking us gun folk to?

      • Food will be just fine. ’cause they won’t be taking me or my family anywhere. and I doubt you are ‘gun folk’ if you are asking the question. or using that dumb terminology.

    • Don’t you mean *new* conspiracy theories in 3, 2, 1 …?

      Conspiracy theories loose their “all the cool kids are doing it” cachet when they become conventional wisdom, like the “black helicopters buzzing cities” one. 🙂

    • I prefer the term conspiracy researcher, because I confirm these government conspiracies by viewing additional YouTube news videos and by reading investigative blog posts. 😉

      But seriously, why is our military doing these exercises here? Is Germany (and other countries where we have bases, for that matter) restricting exercises in their countries. Is that even relevant? Maybe they’re just justifying talking up terrorism for years, and joint exercises are nice way to showboat preparedness.

      • but what if all those youtube videos and investigating blogs are debunked by a sane and rational source? 😉

        im sure is just preparedness for terrorism event,

        ” terrorism ” being the key word here

    • I wrote the off the people talking about fast and furious in the early days as tin foil hatters…..

  5. Its the 160th SOAR regiment (the guys who flew the choppers in Blackhawk down). About five or six years ago they did the same thing here in Denver. OH-6 and MH-60 helicopters flying around downtown at night under 1k agl between the skyscrapers. They weren’t firing off blanks though. Interesting and somewhat troubling new twist.

    • Considering they’re training in such prominant urban environments, you’d think they would release at least some information about the type of training they’re doing. That’s a little un nerving.

      • Why would they tell us? We can’t do anything to stop it and the notion of being ‘beholden to the taxpayer’ isn’t exactly fashionable anymore.

        They’re in charge, if you complain you’re supporting terrorism.

        That’s the magic free-for-all password. Terrorism.

      • About 20 years ago they also had a battalion at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia (same place the 1st Ranger Battalion was located.) Don’t know if they still do.

  9. Conspiracies require a large group of highly intelligent, professional people who can keep a secret so how many of those do you think are in the govt? Or perhaps they’re incompetent and didn’t think people would notice or needed to be informed of this so they didn’t cause a panic. So in summary is it more like our govt is incompetent or filled with morally corrupt, highly intelligent masterminds?

    • Training soldiers to prepare them for the emotional challenges of operations “in the domestic theater” has been slipping into Reserve and Guard training protocols for years, at least since 1991. I can’t call it a conspiracy or a mere theory when they’ve been building the domestic forces openly for more than twenty years. This includes using Delta as consultants to evaluate domestic terror (or violence) preparations (e.g. Seattle) for years. Those who pay for public policy on both sides of the aisle seem to be in agreement. The average Joe and Joanne have to vote on what? Abortion versus Not, and More Medicare spending versus less? When did one party say “we’ll reduce the surveillance state and the militarization of DHS”? Didn’t think so. Representation government forces one to a platform. You have an actual say on no particular issue. They know better than you. Ask them. They’ll tell you.

    • Conspiracy is something done in secret. This is in the evening news. But still somehow earns the title of “conspiracy theory”. Oh, “but it’s counter-terrorism, they’re not training against Americans LOL”. Until you read the list of activities they consider to be suspect activities of a would-be-could-be terrorist (“known maybe possible terrorist” as Rahm Emanuel calls them) … buying gold … having ammunition … paying cash for coffee … taking pictures … having more than a frozen pizza and a half-sqirt-bottle of mustard for food (well, they say more than 7 days’ worth), so forth and so on. Like I replied to someone else, they get you to buy off on the original premise then slowly move the goalposts. And not in secret. Ergo, not a conspiracy.

  11. “Black Helicopters Dry Firing Over Houston” you forgot “scary”. Do the scary black helicopters have more than 2 military features? Like there is a normal helicopter but this one is black and it has a pistol grip? Way to have a whole website dedicated to debunking scare tactics and misinformation about one topic only to engage in the same behavior about different topic.Sounds like you know as much about these helicopters and Army exercises as DiFi knows about ARs. #epicfail

    • First of all, this isn’t twitter, so quit with the damn hash tags. Second of all, it was a simple article. Was there any fear-mongering? No. Was there any “They’re doing this in plans of a complete takeover?” No. You’re comparing somebody who’s trying to actually trample over the people’s constitutionally-protected freedoms to somebody who’s posting a news article that’s already been posted by another news source. If there’s any epic failure, it is on your part. They have as much right to post this as you do to not read it.

    • I know one thing, ban Assault Helicopters now, Helicopters don’t need more than 10 rockets. It’s for the children!!

  12. The 160th is out of Ft. Campbell KY. The ground troops are clearly a Tier 1 unit, they’re wearing the Gen3 four tube nightvision goggles. You only see that on outfits like SFOD (Delta) or Seal Team Six. Very interesting to see this during daylight with a TV chopper filming it all in HD.

    • There definitely was media there, at least cameras setup. It looked quite like some KSK promotional shoots they held in Germany a few years ago. In the middle of the video there you can clearly see a red shirt with a mounted camera that he moves in really close to the Littlebird. In Germany, with the KSK promos, they held private exercises to the bewilderment of the locals, even the local police would not comment on it as they blocked off the area, as well so that there wouldn’t be a crowd and local and amateur media there, that way the shots would be unique.

      The exercise may have something to do with a school shooting scenario and be a bit of SF consulting for a local response plan. It might have nothing to do with a school shooting situation and just be a promotional shoot, though. The multi-location bit is a mystery, though. Everything else would be covered under “promotional shoot”.

      • Yah, “promotional”. As in running “promotions” during Dancing With The Stars and Honey Boo Boo for the citizenry to turn in their guns or the nice little helicopters and accompanying gentleman will pay a visit to your backyard.

  17. The George Z trial is in June I believe. If he goes free.. well be ready for the riots. I’m not sure if the pres is nuts enough to issue EO/confiscations, he may just be. The 3rd scenario is that the big bad government is flexing its muscles. If the EO confiscations are comming then they just answered their own question on the need for AR’s. I firmly believe that even if this needs to be resolved with force it will not go the presidents way, Randy

  18. Against the constitution to have military doing this. It should be only civilian law enforcement. No body challenges the gubment. NOBODY!!

    • Not against the Constitution when certain tier one units have been authorized to operate inside the borders of the United States. They’ve been doing it for many many years.

    • That’s ridiculous. It is not against the Constitution. There is a law, the posse comitatus act, that forbids using the military for domestic law enforcement, but that has so many exceptions that it is hardly effective at all. The “war on drugs” has expanded military involvement with domestic policing substantially. Before the end of the cold war the military didn’t like being involved with the war on drugs, but after the Berlin wall fell, they were only too happy to take on such missions to justify a larger budget and more activity.

  20. So how about the local Guard units doing a counter-op. Couple F-16’s doing a flyby just to let the feds know that this is the turf of the National Guard. The Army is supposed to be training against foreign enemies, not coordinating with local law enforcement against US populations.

    • The Guard Units are under control of the US military (at least on paper). I don’t know the reality of how they would respond if ordered to attack citizens of their own state (or, more likely, what a Ky guard unit would do if it were ordered to roll on Tx, for example).

  21. It’s that Obama feller, y’know, he’s comin’ ta take our guns, an’ they is prakticin’ fer the UN invasion ta take us over in the one world gubmint where they is gonna impose commie rule and, and socialism and they is gonna have death panels ta decide when we die and they is gonna be food riots, and, and, well, you know the rest, every idiotic conspiracy theory I’ve been listening to since the mid-1950’s, during every administration, Republican and Democrat. The stories never change, only the story tellers. I did stock up on ammo, but only because of all the conspiracy theory loonies regurgitating all the usual stories, creating shortages and driving up prices. I’m not planning on a standoff against the evil gubmint.

  24. around 9 min you can see the people coming out the building have paintball masks. Looks like they were doing some simunition/paintball exercises inside the building and this was just the xfil?

    • It looked to me like the training part was done, because everyone kinda gathered around the guys with the orange vests on as if they were doing an after action review or a sensitive items check, and you can see a couple of guys smoking cigarettes, which is something you would do after someone called endex. Smoking doesn’t really seem like a Tier 1 thing to do, but what do I know except what I see on TV. When I was in the Army our barracks was across a street from an SF barracks/company area, and I don’t recall ever seeing any of the SF guys outside their barracks smoking. They dipped a lot, but they didn’t seem to smoke. Also, if the exercise was over, why did those guys leave on those helos as if they were going into training, not leaving from it?

  25. This is a show of force, plain and simple. The government’s message to the peasants, “Sit down and shut up.”

    When a government agency plans to conduct such a “training exercise”, they must notify the public well in advance. If I am in the area where there are people firing anything (semi-auto or full automatic) from black helicopters, I will immediately be in full defensive mode. And if the helicopters are unmarked and firing at me — a law abiding citizen who has not broken any laws — I have to assume they are criminal or a foreign invading military and I will return fire. Perhaps that is what they want?

  26. I love the fact that all the conspiracy theory loonies are keeping the gun and ammo factories working overtime, the stores are packed with customers and making money hand over fist. They’re keeping Americans working. It’s great for the economy, sooooo, keep up the good work loonies.

    • except for us law abbiding americans that cant even afford the ammo or more weapons because all this looney tunes conspiracy theorist has the gun and ammo manufacturers working triple overtime and the stores are jacking up the price 300%…

      • I resemble your statement and I’ve been staring at this screen for minutes trying to figure out a sly way to solicit donations without ending up on some watch list.

        Option 2- I wonder how the family would react if I suggested that we eat Raman Noodles for the next month to free up some cash? Never mind, I’d end up on my wife’s sh** list which is much more scary.

  27. Frankly, I’m more willing to believe the “we need to keep the training quota up” possibility than the more insidious ones. Not that I’ve completely discounted such aforementioned insidious possibilities . . .

    On that note, though, if the worst were to come to pass, how do y’all think the breakdown of US troops split between their constitutional duties and their “orders” would look like? For instance, between branches, pilots, mechanics, basic infantry, officers, SF, Generals & Commanders, etc.?

    Can’t say I have ANY idea how most of those would likely split, though I have a distinct feeling (or hope?) that we’re going to find the lion’s share of USSOCOM on our side. How about you guys?

    • They’d all do what they’re told. You might have certain elements with MORE people dissenting than you’d have in other areas, but within each branch the dissenters would be a minority, especially once individual troops saw the way in which the military would deal with dissent.

  28. If they’re trying to scare people, I’m really not impressed.

    They know it will end badly for them if they actually use airpower like this domestically. There would be defections on one level or another if they used such force against lawful dissenters in any way.

    I don’t think they are crazy enough to turn North America in the Balkans, but you never know. I think this makes them look amateurish at best, nobody will feel safer because of this. It’s all psywar nowadays and I do believe this may be an aspect of that, I think they are daring the real malcontents to do something… so they have a genuine excuse to further expand their powers.

    I don’t think it is a secret that the CIA has played an active role in promoting phony terrorism around the globe and turning it into a meme domestically with their influence over Hollywood and the mass media. They have used it as an excuse to expand our influence over Asia’s vast resources and emerging markets.

    The real, disturbing, unanswered question is how far they have really gone already in terms of deception and how far they are willing to go in the future. Obama is a product of the intelligence community. His mother was a very suspicious character and he is without a doubt a mama’s boy, which in my opinion makes him the CIA’s boy. The reason he bows to foreign tyrants and the reason he is so limp wristed by American standards is his Indonesian-Hawaiian upbringing, which was largely overlooked by (phony?)racists in favor of claiming he was born in Kenya. Well, how do we know that Kenyan drunk was even his real father? It was all a big joke that played right into Obama’s hands. He was transplanted from the South Pacific into urban Chicago, where he built street cred with hardcore Marxists. He was groomed for something great from the beginning of his life.

    Has their been a silent coup? Is this just the latest phase in a gradual coup? These questions disturb me and they should disturb you as well. Be vigilant.

  29. If you live in one of these cities, walk outside and see a helicopter firing in your direction, does Castle Doctrine or Stand Your Ground work here? Can you return fire?

    • Go ahead and try that if you want to, but they’d probably have a throwdown surface to air missile they’d plant on your corpse so they could say it was a righteous shoot.

      • A well placed shot on a helicopter isn’t terribly hard if you know where. But having said that this whole thing is loony.. It is like a movie or something..

        • Aim for the tail rotor gearbox. If he’s at a hover or flying below 30 kts, it’s spin city if he loses antitorque, quickly followed by autorotative crash.

  31. Looks like a day of test runs for quick response direct action for a school shooting situation. Why some well-funded military units are involved beats me, you’d think local police would have a faster response than a military unit that will invariably be further away. It could be they brought in SF to design a plan for local police to learn from, but that would make the strafing runs with blanks a mystery, unless they just used that to make the helicopter use worth the time. On the other hand they could have all the time they want on range with live fire. If the American people don’t accept concealed carry by teachers but accept strafing runs on schools I’ll lose all faith in humanity.

    Odd any way you slice it.

  32. All of the conspiracy theories aside, I believe it is extremely dangerous and irresponsible to conduct such “training exercises” over heavily populated areas. Our military has accidents all the time during training exercises. Such accidents are always regrettable of course. That said, an accident on a military base or at sea is one thing. But an accident over downtown Los Angeles or Miami would be reprehensible.

    These exercises over heavily populated urban environments — like no-knock raids search warrants — have to end.

  33. This is clearly about serious intimidation and conditioning for citizens – getting them scared as hell and used to seeing the military in full force, invading their cities. And it’s also conditioning for the troops. They gotta get them used to firing on their own people in their own cities, and flying choppers, etc. in dense urban canyons.

  34. I live across the freeway from Fort Lewis. Helicopters fly over two or three times per day. In the daytime, they fly the dark green helicopters, however, at night they never fly the greens, only the black helicopters. I wonder why?

  35. My grandfather was a US Army photographer stationed at Fort Detrick in Maryland. He told us stories about being flown out to the south western US to take arial photographs of isolated towns that the government had been using (not to the knowledge of the inhabitants) to test chemical and biological agents. Very similar operations to MK Ultra. I learned to even take their truths with salt long ago.

    • The Gov was doing that stuff with radiological agents unbeknownst to the participants in the 1950/60s.

      The thought that it is not only still happening, but it orders of magnitude worse, is the only naive viewpoint.

  37. Guys. Seriously. Are you kidding me? This was only training. This video was not a “show of force”. Those that believe so are simply kidding them selves.
    1. Those were civilians who were wearing paintball masks.
    2. It was most likely a training event designed to simulate a terrorist takeover of a school or other “building”.

    This was designed to simulate a real world event. We used civilians just like this in our training before we went to Iraq. I am no longer in the military and I am very very pro gun. I say that because I know how quickly I will be branded a “sheep” or collaborator.
    Believe me or not, I do not really care, but all of this fear mongering and bullshit like this with the false reporting of information (THE ARTICLE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE VIDEO, HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT VIDEO WAS OF HOUSTON?) and everyone freaking out that there is another civil war coming on is completely ridiculous. We all really just need to start doing our own digging and stop taking everything at face value. I was really mad when I started to write this, now I am sad that I have spent the time watching that video and writing this knowing it probably wont make a damn bit of difference. Good luck to all in the difficult months ahead. Stay strong. Keep your guns oiled. Keep a weather eye my friends.

    • “(THE ARTICLE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE VIDEO, HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT VIDEO WAS OF HOUSTON?)”

      Um, because it says abc13.com at the bottom of the window, and it links to a story on Houston’s KTOR ABC 13 website, with the headline of “Army drill scares residents on Houston’s south side.” I figure that’s a pretty good clue.

  40. Listen you guys need to to realize that the truth about soldiers is we’re not the “government” in the respect you imply with, “what is the government up to and why don’t we know?” We conduct training of ourselves and training of civilian LE agencies out of the public eye so that those who wish to do harm find it more difficult to gather intel to use in countermeasures. We’re not going to win the Super Bowl if we broadcast our playbook. …another truth about us is we are generally gun owners, hunters, and gun rights advocates, and remember we’re constitutional defenders!!?? We know an unlawful order when we hear one so don’t be so paranoid that we’re all just going to go along with some conspiratory gun confiscation mission and pull up to your house in our MRAPs. Have a little faith.

    • Sir, I thank you for your service and that of your brave fellows in arms.

      But I do wonder who will step forward when the time comes and say “Sir, I believe that order is unconstitutional and I refuse to obey.” If the order is given to attack, imprison or eliminate citizens, then they are also prepared to eliminate those who refuse to obey their orders. When it comes to “nut cutting” time, how many will be willing to stand up alone and face the consequence of their action?

  42. @ 11:30 – That looks like the staging of, or debriefing of, an OpFor team – dressed as civilian militia might be expected to dress.

    This is a rehearsal for dealing with an armed uprising.

  43. W.P. Black aircraft, whether choppers or fixes wing aren’t called black because of their color scheme. They’re called “black” because they have no markings. Nothing to identify their unit or even country of origin. Military equipment and vehicles are festooned in all sorts of ways with numbers and letters. “Black” equipment is sterile.

  45. O.k…just to set some facts straight: Contrary to popular belief, Posse Comatatus does not make it illegal for the armed forces to be used on US soil to keep the peace and enforce laws, it just has to be done with a Presidential declaration, and approved by congress, and it requires that any authority to do so must exist within the United States Constitution or Act of Congress (which it currently does not EXCEPT under the Insurrection Act)….and go…in 3,2,1….

  46. Don’t you guys understand that with your conspiracy theories, your Molon Labe bravado and your disdain for 1 oz. of compromise on anything that you are playing directly into the hands of the leftist gun grabbers? They just have to sit back, stir the pot a bit and you guys implode thereby making their case for them.

    • So, instead a better course of action is to sit back, yawn and say to one’s self “Ah, this too shall pass?”

      And what has compromise given us? More and more taking by those who you would have us compromise with. If they are unwilling to give us the courtesy and respect of at least considering our opinions, why should we give in to them?

      The camel’s nose has been under the tent many times and each time I end up sharing my cot with the camel-and whether you know this or not, camels have bad breath and are not particularly clean. I prefer to leave the camel outside of my tent from here forward.

    • Compromise requires both parties to get something out of the deal. The proposed legislation is not compromise, but rather a demand.

      Unless the “compromise” is that we “get” to keep our “assault weapons”. I wonder how a “common-sense debate” about the Right of Free Speech would go if the “compromise” was that you could say whatever you wanted…in 160 characters or less. As long as the words didn’t appear violent. Or the person saying the words didn’t believe different things than you believed. Or…
      The Bible, Torah, and Koran have led to the deaths of more people than any of my weapons ever will…

      I fight the evil you pretend doesn’t exist…

  47. At face value, nothing too concerning in the video. In the event of a terrorist attack I want the best of the best going in to kick ass.

    Though it is interesting comparing this event to the Miami event. The Miami operation gets labelled as “a joint military-police operation” and the police are everywhere. The Houston one its labelled a “multi-agency” operation and there is a distinct lack of police.

  49. Don’t know bout other cities besides Miami and Houston, but in LA I see blackhawks & apaches or cobras landing & taking off some city facilities all the time, flying low & circling but i believe that is sop before landing. They’re obviously practicing urban maneuvers. I’m sure it’ll be effective no matter where they end up flying, internationally or domestic. Just saying.

  50. i just wached 4 helicopters fly over my house today around 11am in st.louis, mo….they were not very far from the ground…anyone else seein them lately?

Comments are closed.