Look, up in the sky: it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a ... disguised surveillance drone?
When most people picture a drone, they probably either think of military-style behemoths or hobbyist quadcopters. But what if you couldn’t tell a drone from something else you expect to be in the sky, like a bird?
That’s the question raised after reports of what appears to be a bird-shaped unmanned aerial vehicle going down in Somalia. The alleged drone looks like it has a crudely welded metal body that would resemble a bird of prey if viewed from the ground. Pictures of the craft were shared on the Twitter account of someone who identifies himself as Adam A. Omar, who said the drone crashed in Mogadishu’s Waabari district on July 11.
Not much is known about the hawkish machine, although some local reports link it to surveillance by a Somali intelligence agency. If that’s the case, it’s not the first time someone has tried to disguise a surveillance drone with an avian design.
In 2013, a Spanish company called Expal was marketing a more sophisticated-looking surveillance drone camouflaged as an eagle to governments around the world.
“Nobody can tell it’s a spy because it’s designed to the exact body shape and feather pattern of an eagle,” Sofía Alfaro Marco, the company’s branding manager, told the Guardian at the time. “We can design it to look like any large bird, depending on the location of the client.”
One German engineering firm called Festo has also been experimenting with drones and robots that mimic other common creatures - including insects such as ants and butterflies.
The company doesn’t seem to have any plans to turn their creations into digital superspies, instead developing them as proof-of-concept design challenges. But the designs also hint at a future where drone technology is so advanced that almost anything could be watching.
