A downed American F-15 pilot reported seeing Iranian drones swarm in a “jellyfish” formation. The pilot was shot down during Operation Epic Fury and rescued by special forces. He detailed what he saw in a post-incident debriefing with intelligence officers.
“Multiple drones interconnected and moving as one with smaller drones below the bigger drones like legs,” a source familiar with the pilot’s witness account told CNN. “Real alien s—.”
The pilot also reported seeing a “minefield of drones” in the air, according to another source who spoke to CNN.
“Are you sure you saw what you are saying you saw?” was one of the questions the intelligence officers asked the pilot during the debriefing, according to one of the sources.
Two of the sources noted that Kuwaiti forces had shot down the pilot previously in the Iran War and that he suffered a concussion in the most recent crash.
Intelligence officials are very interested in finding out exactly what happened because that many drones moving in tandem within a formation would signal a concerning development in Iranian capabilities. This technology, known as “one-to-many meshed networking,” enables a single operator to simultaneously manage several drones. It is believed that Russia and China each possess such technology.
Investigators are still trying to determine the exact cause of the F-15’s downing. However, according to preliminary assessments, Iran may have been able to shoot down the jet thanks to the “jellyfish” drone formation, two sources told CNN.
“We will spend huge, huge dollars, like a lot of blood and treasure, protecting ourselves from something that can coordinate like that,” Emma Bates, a drone warfare expert, told CNN. “If it can coordinate itself into a recognizable shape and maintain that shape, and if it’s got explosives on board, and if it is holding resources in reserve to attack whatever the first volley didn’t destroy – that’s a very capable approach.”