Hi there,

If you think Democracy Now!’s reporting is a critical line of defense against war, climate catastrophe and authoritarianism, please make your donation of $10 or more right now. Today, a generous donor will DOUBLE your donation, which means it’ll go 2x as far to support our independent journalism. Democracy Now! is funded by you, and that’s why we’re counting on your donation to keep us going strong. Please give today. Every dollar makes a difference—in fact, gets doubled! Thank you so much.
-Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

$1.4 Billion Army Surveillance Blimp Breaks Free & Wreaks Havoc

HeadlineOct 29, 2015

U.S. military officials scrambled Wednesday to capture a billion-dollar unmanned surveillance blimp that broke free of its moorings in Maryland and drifted across Pennsylvania, downing power lines and knocking out electricity for tens of thousands of residents. The blimp has the capacity to surveil a region the size of Texas. Built by military contractor Raytheon, there are only two of these blimps in the world. Each effectively costs $1.4 billion. The U.S. military has another surveillance blimp, of a different model, that floats over Kabul at all times.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top