Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs

Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 9, 2007; Page A03

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.

"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."
Robotic fliers have been used by the military since World War II, but in the past decade their numbers and level of sophistication have increased enormously.



Robotic fliers have been used by the military since World War II, but in the past decade their numbers and level of sophistication have increased enormously.

Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.

"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "

That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Others think they are, well, dragonflies -- an ancient order of insects that even biologists concede look about as robotic as a living creature can look.

No agency admits to having deployed insect-size spy drones. But a number of U.S. government and private entities acknowledge they are trying. Some federally funded teams are even growing live insects with computer chips in them, with the goal of mounting spyware on their bodies and controlling their flight muscles remotely.

The robobugs could follow suspects, guide missiles to targets or navigate the crannies of collapsed buildings to find survivors.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801434.html

time to bring out the fly swatters.

named R.A.L.F.

He was a cute little bug, and handy too! :evilgrin:

Or just give the nation's political dissidents a not-so-subtle reminder that the government can fuck with them whenever it likes. That's the real purpose of this sort of thing.