Moscas espías con cámaras incorporadas

Moscas con camaras de aquí :

Vanessa Alarcon, a university student who was working at an anti-war rally in the American capital last month, told the Washington Post: “I heard someone say, ‘Oh my God, look at those.’

I look up and I’m like, ‘What the hell is that?’. They looked like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects.”

Bernard Crane, a lawyer who was at the same event, said he had “never seen anything like it in my life”. He added: “They were large for dragonflies. I thought, ‘Is that mechanical or is that alive?’”

The incident has similarities with an alleged sighting at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York when one peace march participant described on the internet seeing “a jet-black dragonfly hovering about 10 feet off the ground, precisely in the middle of 7th Avenue”.

Entomologists suggest that the objects are indeed dragonflies. Jerry Louton, an expert at the National Museum of Natural History, said Washington was home to large, impressively-decorated dragonflies that “can knock your socks off”.

However, he admitted that the dragonfly theory did not explain claims made independently by three people at the Washington event.

They all described seeing a row of spheres the size of small berries attached along the tails of the “dragonflies”.

They also reported seeing at least three together. Mr Louton said that dragonflies never fly in a pack.

The CIA secretly developed a petrol-powered dragonfly drone back in the 1970s but the “insectothopter” was considered a failure as it couldn’t handle crosswinds.

The CIA refused to discuss its subsequent work but it is known that the Defence Department has been funding research into inserting computer chips into moth pupae to create “cyborg moths” whose flight muscles can be controlled remotely.

Although experts say there are still considerable technical hurdles - not least finding a way of protecting the creations from hungry birds - some concede it is possible that some agency has secretly managed to make something that works.

“America can be pretty sneaky,” said Tom Ehrhard, a retired Air Force clonel and expert on unmanned aerial craft.

de aquí

In August, at the International Symposium on Flying Insects and Robots, held in Switzerland, Japanese researchers introduced radio-controlled fliers with four-inch wingspans that resemble hawk moths. Those who watch them fly, its creator wrote in the program, “feel something of ‘living souls.’ “

Others, taking a tip from the CIA, are making fliers that run on chemical fuels instead of batteries. The “entomopter,” in early stages of development at the Georgia Institute of Technology and resembling a toy plane more than a bug, converts liquid fuel into a hot gas, which powers four flapping wings and ancillary equipment.

“You can get more energy out of a drop of gasoline than out of a battery the size of a drop of gasoline,” said team leader Robert Michelson.

Even if the technical hurdles are overcome, insect-size fliers will always be risky investments.

“They can get eaten by a bird, they can get caught in a spider web,” said Fearing of Berkeley. “No matter how smart you are — you can put a Pentium in there — if a bird comes at you at 30 miles per hour there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Protesters might even nab one with a net — one of many reasons why Ehrhard, the former Air Force colonel, and other experts said they doubted that the hovering bugs spotted in Washington were spies.

So what was seen by Crane, Alarcon and a handful of others at the D.C. march — and as far back as 2004, during the Republican National Convention in New York, when one observant but perhaps paranoid peace-march participant described on the Web “a jet-black dragonfly hovering about 10 feet off the ground, precisely in the middle of 7th avenue . . . watching us”?

They probably saw dragonflies, said Jerry Louton, an entomologist at the National Museum of Natural History. Washington is home to some large, spectacularly adorned dragonflies that “can knock your socks off,” he said. aquí