O.R.C.

Associated Press writer Matthew Brown published an article April 4, 2008 detailing a new but seemingly innocuous gadget soon to be employed by California Forest Service agents. This device is known as the SkySeer Unmanned Air Vehicle, or UAV. The California Forest Service has purchased two SkySeer vehicles, each costing 50,000 U.S. dollars. They claim the vehicles will aid them in catching illegal marijuana growers in California’s remote woodlands.

Produced by Octatron, a known defense contractor, the SkySeer boasts a wide array of technological crime-fightery. Each of the two units acquired by the Forest Service can fly at just under 30 miles per hour, can sustain flight for about an hour, weighs around 5 pounds, and soars practically silently. One of the two SkySeers is equipped with a thermal camera for night missions.

This is not the first time law enforcement grunts have made use of the SkySeer, as the L.A.P.D. have been using one for two years. However, in the hands of the Forest Service, the SkySeer poses at least a moderate threat not only to illegal pot producers but also to defenders of California’s imperiled forests.

According to the Arizona Daily Star posting of Matthew Brown’s article, the two vehicles are being stored in the Forest Service’s aviation department in Montana (somewhere near or in Billings), where they will remain until the agency finishes training operators and obtains flying approval from the FAA. The FOX NEWS posting of the same article omits the location of the craft.

Forest defenders and other woodsy folk should beware these stealthy new menaces.