Mystery drones spotted near Danish airbase hosting F-35 jets

Denmark’s dual-use Aalborg airport and military base was also briefly closed over the sightings authorities have failed to identify.

Denmark briefly shut down air traffic at Aalborg Airport after unidentified “drones” were spotted hovering near the runway – the latest in a string of unexplained sightings that also included the facility that hosts Denmark’s Fighter Wing Skrydstrup.

Northern Jutland police said “more than one drone” was seen circling Aalborg with their lights on around 9:44pm local time Wednesday. Authorities later reported that drones were also observed near airports in Esbjerg, Sonderborg and Skrydstrup, home to Denmark’s fleet of F-16 and newly arrived F-35 jets.

Despite hours of monitoring – and assistance from the Danish armed forces – the alleged unmanned aircraft remained unidentified. Officials could not say what type of drones they were, who launched them, or why.

“It is too early to say what the goal of the drones is and who is the actor behind,” a police official told reporters, adding that they would try to bring them down “if possible.” Eventually, the drones vanished without being intercepted.

The incident comes just days after Copenhagen Airport, the busiest in the Nordic region, was forced to halt flights for four hours due to similar sightings. Officials described that disruption as the most serious “attack” yet on Danish infrastructure, though investigators also failed to locate or identify the culprit.

Oslo Airport in Norway was also briefly closed that night after a suspected drone sighting, prompting speculations that the unexplained activity could be part of a wider campaign of unrelated incidents routinely blamed on Moscow. Russia’s ambassador in Copenhagen dismissed the claims as “ungrounded.”

The Danish incidents follow major outages last weekend that affected electronic check-in and boarding systems at London’s Heathrow, as well as airports in Berlin and Brussels. British authorities detained a suspect over what was described as a ransomware attack, but later released him on conditional bail.

Last year, a wave of mysterious drone sightings spread across the US, where clusters of suspected UAVs were repeatedly reported in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and eventually across much of the Northeast. Despite a joint federal–state task force and speculation about everything from cartels to foreign surveillance, no hostile operator was ever identified. Investigations later concluded that most sightings involved authorized drones, misidentified manned aircraft, or other routine aerial and celestial objects – amplified by confirmation bias and mass hysteria.