FAA Records Show Military Readied to Engage Drone as San Diego Airport Halted

SAN DIEGO, CALIF. — Federal records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act suggest that the military prepared to engage an unidentified drone during a disruption at San Diego International Airport on September 4th, 2026, according to a digest entry published by The Anomalist, which draws on work by researcher John Greenewald of The Black Vault.

The headline on Mr. Greenewald's posting states that air traffic control audio references a possible shootdown. The Anomalist's summary does not reproduce the audio or the documents, and this newspaper has not reviewed them. The digest says only that Mr. Greenewald gives a good description of the incidents, of what is known about their causes, and, perhaps more importantly, of what apparently remains uncertain or unknown.

The digest's author, identified by the initials WM, notes that the serious work of aircrews and controllers is highlighted in the records. The writer describes such incursions over and near busy airports as an uncomfortably regular occurrence. Whether the object in San Diego was a drone, as the headline suggests, or something else is left open; the digest refers to drone "or other" incursions.

The same entry gathers several other recent reports from the skies. Stacy Liberatore, writing for the Daily Mail, reports on lights seen on October 7th over Salford, England, where astronomers described a triangle of lights that vanished abruptly. The digest says Ms. Liberatore carefully unwraps what was reported and what it can and cannot be taken to show, and calls the pair of sightings interesting.

Tim Binnall, writing for Coast to Coast AM, reports on a triangular object filmed near Mexico's Popocatépetl volcano. The digest observes that the volcano has figured in such reports before, and that the date of the footage, November 2nd, the Day of the Dead, offers a possible explanation beyond both UFOs and the usual mundane ones.

Finally, the blog Inexplicata describes a newly surfaced Argentine Air Force dossier, called the Trancas File, which reopens a mystery over events in Tucumán in 1995. The dossier is described as controversial. One detail cited is a "triangle of locations" said to have the country's highest density of historical reports. The digest's author adds a dry correction: the three points form less a triangle than a north-south line of some 1,082 miles, running from northern Argentina to Patagonia.

For San Diego, the open question is the one the records reportedly leave open: what was in the air that day, and who was prepared to act against it.