Flights of the Weaponized Drones: Flight Paths over Tohono O'odham Nation

 

Arizona law allows the military to shoot down drones suspected of criminal activity.

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Oct. 7, 2026

The U.S. military flies back and forth over the Tohono O'odham Nation after armed and masked federal agents seized control of the sovereign Tohono O'odham Nation for border wall construction. The military now says it is using weaponized drones, loaded with directed energy lasers, along the border to take out enemy cartel drones. However, those weaponized drones took out a US Border Patrol drone, and a party balloon, by mistake, causing the FAA to shut down the airspace over El Paso twice.

Censored News is tracking the trackers, the aircrafts over the Tohono O'odham Nation, as shown below.

(Above) Tuesday's view of the aircraft we're following. The US military says it's a weaponized drone fighting off enemy cartel drones and it's disabling them with directed energy lasers. However, the drone fighters have already shot down a US Border Patrol drone and party balloon by mistake, shutting down El Paso airspace twice. This one is out of the Army's Fort Huachuca, southeast of Tucson, and flies over the Tohono Oodham Nation border. 

Eyes on the Sky -- This US Border Patrol drone was busy circling southwest of Topawa over the Tohono O'odham Nation on Sunday in the predawn hours. This comes after federal agents, masked and armed, took control of the Tohono O'odham Nation border area, brought in border wall construction crews and began drilling. This violates a federal judge's order for the U.S. to consult and cooperate with the tribe before proceeding. Oct. 4, 2026, 3 am local time.

As you can see the aircraft we've been following was busy on the Arizona border. It is using fraudulent call signs and codes, one is shown here. It appears as a helicopter on Flight Radar24, but the US military says it is a weaponized drone and claims it is fighting off "enemy drones" of Mexican cartels and taking them out with directed energy lasers. It goes back and forth over the Tohono O'odham border and the tree sit at Lochiel protecting the cottonwood from border wall construction. Image at 8:20 am local time, Sunday, Oct 4, 2026.

What is not known is whether these weaponized drones actually went to foreign countries from the Arizona border, or if it is an error in the transponder code because of the false identities. For instance, one is identified as a small Cessna plane that is no longer registered. Flight Radar shows this aircraft, identified as a weaponized drone by the military, traveling to the United Arab Emirates in the middle east, Santa Ana in Mexico, a place of prayer for O'odham, a remote area north of Puerto Vallarta, a tourist city in Mexico; and to two cities in Brazil. If these weaponized drones were there, did those countries know U.S. weaponized drones were in their airspace. The one to UAE appears to have turned around off shore near UAE's border.

Four jets training for war are shown over the Tohono O'odham Nation last week, endangering the lives of O'odham. The militarized drone with lasers to take out enemy drones appears as a red helicopter. The weaponized drone continued, back and forth above the Tohono O'odham Nation at the border line. The jet pilots are training for war by ATAC, a private company whose flights have crashed elsewhere and killed the pilots. The militarized drone was in Brazil, as shown by the white line as it headed down.

Previously at Censored News

The MQ-9 drone parked on a tarmac in Arizona. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

Bizarre Flights Above Tohono O'odham Nation: US Military Claims it is Eliminating Enemy Drones using Direct Energy Lasers.

The U.S. military now claims it took out three enemy drones overnight that were targeting the US Border Patrol.

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, September 25, 2026 Updated

TUCSON -- Those Bizarre Border Flights. The unidentified flights above the Tohono O'odham Nation border have now been identified as military drones, the kind used in war zones. After being spotlighted for weeks in our news reports, the U.S. military now says it took out three enemy drones using direct energy lasers, saying that the drones posed a threat to the U.S. Border Patrol. 

Although the mystery aircraft was finally identified by the US military, we haven't found any explanation for these mislabeled flights going back and forth from the O'odham border to foreign countries over the past few weeks.

The most bizarre were multiple trips from the Tohono O'odham border to the United Arab Emirates in the middle east. The aircraft was tracked to a site off the coast of the UAE, where it turned around and went back to the O'odham border.

The unidentified aircraft changed call signs as it traveled from the Tohono O'odham Nation border to the United Arab Emirates at least twice, and to locations in Mexico and Brazil. Various colors reveal elevations on FlightRadar24. Screenshot by Censored News.

Then there were two military drone trips to Mexico from the O'odham border:  A flight to Santa Ana, a place for O'odham ceremonies, and a second flight to the tourist spot of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

The same military drone make a trip from the O'odham border to Sao Paulo, Brazil, according to Flight Radar24.

The drone was first shown on radar as a helicopter using the false call-signs of a small unregistered plane.

We were able to identify the aircraft as a drone because of the long flight time. We were next able to track it to the area where the Army base in Fort Huachuca, southeast of Tucson, is located.

It is now been revealed that the secretive drone operation was carried out by the National Air Security Operations Center in Sierra Vista.

The drones have also been above the tree sit that is blocking border wall construction in Lochiel, east of Nogales, Arizona. One of the drones over the Tohono O'odham Nation was last airborne in Bangkok, Thailand, according to radar.

The U.S. military now says it used the unidentified drones to take down three enemy drones. This operation was based at Fort Bliss, which explains the air trails to El Paso, Texas, area. Other drone military operations were based in Yuma, Arizona.

Threatening Drones Mitigated by US Military with Direct Energy Weapons

The U.S. Military's Joint Task Force at the Southern Border said this week that it is using a high-energy laser system to mitigate cartel-linked drone threats.

The Joint Task Force – Southern Border in Fort Bliss, Texas, operating under U.S. Northern Command, in support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection released a statement.

The Joint Task Force said it "successfully defended U.S. military personnel and CBP partners by mitigating three adversarial unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) using directed energy capabilities this week."

"During the operation, which spanned the late-night hours of August 25 and 26, JTF-SB personnel used the Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) system to engage and defeat three hostile UAS, determined to be such based on their use in direct support of activities posing a physical threat to U.S. military personnel and CBP partners." Continue reading https://www.northcom.mil/Newsroom/Press-Releases/Article/4585131/joint-task-force-southern-border-uses-high-energy-laser-system-to-mitigate-cart/

'Enemy Drones' Mistakes Shut Down Air Space in El Paso

The U.S. military is eliminating "enemy drones" with lasers on the border -- but it has made serious mistakes.

The high-powered laser took out a Border Patrol drone -- and a party balloon. This resulted in the FAA shutting down the airspace in El Paso for periods of time. What was thought to be a Mexican cartel drone was a party balloon, shutting down the airspace around El Paso for eight hours.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IkUwIe1Cwmc

What they are not telling you

The US military produced a lot of public relations spin about arresting one guy with a small solar panel near Ajo, a suspected drug runner, and brought in military helicopters and a military drone to do it.

Of course they didn't mention the US Border Patrol agent who was arrested nearby in Sasabe running drugs.

Of course they didn't mention the US Border Patrol agents from Tucson and Ajo who murdered Raymond Mattia, Tohono O'odham, after he videotaped US Border Patrol agents running drugs with the cartels past his home on the border of the Tohono O'odham Nation.

The tribal police officer who led them to Raymond's home now has been identified by individuals, not the tribal government. The non-Indian tribal police officer was under investigation by Arizona police for a sex-related crime before being hired by the tribe.

None of them have been charged for Raymond's murderer.

Of course the U.S. government does not share its own involvement with the Sinaloa cartel, and the weapons 'walking' across the border.

Supplying cartels in Sonora with high powered automatic weapons was carried out by the ATF to track weapons to the cartels, the less violent ones, to take out the other more violent cartels on the Texas border, according to the U.S. government.

However, the gun running resulted in a U.S. Border Patrol agent being killed with one of those weapons, north of Nogales, Arizona.

The gun walking operation was exposed on the Texas border and in Tucson. The weapons, it turned out, could not be tracked. 

U.S. Border Patrol agents on the southern border have been arrested for assault, kidnapping, serial rape, drug running and 'spotting' for the cartels to bring their loads across. The media fails to report most of these crimes and the agents often get away with the crimes.

A Disaster. By peccary_not_pig on Instagram.

"Part of the double border wall project in Arizona’s San Rafael stretches 160 feet wide across what was once a vital ecosystem. From heel to torch the Statue of Liberty is 151 ft tall. She could lay down in this dystopian hellscape or be buried there. This is a nightmare befitting a paranoid empire. The entire landscape is now a prisoner."

Read more:

Secretive Drone Operation in Ajo, Near Tohono O'odham Nation's Western Border (September 2026)

AJO, Ariz. - "Federal agents fast-roped from a helicopter into the remote Arizona desert to arrest a border scout after an unmanned surveillance drone spotted his hidden lookout, federal authorities announced Tuesday. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the Sept. 4 operation near Ajo highlights how the federal agency is deploying advanced aerial surveillance and elite tactical units to disrupt illegal smuggling operations along remote stretches of the Southwest border."

"The operation began early in the morning when pre-positioned Border Patrol reconnaissance personnel working alongside an MQ-9 drone crew from the National Air Security Operations Center in Sierra Vista detected the active scout hiding in the rugged desert terrain. The Tucson Air Branch dispatched an H125 AStar helicopter and a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter to the target location carrying five specialized ground agents from the Border Patrol’s Special Operations Detachment and Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue unit."

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/border-patrol-fast-ropes-from-black-hawk-helicopter-snag-alleged-cartel-scout-hiding-arizona-desert

Gun Walking to Cartels (2011)

ATF let hundreds of U.S. weapons fall into hands of suspected Mexican gunrunners

Whistleblower Says Agents Strongly Objected to Risky Strategy By John Solomon and David Heath and Gordon Witkin March 03, 2011

Center for Public Integrity

Hoping to score a major prosecution of Mexican drug lords, federal prosecutors and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives permitted hundreds of guns to be purchased and retained by suspected straw buyers with the expectation they might cross the border and even be used in crimes while the case was being built, according to documents and interviews.

The decision — part of a Phoenix-based operation code named “Fast and Furious” — was met by strong objections from some front-line agents who feared they were allowing weapons like AK-47s to “walk” into the hands of drug lords and gun runners, internal agency memos show. Indeed, scores of the weapons came back quickly traced to criminal activity. Read more ... http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/2976

Copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News 2026. Content may not be used without written permission.