2026-08-31T10:00:29.403Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/31/politics/drone-incursions-us-bases-chinese-spies
那是2025年春天，搜捕行动已经展开。
美国新墨西哥州一处敏感陆军导弹测试设施附近的执法人员发现一架四旋翼无人机的飞行轨迹显示，其正在该靶场限制空域内开展侦察活动。
这并非首次出现类似情况。多名现任和前任美国官员透露，就在几个月前的2024年秋季，同一基地上空曾出现一架飞行模式相似的无人机，导致美国海关与边境保护局的特工展开了约35英里的追逐。
一名前美国官员称，边境巡逻人员动用直升机和无人机，拍摄到了“极其清晰的画面”，一路尾随这架无人机直至其飞入墨西哥领空，随后不得不折返。他们始终未能查明无人机的操控者身份及飞行目的。
但这一次，美方官员设下了圈套。
在沙尘暴和恶劣天气中，这架无人机在五天时间里反复飞入、飞出白沙导弹靶场空域。一支由多部门人员组成的特遣队——包括陆军、联邦调查局、国土安全部，甚至五角大楼负责追踪不明飞行物的小型办公室——对无人机的飞行模式展开研究，收集相关情报，并试图查明操控者身份及意图。
最终，美方利用电子战工具迫使这架无人机降落在基地的一处停车场。据熟悉该事件的前美国官员透露，他们的首要步骤是确认无人机未搭载爆炸物。
与此同时，官员们正监视着停在附近的一辆租赁奔驰房车中的一群中国公民。据这位前美国官员和另一位知情消息人士透露，这些人乘飞机抵达纽约后租赁了这辆房车，驾车横穿美国前往拉斯维加斯接上第三名乘客，随后向南直奔白沙导弹靶场。
附近还有另一名女子：她乘坐邮轮抵达得克萨斯州，租了一辆车后驾车前往附近的白沙国家公园，并在公园闭园后留在园区内。
两名消息人士称，后来联邦调查局会向军方和海关与边境保护局官员透露，这些人被认为与中国情报机构存在关联。
官员们对这两拨人员进行监视，试图理清他们之间以及与无人机的关联。
最终，两拨人员均被拘留：据熟悉事件的消息人士透露，房车中的一行人在基地附近被军方人员抓获，并移交给联邦当局。
据这位前美国官员透露，在公园内的女子被内政部开罚单后释放。
美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）未能得知他们此后的下落。但官员们确信两拨人员存在关联：据其中一名消息人士透露，在房车中发现了与该女子相关的身份信息。
本文发布前，美国陆军和联邦调查局未置评。海关与边境保护局以例行政策为由，拒绝评论这起具体事件，称其不会对已报道的无人机闯入事件发表看法。中国大使馆发言人否认知晓该事件。
“有关中国从事间谍活动的虚假说法完全没有事实依据或证据，不过是毫无根据的猜测和耸人听闻的炒作。”这位发言人说道。
这起事件只是无数起无人机闯入美军基地及其他受限政府区域空域事件中的一例，这些无人机通常由爱好者、运送毒品的贩毒集团或游客操控，但有时也被认为是外国特工开展间谍行动的工具。
廉价且易于操作的无人机技术的普及，使得普通人可以相对轻松地开展无人机监视活动——至少表面上如此，而美国政府却极难追踪和防范。这种全新的混乱局面迫使政府仓促应对。
美国政府各级反情报官员常常难以弄清这些无人机与中国或其他情报机构的关联本质。现任和前任官员表示，调查往往依赖直觉和猜测，因此除了以在限制空域飞行无人机的轻罪起诉外，很难获取更多证据。
据信，中国会向普通民众施压或提供激励，让其在各类军事目标上空开展一名官员所称的“骚扰性监视”，其中一些目标高度敏感，另一些则没那么重要。另有消息人士称，在美国的中国公民有时会主动开展间谍活动，并未直接接到中国情报官员的命令。
美国官员担忧更糟糕的情况：针对美国关键基础设施或民用目标的独狼式恐怖袭击。尽管两名了解最新情报的美国官员表示，目前没有迹象表明伊朗代理组织或“伊斯兰国”等其他恐怖组织正在策划袭击，但潜在机会显而易见。
新泽西州15架农用无人机被盗事件让美国官员深感震惊，因为这些无人机可能被用作化学武器袭击的投放工具。当局最终找回了这些无人机。
军方官员也公开警告称，无人机蜂群可能会击溃美国本土的防空系统。一名军方官员将2025年6月乌克兰的“蛛网行动”描述为令人警醒的场景，展示了无人机作战的可能性。乌克兰动用117架无人机摧毁了至少12架停在远离前线数千英里空军基地的俄罗斯战机。
这些担忧推动美国政府全力研发并部署先进的反无人机装备，提供给包括州和地方警察以及军事基地在内的众多机构。
据两名参与或听取行动简报的人士透露，此次白沙行动被美国官员认定为成功，展示了跨部门协作的成果。
但问题远不止白沙靶场这一起。而且美国政府内部究竟谁应该负责此事，没人能完全确定。
“这个问题人人有责——所以也就等于没人负责。”一名美国官员说道。
美国没有任何单一机构负责在政府或民用空域内侦测、威慑或挫败此类无人机闯入事件——国家安全界如今将其简称为“反无人机系统（C-UAS）”。
2023年底，在乔·拜登总统任期内，弗吉尼亚州一处空军基地上空出现神秘无人机群持续飞行17天，当时参与处置的一些官员将其描述为一场缺乏统一指挥的混乱局面。
据一名前美国官员透露，当时局势混乱到连参谋长联席会议——本应提供建议而非参与行动的部门——都介入其中，组建特遣队试图整顿秩序。
“那简直就是一场闹剧，令人难堪，”这名人士说道，“这不在他们的职权范围内。但他们看到了权力真空。”
此次事件后，时任国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀指定负责本土防御的北方司令部作为基地小型无人机闯入事件的协调机构。
此后，北方司令部建立了一套流程：只要军事基地上空发现异常无人机，就召集基地、当地执法部门、联邦调查局、国土安全部、各军种以及附近可能拥有反无人机系统的其他机构召开电话会议。如果基地自身不具备防御能力，他们会协调运输并承担相关设备的使用费用。
这名军方官员称，这套系统运行良好。
“我见证了局势从‘谁该负责’转变为‘我们都有责任，我们都能发挥作用’。”这名人士说道。
有时，负责识别和分析“不明异常现象”（美国政府对UFO的官方称呼）的五角大楼办公室也会被召集，因为其拥有专门用于追踪不明飞行物的设备。正如在白沙行动中那样，不明异常现象办公室可以为追踪无人机的官员提供统一的作战态势图。
五角大楼2025年还成立了一个特遣队，协调全军的反无人机技术和战术。该特遣队正在探索定向能武器，如激光武器和高功率微波武器，官员们希望这些武器能够以低成本使无人机失效。国土安全部于2025年1月成立了类似的办公室。
但仍有不少重大失误。
消息人士当时告诉CNN，2月接连发生两起失误事件：美国国防部在允许海关与边境保护局测试反无人机激光系统前，未与联邦航空管理局协调，导致得克萨斯州埃尔帕索上空空域被关闭，该市机场被迫停摆8小时。
大约两周后，美国军方在埃尔帕索以南约50英里处用激光武器意外击落了海关与边境保护局操作的一架无人机。
对于联邦设施、大型民用集会和关键基础设施——这些不属于军方负责保护的场所——联邦官员的应对措施是，扩大有权获得反无人机训练和设备并拥有使用权限的机构数量。
2026年，美国国会授予中央情报局新权限，允许其警察在美国境内击落无人机，在无人机威胁到机构设施时迫使其降落。国会还扩大了州和地方政府的相关权限，因为议员们意识到，没有任何一个联邦机构能够防范全国范围内数量众多的非法无人机飞行。
近几个月来，国土安全部和联邦调查局为大型公共集会——典型的“软目标”——提供了大量支持。今年早些时候，联邦官员指控多人密谋使用无人机和枪手袭击在白宫举办的终极格斗冠军赛（UFC）赛事。联邦调查局今年在世界杯场馆周边设立了无人机禁飞区，并表示截至决赛前一周，已侦测到近1600架非法无人机，没收了700多架。
但官员们表示，仍存在一些严重的安全漏洞。据一名美国官员透露，例如：目前无人明确负责保护那些虽为私人所有但存储着中央情报局等机构大量敏感政府数据的数据中心。
目前，这属于当地执法部门的职责范围——但他们可能不具备抵御此类威胁所需的能力。
当涉及中国利用无人机对美国军事基地开展疑似间谍活动时，官员们难以描述问题的规模。这在很大程度上是因为，几乎不可能将任何一起无人机闯入事件明确归咎于中国情报机构的行动。官员们表示，中国会利用民用中间人——学生和有中国大陆亲属的华裔美国人——来从事这类活动，而非训练有素的情报官员。
“中国国家安全部（MSS）的官员不会在美国境内肆意妄为。”一名美国官员说道，此处指中国的间谍机构。
2024年秋，联邦官员抓获了一名在范登堡太空军基地军事卫星发射期间操控无人机飞越该基地的中国公民，并在这名34岁的男子准备搭乘飞往中国的航班时，在旧金山机场将其逮捕。调查人员在他的设备中发现了阿肯色州、得克萨斯州和中国多地的航拍照片。但最终，检方仅以在限制空域飞行小型无人机的罪名，促成了34岁的周银彪（音译）的认罪协议。
第二项未登记航空器的指控作为认罪协议的一部分被撤销。周银彪被判处四个月联邦监禁。
在2023年弗吉尼亚州空军基地上空的无人机事件中，多名消息人士透露，海岸警卫队人员以例行安全检查为借口登上了东海岸附近的一艘中国籍护卫舰，但未发现任何确凿证据将该船与无人机关联起来。
现任和前任美国官员表示，真正属于中国间谍活动的无人机飞行事件数量可能相对较少。
一名前反情报官员称，中国的情报收集机构“权力分散”。中共当局会公开其优先事项，而“情报从业者”有时会主动尝试收集有价值的信息。
联邦调查局经常追踪行为怪异的中国公民：“比如连续开车24小时，在车里睡觉，然后回家”，这名人士说道，“这类事情时有发生，很反常，有时无法解释。”
在美国政府内部，官员们往往会明确表态，以一种心照不宣的方式暗示某起无人机闯入事件是中国所为。
但由于很难将任何异常行为或无人机飞行与中国情报机构的具体指令明确联系起来，一些官员认为这一威胁被夸大了。
“很多人不过是因为身为中国人而被怀疑。”这位前反情报官员说道，并补充称联邦调查局遇到的大多数操作者都是无人机爱好者。
那么，针对美国的协调一致的中国无人机监视行动呢？
“我认为这正在演变成一场阴谋论。”这名前官员说道。
白沙行动中的那些人是否只是低级别的中间人或“情报从业者”？国土安全部和国防部的官员得出的结论是，联邦调查局认为他们并非如此。但这种定性究竟有多确凿，CNN未能核实。
另一名前美国官员称，白沙行动是“一次成功案例”。
“但我们还有很长的路要走，我们仍然非常、非常脆弱。”
Helicopter chases, lasers and a rented RV: Inside the hunt for suspected Chinese drone spies over US military bases
2026-08-31T10:00:29.403Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/31/politics/drone-incursions-us-bases-chinese-spies
It was spring 2025 and the hunt was on.
American authorities near a sensitive Army missile testing facility in New Mexico had spotted a quadcopter-style drone flying in such a way that suggested it was conducting reconnaissance in restricted airspace around the range.
It wasn’t the first time. Just months earlier, in fall 2024, a similar drone was seen flying a similar pattern over the same base, leading agents with US Customs and Border Protection on a roughly 35-mile chase, multiple current and former US officials said.
Using helicopters and drones and taking “absolutely beautiful video,” a former US official said, the border agents tailed the drone until it crossed into Mexican airspace, where they had to turn back. They never learned who was operating the drone, or why.
But this time, officials set a trap.
For roughly five days, amid dust storms and bad weather, the drone flew in and out over White Sands Missile Range. A task force made up of officials from a hodgepodge of agencies — the Army, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, even the small office in the Pentagon that tracks UFOs — studied the drone’s patterns of movement, collected intelligence on it, and tried to understand who was operating it and why.
Finally, using electronic warfare tools, they forced the drone to land in a parking lot on the base. Their first step was to make sure the drone wasn’t armed with explosives, according to the former official familiar with the incident.
Meanwhile, officials were watching a group of Chinese nationals in a rented Mercedes RV parked nearby. According to the former US official and another source familiar with the matter, the people had flown into New York, rented the RV, and driven across the country to Las Vegas to pick up a third person before turning south and beelining for White Sands.
There was another person nearby, too: a Chinese woman who had arrived in Texas on a cruise ship, rented a car and driven to White Sands National Park nearby, where she would remain behind the gates after the park’s closing.
Later, both of the sources said, the FBI would tell military and CBP officials that the people were believed to have ties to Chinese intelligence.
Officials watched the two vehicles, trying to understand how they related to each other and to the drone itself.
Eventually, both groups were detained: The group in the RV was picked up by military officials near the base and turned over to federal authorities, according to the source familiar with the incident.
The woman in the park was ticketed and released by the Department of the Interior, according to the former US official.
CNN was unable to learn what happened to any of them afterward. But officials were sure the two groups were connected: According to one of the sources, identifying information related to the woman was found in the RV.
The Army and the FBI did not respond to a request for comment before publication. CBP declined to comment on the specific incident, citing routine policy against commenting on reported incursions. A spokesperson with the Chinese Embassy denied knowledge of the episode.
“The false narrative regarding China engaging in espionage activities is entirely devoid of factual basis or evidence, consisting of nothing more than baseless speculation and sensationalist hype,” the spokesperson said.
The episode is one of countless incursions by drones into US airspace over military facilities and other restricted government areas, often flown by hobbyists, cartels ferrying drugs to a third destination, or tourists — but sometimes believed to be flown by foreign agents conducting spy operations.
The proliferation of cheap, easy-to-operate drone technology has made it relatively simple for ordinary people to conduct what at least appears to be drone surveillance — and incredibly difficult for the US government to track and prevent it. That new, chaotic reality has left the government scrambling to catch up.
The nature of any ties to Chinese or other intelligence services is often frustratingly opaque to counterintelligence officials across the government. Investigations involve a matter of gut instinct and guesswork that make it hard to secure more than a petty prosecution for operating a drone in a restricted airspace, current and former officials say.
China is believed to pressure or incentivize ordinary civilians into doing what one official termed “nuisance surveillance” over a variety of military targets, some highly sensitive, some less so. In other instances, those sources say, Chinese nationals inside the US appear to take it upon themselves to spy with no direct order from a Chinese intelligence official.
US officials are worried about the potential for something worse: a lone-wolf-style terrorist attack on critical US infrastructure or civilian targets. Although two US officials with knowledge of the latest intelligence said there’s no indication of an active plot by Iranian proxy groups or other terror groups like ISIS, the obvious opportunity is there.
The recent theft of 15 pesticide drones in New Jersey deeply alarmed American officials, one of the officials said, because of their potential as a delivery system for a chemical weapons attack. Authorities eventually recovered the drones.
Military officials are also publicly warning that a swarm of drones could overwhelm air defenses in the US homeland. One military official described a Ukrainian drone operation in June 2025, dubbed Operation Spiderweb, as a sobering depiction of what’s possible. Ukraine used 117 drones to destroy at least a dozen Russian warplanes parked at air bases thousands of miles from the front lines.
Those fears have sparked an energetic push across the government to develop and field sophisticated counter-drone equipment to a broad group of authorities — including state and local police and military bases.
The White Sands operation was deemed a success by US authorities, according to two people involved or briefed on the operation, showcasing a successful interagency process.
But the problem is much bigger than White Sands. And just who in the US government is supposed to be in charge, nobody is quite sure.
“The problem is it’s everyone’s problem — so it’s no one’s problem,” said one US official.
There is no single body in the US responsible for detecting, deterring or defeating these incursions in either government or civilian airspace — what the national security community now short-hands as “C-UAS,” or counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
In late 2023 under President Joe Biden, when a mysterious swarm of drones flew over an Air Force base in Virginia for 17 days, some officials who worked on the situation described it as a leaderless free-for-all.
The situation was so chaotic that officials in the Joint Chiefs of Staff — a part of the military that is supposed to advise, not participate in operations — stepped in to create a task force to try to bring order to the situation, according to one of the former US officials.
“It was a circus, it was embarrassing,” this person said. “That’s not in their mandate. But they saw a vacuum.”
After that incident, then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin designated Northern Command, the military command responsible for homeland defense, as the coordinating authority for small drone incursions at bases.
Since then, Northern Command has established a protocol: Whenever an errant drone is spotted over a military base, it convenes a teleconference between the base, local law enforcement, FBI, DHS, the military services and anybody else who might have a counter-drone system nearby. If the base isn’t capable of mounting its own defenses, they sort out who’s going to transport it and pay for its use.
That system has worked well, the military official said.
“I’ve seen it move from, ‘Who owns [the problem]?’ to, ‘We all own it, and we all have a role to play in it,’” this person said.
Sometimes, the Pentagon office tasked with identifying and analyzing “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” — the government’s term for UFOs — is also called because it has specialized equipment designed to track flying objects of an unknown origin. As it did in White Sands, the UAP office can provide a common operating picture for officials tracking drones.
The Pentagon in 2025 also established a task force to coordinate counter-drone technology and techniques across the military. It is exploring directed energy weapons such as lasers and high-powered microwaves that officials hope can cheaply disable drones. DHS in January established a similar office.
There have still been prominent failures.
In two back-to-back misadventures in February, the Federal Aviation Administration closed the airspace over El Paso, Texas, after the Defense Department failed to coordinate with the aviation agency before it allowed CBP to test a counter-drone laser system, sources told CNN at the time. The move effectively shut down the city’s airport for eight hours.
About two weeks later, the US military accidentally shot down an unmanned aircraft operated by CBP with a laser about 50 miles south of El Paso.
When it comes to federal facilities, large civilian gatherings and critical infrastructure — installations not under the military’s authority to protect — federal officials have responded by trying to expand the number of entities with access to counter-drone training and equipment and the authority to use it.
The CIA received new authorities from Congress in 2026 for its police to disable drones in the air in the US and force them to the ground when they threaten agency facilities. Congress also expanded state and local governments’ ability to do the same, amid a recognition by lawmakers that no single federal agency could protect against the sheer number of illegal drone flights across the country.
DHS and the FBI have provided extensive support for large, public gatherings — classic “soft targets” — in recent months. Earlier this year, federal officials charged multiple people who they claimed discussed plots to use drones and a gunman to attack a UFC event at the White House. The FBI established no-drone zones around World Cup sites this year, and said that by the week before the final match, it had detected nearly 1,600 illegal drones and confiscated more than 700.
But officials say there are still some gaping security vulnerabilities. One example, according to one of the US officials: No one is sure who is responsible for protecting the data centers that are privately owned but house an enormous amount of sensitive government data for agencies like the CIA.
Right now, it’s the purview of local law enforcement — who may not have the capabilities they need to defend against the threat.
When it comes to apparent espionage efforts by China to use drones to spy on military sites in the United States, officials struggle to describe the scope of the problem. This is largely because confidently attributing any one incursion to a Chinese intelligence operation is almost impossible. Officials say that China uses civilian cut-outs to do its dirty work — students and Chinese-origin Americans with family in mainland China whom they can pressure — not trained intelligence officers.
“It’s not like MSS officers are just running wild through the US,” one of the US officials said, referring to China’s espionage service.
In fall 2024, federal officials caught a Chinese national piloting a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base during a military satellite launch, arresting him at the San Francisco airport as he prepared to board a flight to China. Investigators found aerial photos on his devices of locations in Arkansas, Texas and China. But ultimately, prosecutors were able to only secure a guilty plea from 34-year-old Yinpiao Zhou for flying a small drone into restricted airspace.
A second charge, for failure to register an aircraft, was dismissed as part of the plea agreement. Zhou was sentenced to four months in federal custody.
During the 2023 episode over the Virginia Air Force base, Coast Guard personnel boarded a Chinese-flagged frigate off the East Coast under the guise of a routine safety check, according to multiple sources. But they found nothing definitive to link the ship to the drones.
Current and former US officials say the number of instances of true Chinese espionage flights is likely relatively low.
China’s intelligence-gathering apparatus is “decentralized,” one former counterintelligence official said. Communist party authorities make public their priorities, and “intelligence entrepreneurs” sometimes take it upon themselves to try to collect information that would be valuable, this person said.
The FBI is often tracking Chinese nationals who do strange things: “Driving for 24 straight hours, sleeping in their car, and then go home,” for example, that person said. “That kind of stuff happens a lot, it’s weird, sometimes it’s unexplained.”
Within the government, US officials often seem to speak definitively about attribution, a kind of wink-wink-nudge-nudge suggestion that a given incursion was China.
But because it’s so hard to definitively link any one strange behavior or drone flight to a specific directive from the Chinese intelligence services, some officials think the threat is overblown.
“A lot of these people are guilty of just being Chinese,” the former counterintelligence official said, adding that most of the operators the FBI encounters are hobbyists.
As for a broader campaign of coordinated Chinese surveillance drones in the US?
“I look at this as a conspiracy theory in the making,” the former official said.
Were the people at White Sands more than just low-level cut-outs or “intelligence entrepreneurs”? Officials at DHS and the Defense Department came away with the impression that the FBI thought so. How firm that attribution really was, CNN was unable to determine.
The operation at White Sands, the other former US official said, was “a success story.”
“But we’re far from being done and we’re still very, very vulnerable.”