Yes, Virginia, there are black helicopters (Gasp!)
A UH-60-A Blackhawk helicopter used by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Air and Marine Operations takes off on a demonstration flight from the Bellingham International Airport Friday, Aug. 20, 2004 in Bellingham, Wash. Helicopters similar to this one will be based at the Department of Homeland Security Air and Marine facility based in Bellingham which began operations Friday along the U.S. – Canadian border. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In case you missed it, on a podcast this week President Obama disclosed that, yes, “black helicopters” the scion of conspiracy theorists since the late 1990s, do, in fact, exist (to a degree).
Well William M. Arkin over at Gawker’s Phasezer column went into pretty decent details:
We’ve know for decades that the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) which supports JSOC and these types of operations, flies black helicopters. And since 9/11, that Regiment has doubled in size, with the addition of a 3rd and 4th Battalion.
1st and 2nd battalions, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.
3rd Battalion, 160th SOAR, Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia
4th Battalion, 160th SOAR, Ft. Lewis, WashingtonJSOC also has a unit called the Aviation Tactical and Evaluation Group at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, which flies the most secret helicopters in support of clandestine missions.
And then there’s the FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) at Quantico, Virginia, which has its own helicopter unit doing most of its work inside the United States. That’s the Department of Justice, but it is about as military as military could be.
And what about the apparatus of something called JEEP, the Joint Emergency Evacuation Plan for whisking away presidential successors and VIPs? The helicopters for these missions belong to the Army (at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia), the Marine Corps (at Anacostia Naval Station), and the Air Force (at Andrews AFB, Maryland). And additional helicopters from naval bases in southern Maryland augment that force when middle-of-the-night missions are required.
And that’s not to mention other agencies and departments suspected of having their own black helicopters, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Air and Marine Operations, U.S. Marshals Services, the U.S. Park Police…