For two nights in a row, people in Paris had been seeing drones mysteriously hovering over a number of landmarks in the city, such as the Eiffel Tower, U.S. Embassy, Bastille Square, Les Invalides military museum and Place de la Concorde.
The sightings are the latest episode of mysterious aircraft seen in the city, which have been baffling the French police since they started in October 2014.
The landmarks monitored recently are suspected to be potential terrorist targets in a country that is already swamped with terror and grief brought on by the Charlie Hebdo shooting incident in early January. Authorities are trying to find out if the recent sightings and the ones that were seen in 2014 were connected.
"It could be a coordinated action but we don't know for now," explained one police source.
Officials said that they spotted the first drone near the U.S. Embassy in Paris a few minutes past midnight. They continued their gaze toward the aircraft and followed it as it moved toward Les Invalides military museum before it was out of their view.
Four more drones were seen at places such as the Place de la Concorde, Eiffel Tower and Montparnasse tower, the tallest skyscraper in Paris.
Drones are usually fitted with video recording equipment, which makes them perfect for doing surveillance actions. For this reason, French security sources have been trying to catch the operators of the drones.
"We did everything to try and catch the operators but they were not found," said a source close to the investigation.
France has been haunted by a series of mysterious drone appearances for the past several months. In October, guards at a state-run power company reported seeing an unmanned aircraft hovering near a nuclear plant, which was about 100 miles away from Paris. Later on, authorities confirmed that the sighted drones were civilian or commercial in nature as opposed to military.
In January, another mysterious drone was seen gliding its way over the Élysée Palace, which is home to French president Francois Hollande. The incident happened just one week after terror attacks struck Paris.
There were also reports of about 20 drones seen flying above nuclear power plants.
"There have never been so many drones appearing in one night," said one security source in the French capital.
Christopher Naudin, an air security expert, said that trying to intercept a drone flying over a built-up area is almost impossible.
"The means available are extremely limited," said Naudin. "You can't shoot down a drone in a city in case a stray bullet hits a building or someone standing on a balcony. The aim of these flights may simply be to demonstrate that the authorities are incapable of responding to these threats, which could become real in a few years."
