US Pilot Claims He Saw 'Jellyfish' Drones Before Jet Was Shot Down Over Iran | 4k

Sources tell us the pilot who was rescued by special forces described a shocking sight before ejecting from the aircraft. Multiple Iranian drones hovering in the air, moving in a jellyfish formation. If accurate, it could signal a significant advance in Iran's drone warfare. We're joined now by CNN's military analyst Cedric Layton. He's a retired US Air Force Colonel, of course. Cedric, appreciate you joining us as ever. I mean, what was your immediate reaction when you heard about this formation? Well, one of the reactions that I had, Max, was that this seems to be a kind of a copy of a concept that the US Air Force has had, where a manned aircraft would serve as what we in American football would call the quarterback, in other words, the central node. And then drones would be flying alongside that aircraft and would conduct separate missions as part of that. So instead of a manned aircraft serving that central node role, you have a drone, a larger drone serving that role. And that's kind of a similar architecture, but at least at first appearance. But it is a, you know, basically a system that is designed to work somewhat autonomously and potentially hit multiple targets as it goes forward. The fact that it was used against an F-15 potentially is certainly a significant development. And it then begs the question whether this was something produced in Iran. I don't think so. I think it was something that came from either the Russians or the Chinese or a combination of them. But those were some of my initial thoughts when it came to hearing this story for the first time. There are those who have questioned it could have been a hallucination. Just explain why they're saying that. Well, one of the things is that the pilot did suffer a concussion when he ejected from the aircraft. And he had also been one of the pilots that was shot down in a friendly fire incident over Kuwait a couple of weeks before this particular incident happened. So there is a chance that there was some kind of, you know, misinterpretation, mirage, you know, some kind of hallucination potentially that could have made him see these kinds of things. You know, pilots are, you know, they're used to reporting what they see. They try to be as accurate as possible when these kinds of things happen. And the debriefs after a mission are part of the U.S. Air Force intelligence posture when it comes to these kinds of events. And, you know, there is a chance that it was accurate. There's a chance, of course, that there was something else that was going on and it didn't happen. But the fact that he thought of this and that he's describing it in fairly remarkable detail would indicate that perhaps it may have actually been something that they encountered. And it does suggest, then, if it was real, that this formation could have shot down a U.S. Air Force jet, which is what's shocking people, isn't it? Because we're used to seeing these very cheap drones being used to sort of ram buildings, but we weren't quite aware that their technology was this advanced. That is correct. And one of the things that you have to look at is, you know, what kind of guidance mechanism did these drones have? Or was it something that was, you know, controlled from the ground or from a satellite feed? And if so, why that wasn't captured by U.S. intelligence? Because the data links become important in a war like this. And if you can not only understand what the data link is, but exploit that data link, that might have prevented this from happening, assuming that that was the case that the drones shot down or one of the drones shot down the F-15. I think what's most likely is that, let's say it did happen, that this kind of shocked the pilot, but that another missile, perhaps a ground-based missile, was used to actually conduct the shootdown. But if you're shocked like this and you see something completely unusual, you may not be paying attention to some of the other indicators that you would have in the cockpit, that there is a possible threat coming at you. So there are a lot of different things that could have happened in this scenario. Yeah, it's fascinating. Cedric, thank you for giving us your analysis on that exclusive.