Last September, Denmark was gripped by a spate of drone sightings near airports. It’s familiar territory for Hackaday, as we reported on a similar drone panic saga at British airports back in the last decade. Back then the British police dragged their feet and hid behind secrecy laws for years to avoid admitting they overreacted, but it seems in Denmark they do things differently (Danish language, Google Translate link.).

The Danish police in Jutland have rolled back their report, and noted that a reported observation alone is not enough to confirm a drone was present. It’s not confirmed why they’ve taken this step, but we’ve been told that there’s been an effort within the drone community to identify possible aircraft flight paths which could have resulted in a false drone sighting at the times in question.

We welcome this correction, and hope that its important message travels widely. Of course it is the right thing to do for a police force to take drone reports seriously, but overreacting as the British police did is of little help. We commend the Danish police for taking this step, and we’re likely to trust any drone reports from them a little bit more in the future. If you’d like to read our plea for a sensible response at the time, it’s here.

Thanks [UAVHive] for the tip.