By Marcus Uhe
Police have confirmed that they are investigating the alleged use of drones to drop objects above residential properties in Cranbourne.
Two callers spoke to 3AW’s Neil Mitchell on Tuesday 8 March claiming that they had been victims of drone attacks, alleging that objects such as frozen water balloons and a padlock were dropped onto their Lesdon Avenue homes by a drone flying above their property.
Geoff Davey said that he was alerted to the issue by someone walking their dog on his street who allegedly saw a drone drop an object above his neighbour’s house on 10 February.
“We searched our houses and didn’t find anything on that particular day,” Mr Davey said. “Since the rain we’ve found that we’ve got water come through our ceiling in the kitchen over the kitchen table.
“On inspection of the roof we found that we had a Nubrik terracotta tile had been pierced by a hole, about five centimetres by five centimetres.
“Below that hole we found, in the insulation, a nail bent into a ring, and attached to that ring was a pink balloon mouthpiece.”
Mr Davey suspects that a frozen water balloon punctured the tile.
“There was no evidence of what inside the balloon found in the roof itself.
“But if you consider that one kilogram of water is one litre, and a fraction of that, [falling from] 120 metres, could cause significant damage.“
Mr Davey’s allegation of the use of drones was supported a neighbour, Mark Stevens, who was also alerted to the behaviour by a dog walker.
“I was sitting in my backyard one day and I heard the drone whizzing about overhead,” Mr Stevens recalled. “I went out to have a look and a padlock came hurtling down, straight through the roof of my laser light pergola and made a big dent when it impacted on the merbau decking underneath.
“This padlock is maybe about 300 grams and was travelling well and truly at terminal velocity.
He believes that the padlock ‘definitely would have killed me’ if it hit him, and has had to alter his behaviour in his own backyard since the incident.
“I’ve got a couple of dogs and I tend to sit out the back and watch a documentary or something like that on my iPad.
“At the moment I’m too worried to put my headphones on because I’ve constantly got to be on the watch for this drone whizzing around to make sure that I don’t succumb to a falling projectile.”
In a statement, police said they believed objects were dropped by drones.
“It is believed a drone dropped items onto the properties, causing damage.”
“No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.”
Anyone who has experienced a similar incident or with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
