Woman and Drone Come Face to Face After Drone is Caught Peeping Through Her Bedroom Window

The Civil Aviation Authority has had a major increase of complaints in recent times. These complaints are due to drones being flown too close to houses. When a women came eye to eye with one of these drones after looking into the darkness through her bedroom window, she was not alone. The victim of this incident Marita Maass, is now considering selling her home becasue of what happened.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) have released new information under the Official Information Act. This information shows that Marita is not alone when it comes to these kind of incidents. It is now shown that drones being flown by unknown operators are frequently breaching privacy.

In 2017 alone, The CAA had more than 300 drone-related calls. One of these incidents ended with a shot gun being fired at the drone. In another incident, somebody threatened to shoot the drone out of the sky. A peaceful stroll turned out "really creep" earlier this year for a Motueka man. He was walking along the beach when a mysterious drone started to follow him and his family.

Of the 300 plus drone-related calls to CAA in the year 2017, the drone operator was never identified in almost two-thirds of those cases. Some of these cases included drones that were flown above private property, and ones that were flown outside people's bedroom windows at night. One of the drowns flew outside a house with a large camera attached.

The operators of the camera-equiped drone and the one who repeatedly flew above homes at night were never found. Another incident involving a drone flying above a child in Auckland driveway in May. This operator was also never found.

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Marita Maass who features in the photo above, was shocked when she came face to face with one of these mysterious drones. Maass was reading at around 11pm on a late-January night when she heard a buzzing sound. Her first thoughts were that this may have been bathroom pipes.

She had left the curtains open to let in some cool air.

"I pulled the curtains away and there was this drone about two metres from my face; hanging there at my window with this little red light."

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The drone was hovering in front of Marita's window at her Upper Hutt home. Shortly after spotting it, she rapidly pulled the curtains shut, turned off the lamp and jumped into bed shaking. As you can imagine, this would be a scary experience seeing a drone inches from your bedroom window peeping in at you.

"They would've seen me seeing them.

"I felt violated, like my privacy has been invaded. It was an absolute shock to me."Marita phoned the police but they told her there wasn't much they could at that moment in time. They asked her to call them back if the drone returned.

Along with calling the police, Maass also put in complaints with the CAA and the Privacy Commissioner.

"What bothers me is there's [companies] advertising drones for under $100 so any fool and his friend can buy one.

"It's not just me, this problem is getting bigger and bigger."

Since the incident, she has recently spoken to neighbors and people in the local area experiencing similar incident's. Other people have told how they have came across these drones whilst their kids were out swimming or in the garden with friends having a barbecue.

"There should be a law that says drones shouldn't be used among private homes - go to a park." Other information from CAA shows It's not just humans that these drones seem to be bothering. Drone-related calls were also reported for near-misses with aircraft, out of control drones, and other drones bothering livestock.

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