The Increasing Threat of Drones to Church Security
“Churches, as both public spaces and symbolic institutions, face unique vulnerabilities when it comes to unwanted drone activity,” says Keith Graves of Christian Warrior Training in his article, Are You Equipped to Tackle the Rising Threat of Drones?.
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He says, “Drones are rapidly becoming more advanced and accessible, offering anyone with modest means the ability to observe, scout, and even disrupt events from above. While drones can be tools for security, their misuse poses serious risks, particularly for places of worship.”
“Drones are one of the biggest ways that people who want to conduct adversarial attacks can effectuate them cheaply and from a distance, and with not much planning,” says FBI Director Kash Patel.
Graves suggests drones can be used by lone-wolf attackers or trained terrorist gangs as tools for reconnaissance in three ways:
- Surveillance of Vulnerabilities
- Roof Access and Layout Exploration
- Pattern Analysis
as well as being weaponized to drop bombs or chemicals, or to be kamikaze-like to explode upon impact.
[ Read the SemperVerus article, A List of Active Killer Incidents at Houses of Worship and Religious Schools ]
“It is only a matter of time before the type of drone attacks seen on battlefields overseas reach the United States,” says FBI Deputy Director Chris Raia.
He says, “Even small churches with minimal resources should be aware of the growing risks drones pose. Reconnaissance drones might gather information today, only to lead to thefts, vandalism, or worse tomorrow. Weaponized drones, while less common, represent a catastrophic threat that cannot be ignored.”
[ Read the SemperVerus article, Christian Warrior Training’s Database Analysis of Houses of Worship Active Killer Incidents ]
He offers practical advice for church security teams in confronting invasive drones. Read the full article here.
[ Read the SemperVerus article, Active Killer Advice Compendium ]
One example of killers using drones in their attack strategy is the alleged mass casualty plot targeting the June 14, 2026 UFC Freedom 250 match in Washington, DC, that the FBI and its law enforcement partners disrupted just days prior to the event. The stated plan involved using explosive-laden drones to hit buildings near the gathering, force a mass evacuation, and steer crowds toward a pre-staged sniper team kill-zone. A “second wave” was then allegedly planned to storm the White House gate.
[ Read the SemperVerus article, Chart: The Spectrum of Potential Threat Personas in Self-Defense and Church Security ]
Graves illustrates the Panic and Funnel attack strategy in the following infographic:
[ Read the SemperVerus article, Interview With Police Trainer, Ron Borsch, on Church Security Teams Stopping Active Killer Incidents ]
Graves says, “The same logic that drove this plan, panic the crowd, funnel them, and kill them where they stop, can be scaled down to a sanctuary, a parking lot, or a Sunday dismissal.” He warns that planned church evacuations tend to congregate people in the parking lot or the front lawn, which become predetermined kill zones for predators. Instead, “build your egress thinking with more than one answer. Identify multiple exits and more than one muster location, and train your team to direct people away from a threat rather than toward a single fixed point. The parking lot is not a safe zone simply because it is outside. It is open ground, it is predictable, and it is exactly where a secondary attacker would wait. Assign someone to watch the lot and the approaches during dismissal, not just the sanctuary during service. The period when people are leaving, clustered, and relaxed, is one of the most exposed moments of the day.”
[ Read the SemperVerus article, The Parking Lot: The First Part of a Security Incident ]
He suggests church security teams should:
- treat the first sign of trouble as a possible setup, not just an emergency to flee from
- look hard at your evacuation plan and ask whether it funnels your people into one predictable spot, then fix it
- build a reporting habit so the worried member in your congregation makes the call instead of staying quiet.
Read the full article here.
[ Read the SemperVerus article, WHCA Dinner Shooter: Is Your Situational Awareness Keen Enough? ]
The war in Ukraine is contributing to a technological arms race of weaponized drones. Russia has developed fiber-optic drones controlled by attached wire-thin data-transporting cables linked to operators, making them immune to electronic jamming systems. Read the Atlantic Council article, Fiber-Optic Drones Could Play Decisive Role in Russia’s Summer Offensive.
[ Read the SemperVerus article, Counterterrorism: Violent Extremist Mobilization Indicators ]
The Washington Post article, In Northern Ukraine, It Was Boy vs. Russian Drone. The Boy Won., reports that “increasingly, civilians are tracked, chased, and attacked by small, cheap, commercially available first-person view (FPV) quadcopters equipped with cameras, rigged with explosives and steered by fingers-on-joysticks a dozen miles away.”
The drones are equipped with fiber-optic filament: “a hair-thin tether (similar to a fishing line) that unspools in flight like a spiderweb for 12 miles—or twice that with smaller payloads—carrying video to the operator and commands back. Bypassing radio signals entirely, these drones can’t be jammed. Although the filament can tangle or break as it’s draped across miles of countryside, units often deploy two or three drones on each mission to provide backup and better targeting reconnaissance.” Read the full article here.
[ Read the SemperVerus article, Prepare for Teams of Terrorists, Says Gabe Suarez ]
And this SOFX article, Ukraine’s AI-Powered ‘Terminator’ Drones Made First Killings Without Human Control, reports a startling development: “fully autonomous drones operating without human oversight killed Russian soldiers during a battlefield test in Ukraine about two years ago. The reported incident marks the first publicly acknowledged case of a fully autonomous weapon selecting and engaging human targets without direct human control.”
[ Read the SemperVerus article, Checklist: Terrorist Preoperational Surveillance Tactics ]
Also, as reported by the National Tactical Officers Association, read the Center for Internet Security (CIS) 24-page whitepaper PDF, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS): Evolving Risks to Large-Scale Public Gatherings.
Here is its Key Takeaway, which can be applied to church security situations: The proliferation of commercially available UAS technology has created a viable, diverse, and rapidly evolving threat for large-scale public gatherings. FIFA World Cup 2026, spanning host venues across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, faces heightened UAS threat exposure across multiple domains from a broad spectrum of actors including terrorist organizations, state-sponsored entities, transnational criminal organizations/cartels, ideologically motivated extremists, opportunistic lone actors, protest movements, and non-compliant operators.
[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of THREAT ANALYSIS ]
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