They seemed like isolated episodes, reports destined to end up in some technical report. A drone above a military base, another near an airport. And then others. In 2025, in Germaniadrone overflights have become increasingly frequent, almost always at night, almost always near sensitive targets. But without any official response. And it is from this feeling of incompleteness that the investigation by seven German journalism students was born Axel Springer Academy for Journalism and Technology.
Michèle Borcherding, Clara Veihelmann, Luca-Marie Hoffmann, Julius Nieweler, Tobias Wellnitz, Sergen Kaya and Clemens Justus, decided to put together the pieces of a bigger story. Patient work, built by cross-referencing confidential documents, Osint data, naval tracking and weeks of field checks: behind many of those drones there could be the sea, and behind the sea some merchant ships with anything but ordinary behavior.
