Resolves to my best judgment (relying on credible sources) after the smoke has cleared, defaulting to 1 month from now. Will adjust close date later if things remain uncertain and I think more time will help to resolve. May also resolve answers early if something is incredibly obvious.
I will not bet on this market, and will resolve options in the spirit of them, not the letter.
You may add options RESPECTFULLY.
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Military exercises and drug cartels resolve to 50% due to some slight ambiguity there.
I think the UAV/drones wone resolves to Yes because that was the point of the laser system and what the folks thought they were using it for.
The 10 day length appears not to be an accident, just stupid. It's normal (I think?) for NOTAMs to be cancelled early if they're no longer needed.
The obvious ones resolve to YES and NO.
If the NYT reporting is broadly accurate, I'd summarise the situation as:
Related to drones / UAVs
The laser weapons system in general is "for" drones; they appear to have mistakenly thought they were targeting a drone. I'd be inclined to resolve this yes.
Related to drug cartels
The laser weapons system in general is "for" [cartel] drones; they claimed that they were specifically shooting down cartel drones at first; maybe this was a complete lie or maybe they thought the balloon was a cartel drone. I'd be inclined to resolve this yes but less confidently.
Related to military exercises
The wider conflict between the Pentagon and FAA seems to be re: military exercises, but it's not clear to me that the actual proximate cause was an exercise. Surely they'd have launched their own drones to shoot down if it was an exercise, rather than shooting at some random balloon/drone. On the other hand, maybe the FAA was under the impression that the event was part of several days of exercises and that's what drove the 10 day length. On balance I'd be inclined to resolve this no but not confidently.
This is just insane incompetence from the government? AFAICT this is the sequence of events
US military doing anti-drone stuff around the border. Maybe also testing lasers.
They shoot down a balloon.
They're also flying their own drones around.
FAA is really pissed off about the drones flying close to the airport, and worried about a crash.
FAA can't get DOD to do anything about this, maybe spooked by a near miss, so they issue a NOTAM to get the attention of Trump, or perhaps just because they have no idea what they're doing.
This does get the attention of the White House, and they resolve the matter rapidly? Hopefully by getting assurances from DOD that they'll stop doing erratic stuff on civilian flight paths, but honestly more likely by just telling FAA to chill (which is ummm... bad).
@Quroe the definition I had in mind was:
Conventional, common sense definition of terrorism - e.g. at minimum involving the risk of serious multiple person violence
However, including mistaken/hoax, like someone calling in a bomb threat
@bens I am pretty sure that they won't say it was an accident even if it was one. How do you plan to resolve this?
I'm talking my (miniscule) book here, but IMO if they don't explicitly confirm it was an accident, but they do confirm the exact reason for the issue, and there's precedent that similar incidents result in much shorter closures, it should at least resolve some % above 0
@draaglom eh basically if they say something like "oh it was supposed to be a 1 day NOTAM" but ya I agree that's unlikely at this point, especially after it's been cancelled
Airline sources told Reuters the grounding of flights was believed to be tied to the Pentagon's use of counterdrone technology to address Mexican drug cartels' use of drones of the U.S.-Mexico border. The flight prohibition also covers some rural air space in neighboring New Mexico.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-halts-all-flights-texass-el-paso-airport-10-days-2026-02-11/
@bens does "related to military exercises" mean strictly war games/training as per the standard usage of "military exercise", or is it military operations more broadly?
@bens for this option, I'm looking for an explanation, even if sort of vague (like "investigating a credible threat to the El Paso airport" or something). If the gov says "national security reasons" that is not an explanation in and of itself, lol.
there's a second one here w/same duration:
https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2234
just covering a bit of wilderness by the border
@bens feels to me that this leans towards military action vs cartels operating near the border there? NOTAM for the departure point plus area the action will be in