Business Insider

At a campaign event today, someone tried to get a photo of Angela Merkel by using a cheap drone.

According to the AP, the police demanded that the 23-year-old operating the drone quickly land it (citing safety). After briefly detaining the man, police decided he was harmless and they let him go.

In these two photos, from Reuters, you can see the abrupt crash landing that happened right in front of Merkel when the operator was forced to do a quick landing.

REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

The photos offer a nice glimpse of the very near future.

There's no reason why cheap, simple-to-operate drones won't be a standard mode to get great photo angles for big, crowded events.

In the case of events with high-profile figures, the proliferation of these drones promises to be a security nightmare.

And just in general, the varying reactions to the drone's presence (Merkel's smirk, the death stare from the other lady, and the range of reactions in between from the men on the podium) hint at the general way humans will react to the increased presence of robots and drones in everyday life. Pictures like these will get a lot more common.