A friend of mine tells a story from rural Kansas. Some time back in the 1980’s. He was driving somewhere, out on a lonely road when he encounters this van with what looked like radio direction-finding equipment (antenna).
Just a regular-looking van - like they were looking for something.
Our guess is some sort of drug drop-off in the middle of nowhere and it’s picked up from some random point by someone knowing how to find it.
But that was just our guess all these many years.
Probably the FCC busting pirate broadcasters. Happens more often than most people suspect.
In Kansas weird looking junk on a vehicle usually means storm chaser.