Drone experts have little idea what the dozens of drone sightings in New Jersey's skies are about, but they have ruled out the possibility that they are the work of a secret government program.
They say it's difficult to speculate because there are no clear images or hardware left.
“Until we find something, we can't say anything,” said Brett Velicovich, a Fox News contributor and CEO of Expert Drones. “I haven't seen a clear picture yet.”
Drone sightings were first reported almost a month ago, on November 18, and have been seen every night from around dusk to around 11 p.m.
The drones are “six feet in diameter” and fly cooperatively with their lights off, which “appears to evade detection by conventional methods.” new jersey State Rep. Dawn Fantasia relayed the briefing from law enforcement. Sightings range from four to 180 per night across New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.
With little information from police regarding its origins, public speculation has run wild.
Veljković poured cold water on the idea that drones could be part of secret government experiments. This is a theory that has been popularized to explain the lack of information shared with the public.
Social media users said they captured multiple drones hovering over Fairfield, Conn., Thursday night. (Lucy Biggers)
“It's unbelievable,” Veljkovic said. “Maybe it started like that and now people think everything they see is a drone…I've seen a lot of images that look like airplanes.
But when working on classified drone projects, he said, the protocol was always to notify local police.
More than 20 days after the incident, the Pentagon still has no answers about the origins of the mysterious New Jersey drone
“There's a reason why we do experiments in Area 51 and all these remote locations, so that we don't have to cause public hysteria. And when we do experiments in cities, we do them in secret in cities. We always do that when we do exercises.''We always called the local police.
Stacey Pettyjohn, a drone expert at the Center for a New American Security, agrees. “They would do it at a military base or a laboratory facility. And, you know, they're not flying over some sort of sensitive industrial area like they do in New Jersey.”
Both experts agreed that what may have started out as a drone may now have led to a national panic, believing that everything in the air is a drone. They said it could also be a photography drone trying to take images of the phenomenon, adding to the panic.
Photo taken in the Bayshore section of Toms River – Sunday, December 8, 2024 (Doug Hood/Asbury Park Press)
“People are going to start seeing what they expect,” Pettyjohn said.
“No one showed us clear pictures of the drone,” Veljković said.
“Right now it's just getting blown out and everything in the air is drones, or there's a lot of planes in the area, maybe picking it up, taking pictures, detecting objects and actually seeing what's going on.” You’re either trying to see what’s going on.”
The FBI indicated in a statement that many of the drone sightings turned out to be planes.
A joint statement from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday: “There is currently no evidence that the reported drone sightings pose a threat to national security or public safety or have foreign ties.” .
“While we assist local law enforcement in New Jersey with numerous detection methods, none of the reported visual sightings have been corroborated by electronic detection. Upon review, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft, which operate legally, with no reported drone sightings in restricted airspace. ”
A photo taken Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, in the Bayshore area of Toms River, showing what appears to be a large, high-altitude New Jersey drone hovering in the area. (Doug Hood/Asbury Park Press)
New Jersey drone sightings: military analyst shoots down national security concerns, suspects hobbyists were involved
The FBI revealed this week that its budget for counter-drone technology is just $500,000 a year.
Earlier this week, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R.N.J.) said the drones may be associated with an Iranian “mother ship,” and this theory led the Pentagon to believe that the drones came from Iran. He said he saw no evidence that it was possible. enemy of the United States.
Veljković said he was “not convinced” that the drones were of foreign origin, but that U.S. adversaries could be behind the incident.
“If you go by the foreign theory, China, Russia, Iran all have systems that can move across vast terrain and oceans and carry other drones. It's not that difficult thing that's happening in Ukraine.'' In a country like Ukraine, that day is right now. ”
Pettyjohn thought the drone would need to be operated by someone in the United States.
“I think it's someone who's local, it could be a spy, it could be a thug, but they're individuals on the ground, just easy to blend in and identify who they are. It's just hard to say, “Where are these fairly innocuous systems?'' she said.
“They can be in the air for maybe five hours or so or less, but often much less than that. And that's because they probably don't have to be someone who's physically here. means not to be, [who] It's flying them. ”
China expert Gordon Chan believes the drones may simply be an adversary meant to be a distraction.
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If it was intended to be an attack, “we wouldn't be displaying these huge objects and flashing lights for days on end. We're not advertising a drone attack on the United States.” Mr. Chan said.
“I think they're trying to get our attention and distract us from something that's going on elsewhere,” he said. “So I'm worried about what's happening in places where we're not paying attention because of drones.”
