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Officials Demand Explanation On Mysterious Drone Sightings (thehill.com) 70

Posted by BeauHD from the nothing-to-see-here-move-along dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Shaun Golden, the sheriff of Monmouth County, N.J., wants feds to get to the bottom of recent mysterious drone activity in his state. Local officials, including Golden, are urging Gov. Phil Murphy (D) to declare a state of emergency. "We continue to urge our governor to press the federal government to put more resources out here," Golden said Thursday on NewsNation's "Dan Abrams Live." "The only way we're going to solve this is by the federal government coming in here and doing full investigations as to what these things are, how their movements are made," he added.

The White House insist that the drones do not represent a threat. The Pentagon also said it currently does not appear that a foreign enemy is behind the mysterious drones in the New Jersey sky. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) claimed the drones are being launched by an Iranian "mothership," but Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said during a briefing there is "not any truth to that." With the investigation ongoing, Golden has called for the governor to declare a state of emergency and to issue an executive order banning nighttime use of recreational drones. Even more drone sightings are being reported in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, reports NBC News. "What is happening is outrageous. Thousands of drones and unmanned aerial systems flying above us, and our government is not telling us who's operating them and for what purpose," Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said a press conference in Staten Island on Friday. "I don't believe that the United States of America, with its military capabilities, does not know what these objects are. And what I'm asking, and what we're all asking, is for you to be straight with us and just tell us what is going on."

A senior official said there have been 79 sightings across New Jersey alone last night. "The sightings -- which occur up to 180 times per night, according to several New Jersey officials -- have remained consistent for nearly a month," adds NBC News.

Police in New Jersey are investigating a possible drone crash in Hillsborough, NJ. Police were called out at approximately 8:35 p.m. but are being extremely tightlipped, referring all questions to the FBI. A reporter asked a firefighter leaving the scene if they found anything and he said that he is not at liberty to say.

Additionally, at least four commercial airline pilots encountered mysterious, colorful circular lights "moving at extreme speeds" through the skies above Oregon this past weekend. You can listen to air traffic control audio archives from Dec. 7 via OregonLive.

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle is reporting that drones were spotted over sensitive military and industrial sites, including the U.S. air base at Ramstein in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Developing...

Officials Demand Explanation On Mysterious Drone Sightings More | Reply

Officials Demand Explanation On Mysterious Drone Sightings

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  • I'm not saying it's aliens... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cpt_Kirks ( 37296 ) on Friday December 13, 2024 @04:23PM (#65011665)

    But, you know.

  • I’ve seen the videos (Score:5, Informative)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Friday December 13, 2024 @04:24PM (#65011673)
    They’re flying around at night with bright flashing lights. They’re basically screaming “I’M RIGHT HERE”. If they were doing something nefarious, I’m pretty sure they would be a whole lot stealthier.

    I’m gonna guess that the explanation for this is really, really boring.

    • Re:I’ve seen the videos (Score:4, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday December 13, 2024 @04:39PM (#65011717)
      It's going to be some hobbyist and when questioned he will say, "oh, was I not supposed to do that?"
    • Where are they during the day?

      • During the day, they are recharging, silly!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        During the day you can see that it's somebody with their Walmart drone or a regular airplane. Only at night can you see some lights in the sky and insist that it's a six foot Iranian drone launched off a secret mothership.

    • Re:I’ve seen the videos (Score:5, Interesting)

      by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Friday December 13, 2024 @04:59PM (#65011775)

      The explanation is mass, media-induced hysteria.

      The explanation for the vast majority of these sightings is, as the John Kirby clearly stated, people simply mis-identifying manned aircraft in the night skies.

      This video [youtube.com] posted earlier this week (before the White House acknowledgement) clearly demonstrates how people are getting it wrong.

      That we now have politicians calling for these "drones" to be shot down is a worrying twist. What happens if/when they bring down an innocent airliner just because someone mis-identifies it as a drone?

      And haven't you wondered, just for a second, why it is that nobody can get a decent picture of these "drones as big as an SUV" that they claim have hovered at just 50 feet over their houses for ten minutes or more? Go outside and use your smartphone to take a picture of a car at night from 50 feet and you'll see just how much detail is revealed -- yet all the pictures posted to date of "drones" from allegedly the same distance, are a blury mess of sensor-noise.

      Most people can't tell the difference between something that's BIG and a long way away or something that's smaller and closer -- at least not at night when there are no frames of reference and all you can see are some flashing lights.

      • I live in NJ, and I'm yet to see one of these things. I'm out twice an evening walking my dog. If they were circling overhead, I'd send my DJI up to try and get a decent photo of one of them. That nobody has thought to do this yet is a surprise to me.

        The explanation is mass, media-induced hysteria.

        Regarding the mass hysteria, there are now reports of cars mysteriously stopping as one of these things supposedly fly overhead, causing the car's clock to change time [newsweek.com]. Either people are rewatching Close Encounters of the Third Kind or X-Files S1 E1.

      • The FAA knows the ID and location of every airliner in the skies over NJ/NY. No government entity is going to mistake an airliner for a 4-foot-wide drone flying a few hundred feet off the ground.

      • That we now have politicians calling for these "drones" to be shot down is a worrying twist.

        Not really, for the described sort of drones a helicopter gunship would be a good choice. And northern New Jersey has a lot of empty woodland all over the place. Some of this drone activity is at Picatinny Arsenal. They have a National Guard heliport on their grounds and tons of empty woodlands on their base. The NG pilots are extremely familiar with Picatinny and the surrounding area.

        What happens if/when they bring down an innocent airliner just because someone mis-identifies it as a drone?

        They aren't going to be using surface to air missiles or jet fighters.

        Most people can't tell the difference between something that's BIG and a long way away or something that's smaller and closer

        I agree, some of the videos I've seen with only lights

      • Maybe in that video it's a jet. But there are threads with people showing what are obviously drones and not planes, where the people taking the video are out with police, and using apps to tell them what registered flights are around - and none are where the drones are. Furthermore they no not move like planes, and also when police try to get close with helicopters the objects go lights out.

        There are obviously a pretty large number of these mystery drones doing something.

    • If it was me . . . I would put Electric Tape over the lights .

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by drnb ( 2434720 )

        If it was me . . . I would put Electric Tape over the lights .

        The lights may be necessary for remote control, the operator needing a visual on the drone. Some of the "large" drones could be really small hobbyist drones at a closer range than thought. These especially would need the lights.

    • Source:https://x.com/AncientAliens/status/953281790562586626

    • They’re flying around at night with bright flashing lights.

      The three videos shown on the news last night, at least on my local station, were all aircraft with not only navigation lights on but landing lights as well. I'm sure some of the people claiming to have seen things close up and that the object was a drone not an aircraft are accurate. But the videos on TV are mostly worthless,

      Some other videos I've seen are just lights making radical non-aircraft maneuvers, and could just as easily be small DJI hobbyist drones 200 yards away rather than SUV sized drones

    • If they were doing something nefarious, Iâ(TM)m pretty sure they would be a whole lot stealthier.

      The police have said when they use helicopters to go look, the devices turn lights off.

      Does that sound non-nefarious to you?

      • That sounds like by the time they get the helicopter to the place the drone was seen from, the drone is long gone.

  • Won't be long before someone decides to start shooting at them.

  • They don't post any theat... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 13, 2024 @04:26PM (#65011683)
    ...But we don't know what they are.
  • Pretty soon politicians are going to find birds and clouds mysterious.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Curiously I couldn't find any accounts of US politicians endorsing Birds Aren't Real. Must be too busy with Jewish space lasers and Iranian motherships.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Don't give them ideas. Anyhow, they are having too much fun scaring people as is.

  • Is that anything like the Parliament Funkadelic? Not familiar with their work...

  • Drug delivery. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BuckDutter ( 10145835 ) on Friday December 13, 2024 @04:44PM (#65011741)
    Drug delivery.

  • My theory (Score:3)

    by ameline ( 771895 ) <ian.ameline@nOsPam.gmail.com> on Friday December 13, 2024 @04:46PM (#65011743) Homepage Journal

    These are Department of Energy (The ones who hold all the nuke secrets) drones searching for a smuggled nuclear device that terrorists are intending to set off. They are very advanced drones with secret tech that the DOE doesn't want to admit to but given the nature and pressing severity of a nuclear terrorist threat, they are using them anyway.

    Just a theory.

    • i know this is just a theory but it makes sense hopefully not true but you never know

    • Oh come on, I was just starting on the new Tom Clancy book why would you spoil it for me!

  • It is all fun and games. (Score:3)

    by zawarski ( 1381571 ) on Friday December 13, 2024 @04:53PM (#65011755)
    Till someone gets probed.

  • ... a new skeet shooting sport: "Night Clays". Get out your 12 gauge and enjoy.

  • Amazon night delivery urban trials.

  • Probably being flown by a bunch of random guys in psychotic clown outfits.

  • not all drones (Score:5, Informative)

    by cstacy ( 534252 ) on Friday December 13, 2024 @05:22PM (#65011843)

    Some of them are just regular helicopter and light aircraft traffic. It is very difficult for people to identify flying objects like that at night.

    Some of them are drones. It is most likely drone testing from the nearby military airbases.
    Why they are not saying so is just weird.
    Obviously we have drones.
    Politics and Tinfoil, I guess...

    "Oh no! Our military is using evil killer drones overseas! No war!"
    "Oh no! FEMA is practicing to subdue us with drones!"

    Or maybe these are Trump drones, so that when he declares martial law and appoints himself dictator on day one, his Bedminster drones will have already infrared and ultrasonically mapped out all the resistance safe houses in NJ.

    I live about 2 miles from D.C., so I see drones cruising around here all the time at night. These are either general practice missions, or national security drills (they definitely participate in those). I'm a "real aircraft" pilot, so I usually know what I'm looking at. I'm talking about big drones that at first I think are helicopters. Been noticing this activity since about 2015. Probably started before that.

    Note: uniquely in the USA, the entire D.C. area for 15-30 miles is a No-Fly zone (FRZ and SFRA). Only scheduled airliner traffic. No private or commercial airplanes or helicopters, no drones, not even toys, nothing. There are even only a few emergency helicopters. Everything else you here see is military. (I miss the pre-9/11 days when I would aerial-tour the area and fly myself into DCA on a whim. Now nobody can ever do that again.)

    There are only three other possibilities for the NJ drones:
    1. Police (unlikely, and would mot be a secret)
    2. Illegal commercial (for what purpose, and... No)
    3. Foreign / Terror (no way for so many reasons)

    It's the military or national security response (military / intelligence / state police / whoever) drills. Drones -- we got 'em! Is this really the first time they've seen them?

    Why have the drills now? What is the mission?
    Could just be the season, and the mission is probably generic civil emergency. Or maybe it is influenced by a sense of readiness / excuse that something might happen in the USA in January. (Not necessarily anything bad, just some event that is a national turning point.)

    Is all this not obvious to anybody with the intelligence of a pumpkin?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Maybe they are just practicing now so that on Christmas they will fly in formation and take down Santa and all those presents....bwwaaahaaahaaa...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rinnon ( 1474161 )

      Is all this not obvious to anybody with the intelligence of a pumpkin?

      Sorry, intelligence is not in vogue right now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drnb ( 2434720 )

      2. Illegal commercial (for what purpose, and... No)

      With most of the hysteria being small aircraft on approach to a small local airpot, navigation and landing lights on. Or small hobbyist drones a couple hundred yards away and only LEDs visible being mistaken as something much larger and farther away. And so on. We probably do have some industrial sized drones moving drugs around, resupplying local gangs and.or major dealers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cstacy ( 534252 )

        2. Illegal commercial (for what purpose, and... No)

        We probably do have some industrial sized drones moving drugs around, resupplying local gangs and.or major dealers.

        In New Jersey? These "SUV sized" drones have a limited range, and require a runway to take off. Airports are secure areas that are also always on the lookout for drugs. And I have never heard of this kind of drone at a civilian airport. It would attract incredible attention.

        Since we're talking about kilograms of drugs, I doubt the drug dealers have a US drone network. Pretty sure it's just ordinary cars and sometimes trucks. And people, who are personally carrying the stuff around on commercial airline flig

  • joke.

    When regulations are heaped upon gun owners, they rightly complain that this just further encroaches on their rights and adds inconvenience to their lives without doing anything to stop the "bad guys". They're right. All across the nation there are DAs who refuse to prosecute criminals for their gun offenses, and often, after they are jailed for their non-gun offenses, even let them out of jail early. Indeed, the current President just pardoned his own son, who has committed numerous crimes, for lying

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