U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said a video he posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account Friday raised concerns about swarms of mysterious drones seen at night over the past few weeks. An unexplained event.
Kim, who joined the local police in Clinton Township, New Jersey, about 36 miles north of Trenton, said he saw two to four small drones several times throughout the night.
“We often saw 5-7 lights that were not connected to the aircraft that we could see on the tracking app,” Kim said, adding that the team was able to distinguish drones from planes using a flight tracking app. “Some hovered and others moved beyond the horizon.”
Kim said police tried to approach the drones using helicopters, but as they approached, the drones turned off their lights and went dark, echoing a statement by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday.
“This has been going on for weeks,” Kim wrote. “With the technology we have, it is difficult to understand how we cannot track the origin of these devices, and this worries me even more about our capabilities in terms of drone detection and countermeasures.”
Meanwhile, eyewitnesses are pushing back on the government's claims that the drones pose no threat to communities and infrastructure. The growing story has spread in New York, Maryland and Connecticut, where authorities are looking for answers, while new reports of “car-sized” UFOs have been recorded in California and parts of Europe.
“Why isn't anyone talking about the incident where the helicopter failed to pick up a patient because these drones were in the path of the helicopter, causing the helicopter to turn around and pick up the patient?” “They're saying these drones haven't caused any problems, that's a big problem,” said Roseanne Stanley of New Jersey.
On Nov. 26, a medical helicopter en route to a crash in the town of Branchburg in Somerset County was unable to pick up a patient injured by drones hovering near the landing zone, New Jersey media outlet NJ.com reported.
In mid-November, hundreds of drones were seen flying in New Jersey; Eyewitnesses have since reported seeing drone convoys almost daily, and described the craft as in some cases as large as car hoods and sophisticated off-the-shelf, user-oriented drones. .
Although the classified materials have been reported near several military facilities based in New Jersey, with speculation of their nature ranging from space to Iranian intelligence, Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Wednesday that no government facilities were involved. The drones threatened him.
White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said at a press conference on Thursday that “while there was no known malicious activity, the reported sightings show a gap in authorities.”
Kirby advocated for new legislation that would better identify and mitigate threats to airports or other critical infrastructure, and better identify and simplify all the tools state and local officials need to respond to such threats.
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“I think these are ordinary drones,” local resident Joseph Steinberg told Decrypt. “My daughter saw a big one. I went outside with her and we looked, but it was hard to determine the size.”
“The first problem in situations like this is that beyond the first drone sighting, you quickly get an overwhelming number of reports that are not drones,” said Grant Jordan, CEO of San Diego-based drone detection software. Decrypt. “When I look at these videos, most of them – 99 out of 100 – are not drones. They are airplanes, helicopters, satellites.”
As Jordan explained, the recent flood of drone reports in New Jersey shows two issues. First, people rarely look at the night sky and mistake normal air traffic—flashing lights, moving objects—for something unusual. Second, it is difficult to measure the extent and distance of the sky.
While Jordan doesn't attribute these ongoing sightings to the ever-increasing problem of hysteria, he warns that copycats are probably at work trying to capitalize on the public's fear and desire.
“When a story like this gets attention, it attracts a lot of people – some flying drones to look for others and some flying to collide with people.” Now people are in San Diego and watching the videos. Shown is only regular air traffic entering San Diego Airport.
Edited by Andrew Hayward.
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