What we know about mysterious drone sightings
By Zoe Sottile, Josh Campbell and Artemis Moshtaghian, CNN
(CNN) — Mysterious flying objects overhead. Concern and confusion. And calls for military intervention.
This isn’t the plot of “War of the Worlds,” but rather the result of numerous possible drone sightings in recent weeks. The flying objects have been spotted over residential neighborhoods, restricted sites and critical infrastructure.
The sightings have put intense pressure on federal agencies to provide more information about the aircraft, as officials have urged calm and emphasized there is no evidence suggesting the sightings pose a security threat.
The Biden administration has not identified “anything anomalous or any national security or public safety risks over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the Northeast,” White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday.
“We assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircrafts, helicopters, and even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones,” Kirby said. While the FBI is still checking out 100 or so tips, none of them appear nefarious, he said.
“I can’t rule out the fact that we might find some sort of illegal or criminal activity, some nefarious activity, (but) all I can do is tell you that right now we see none of that,” Kirby said.
The US is sending drone detection and tracking systems to two military facilities in New Jersey, according to three defense officials Monday. The systems are in the process of moving to Picatinny Arsenal, a US military research facility, in northern New Jersey and Naval Weapons Station Earle in central New Jersey, the officials said.
Drones have been spotted near Picatinny Arsenal and over President-elect Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, according to military officials and state lawmakers. The sightings prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to issue temporary flight restrictions over the properties.
“Several instances of unidentified drones entering the airspace” were also reported above Naval Weapons Station Earle, a US Navy base south of Middletown, although no direct threats were identified.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy received a briefing from the FBI on Sunday night regarding the drone sighting investigation around Naval Weapons Station Earle, he said in a post on X. “We are ready to assist the federal government in getting to the bottom of this,” said Murphy.
Reported drone activity prompted at least one airport – New York’s Stewart International Airport – to temporarily close its runways for about an hour on Friday night.
At around the same time, airspace above Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio was restricted because of drone activity while authorities monitored the situation, base spokesperson Bob Purtiman told CNN affiliate WHIO.
The base closed its air space for several hours over the weekend, but the Pentagon says it is “not necessarily seeing any connection” to the drone sightings in New Jersey and elsewhere.
“There are thousands of drones flown around the US on a daily basis,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Monday. “So as a result, it’s not that unusual to see drones in the sky, nor is it an indication of malicious activity or any public safety threat. And so the same applies to drones flown near US military installations.”
Wright-Patterson includes operations dedicated to monitoring cyber threats and the 655th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group, which oversees 14 intelligence squadrons around the country. CNN reached out to the Air Force for comment.
The House Intelligence Committee is expected to receive a classified briefing about the mysterious drones over New Jersey on Tuesday afternoon, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
The FBI and DHS said in a joint statement Thursday there is “no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”
Despite reassurances from federal officials, local politicians continue to press for more information and resources to investigate the sightings. In Morris County, New Jersey, officials have called for the “federal government to marshal all federal resources at its disposal, including the military, to end the unauthorized flight of drones over our county and other parts of New Jersey.”
Trump raised his own questions about the drone sightings during a wide-ranging news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Monday.
“The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from,” said Trump. “If it’s a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went, and for some reason they don’t want to comment.”
When asked whether he had been briefed on the government’s intelligence regarding drones, Trump responded, “I don’t want to comment on that.”
Kirby said Monday that the administration has and will continue to make “a very good faith effort to be as open and direct” as possible.
“What we’re not going to do is speculate, and we’re not going to hypothesize – we’re not going to, we’re not going to provide content that we can’t be sure is accurate,” he said.
The FBI and New Jersey State Police urged the public in a joint statement Monday not to shoot at suspected drones, warning of potentially deadly consequences if manned aircraft are mistakenly targeted. Pilots of manned aircraft are being hit in the eyes with lasers pointed by individuals on the ground mistaking them for drones, the statement said.
Drones, a broad term for unmanned aerial vehicles, are widely owned across the United States. Around 792,000 drones are registered with the FAA, nearly evenly divided between commercial and recreational use. They are used in various industries, including photography, agriculture and law enforcement.
There remains significant confusion about the exact nature of the sightings and how many are cases of “mistaken identity,” as suggested by Mayorkas and Kirby.
Here’s more on what we know and don’t know about the reported sightings.
Where have the drones been seen?
Drone sightings have been reported in at least six states – New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio – while arrests have been made in connection with drone operation near restricted areas in Massachusetts and California.
The sightings began November 18 near Morris County, New Jersey, according to the FAA. There had been drone sightings every night since then, Republican New Jersey Assembly member Paul Kanitra told CNN’s Sara Sidner on Friday. Unnerved residents have frequently reported seeing drones hovering overhead, sometimes traveling in clusters.
Democratic Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey posted videos to his X account showing what appeared to be a cluster of drones flying over the Round Valley Reservoir on Thursday night. But Saturday, he acknowledged most of the aircraft he initially thought were drones were “almost certainly planes,” he posted on X.
Representatives from the federal agencies investigating the sightings have briefed local officials behind closed doors, stating the possible drones sometimes appear to fly in a coordinated pattern and can remain in flight for up to six hours, according to Montvale, New Jersey, Mayor Mike Ghassali.
“This has gone too far,” said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Saturday, adding last month she “directed the New York State Intelligence Center to actively investigate drone sightings and coordinate with federal law enforcement to address this issue.” Hochul announced Sunday that federal authorities are deploying a new “state-of-the-art drone detection system” to the state.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’s asking the DHS to deploy special detection systems that use 360-degree technology to detect drones.
New York State Police said Friday afternoon in a post on X they had received “numerous reports of drone sightings over the past 24 hours” and they were investigating the reports. “We have no evidence at this time that any of the reported sightings pose a public safety threat.”
Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said the drones, often seen flying at night, have been spotted hovering over critical infrastructure, including Port Liberty New York near the Goethals Bridge, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and Fort Wadsworth, one of the oldest military installations in the country.
Connecticut State Police announced Friday they have deployed a drone detection system to assist in the investigation of unauthorized drone sightings reported over Fairfield County.
The governors of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Virginia said they were aware of the sightings and that state police were involved.
Two men were arrested Saturday night on trespassing charges after a drone came “dangerously close” to Logan International Airport in Boston, police said in a statement.
Last week, a Chinese citizen who is a legal permanent resident of the US was criminally charged after allegedly taking unauthorized drone footage at Vandenburg Space Force Base in California as SpaceX was launching “a National Reconnaissance Office payload,” according to a criminal complaint.
Yinpiao Zhou was arrested December 9 at San Francisco International Airport, preparing to board a flight to China, the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said. He was charged with failure to register his drone and violation of national defense airspace.
CNN reached out to Zhou’s assigned public defender for comment Monday. He has not entered a plea and is held at the Santa Rita Jail without bond, according to records from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.
When asked by CNN whether they believed the Vandenburg incident was connected to the Northeast US drone sightings, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said, “We don’t allege that in our complaint.”
What are the aircraft?
The FBI and DHS have said they believe most of the drone sightings are cases of “mistaken identity,” with members of the public misidentifying small, legally operating manned aircraft as drones.
Some of the sightings may also be commercial drones, Mayorkas told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Friday.
“We know of no threat or nefarious activity,” Mayorkas said. “If we learn of any cause for concern, we will be transparent in our communication of it.”
Some of the more recent sightings might be due to copycats flying their drones as the phenomena get more news coverage, former FBI supervisory special agent Tom Adams told CNN Friday. He said there are often innocent explanations for the sightings as well.
“I can tell you from my firsthand experience conducting operations for the FBI, as well as investigations into the suspected sighting of drones at critical infrastructure, it was fairly common for planets, crewed aircraft and even low Earth orbit satellites to be misidentified as drones at night,” Adams said.
At a news briefing on Saturday, an FBI official reiterated the sightings were largely manned aircraft mistaken for drones. The official noted similar flight approach patterns from nearby airports matched the visual sightings reported to tip lines.
The FBI official said the tip line has received 5,000 tips, but fewer than 100 have led to leads “deemed worthy of further investigative activity.” No evidence supporting “large-scale UAS activity” has been found, the official said, using the acronym for “unmanned aircraft system.”
There’s been a “slight overreaction” to the reports, the FBI official said. Still, “we can’t ignore the sightings that have been there, and we are concerned about those just as much as anybody else is,” the official added.
An official with the Department of Defense, however, was less confident about the nature of the sightings.
“We don’t know if it’s malicious, if it is criminal. But I will tell you that it is – it is irresponsible,” the official said. “Here on the military side, we are just as frustrated with the irresponsible nature of this activity.”
The Pentagon shut down speculation the drones may originate from a foreign entity or adversary on Wednesday, hours after US Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey Republican, told Fox News the drones were from “a mothership” from Iran that is “off the East Coast of the United States of America.”
“There is not any truth to that,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said Wednesday. “There is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there’s no so-called mothership launching drones towards the United States.”
The FBI is leading the investigation into the sightings alongside the Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, while the US Coast Guard is assessing jurisdictional responses.
On Sunday, US Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said the US government needs to be more transparent about the reported sightings. “One, we need a briefing for the members of the Senate to figure out what’s going on here,” the Democrat said during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Two, we need more transparency.”
Despite federal officials’ assurances the drones don’t pose a public safety threat, Belleville, New Jersey, Mayor Michael Melham has said he has received guidance police should call the county bomb squad and local fire departments should wear hazmat suits if they encounter a downed drone.
“We just don’t know what these things are, so we are being cautious,” Melham said.
Why shooting at drones may not be the answer
In contrast to federal officials’ pleas for calm regarding the sightings, Trump has urged the Biden administration to either release any information it has about the mysterious sightings or shoot the drones out of the sky.
“Mystery Drone sightings all over the Country. Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge. I don’t think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
US Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who sits on the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, similarly said Thursday the aircraft “should be shot down, if necessary, because they’re flying over sensitive areas.”
Blumenthal clarified Monday in a CNN interview that he believed most drones could be forced down with “electronic jamming” rather than destroying them in the air.
But shooting down unidentified aircraft poses its own problems. “It’s not as though anyone can just take down a drone in the sky. That in and of itself would be dangerous,” Mayorkas told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Similarly, a source familiar with the national investigation into the aircraft told CNN shooting them out of the sky would be “beyond risky,” posing an unnecessary risk to people on the ground and legal challenges.
The source noted the government has various strategies that can be deployed if a drone poses an imminent threat, but so far, the mysterious flights have not been deemed threatening.
“Blowing it out of the sky is the last resort,” the source said.
Who regulates drones?
Part of the challenge in monitoring drone activity stems from the fact regulation of the skies is almost entirely under federal jurisdiction, according to the chief executive of a company tracking unauthorized drone flights.
“The laws that regulate aircraft are not built to empower police to deal with the drones,” Axon CEO Rick Smith told CNN News Central Friday, “so if your local state fair has a drone coming towards it that police believe might be dangerous, right now there’s nothing they can do about it.”
FAA regulations allow operators of recreational drones to fly up to 400 feet above the ground in airspace not controlled by FAA air traffic controllers. The FAA does grant waivers on a case-by-case basis to those wanting to operate drones in more congested airspace or at higher altitudes.
Missy Cummings, one of the Navy’s first female fighter pilots, thinks there would be a different level of action from authorities if people were in danger from the possible drone sightings.
“I think if this were a legitimate threat, we would be seeing different kinds of action,” Cummings, a professor at George Mason University, told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield Sunday.
“People don’t want to hear this, but probably a significant number are manned aircraft, although I do think that they are legitimately seeing drones,” Cummings said.
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CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg, Sam Fossum, Betsy Klein, Annie Grayer, Edward-Isaac Dovere, Andy Rose, Hanna Park, Brad Lendon, Oren Liebermann and Travis Nichols contributed to this report.
