Look up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…a drone? This was the question that quite a few Americans found themselves asking themselves over the last few months.
On Nov. 13, a contractor at the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey got off work and drove to a nearby wildlife reserve to wait out the evening traffic rush. Little did he know that he was about to encounter a drone, and soon the start of an epidemic. Since then, there has been a proliferation of similar sightings, spreading curiosity mixed with varying amounts of trepidation and fear among citizens.
One of the most standout incidents are the concurrent Dec. drone sightings on Friday the Thirteenth at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, New York’s Stewart International Airport, and the Naval Weapons Station Earle, in New Jersey have elicited extra apprehension. It was reported that activity from “unmanned Aircraft Systems“ (UAS) caused an hours-long shutdown at both the airport and the Air Force Base due to overcrowded airspace.
In the past month, however, the drone sightings have only gotten more prolific, and it seems like everyone’s got a new drone story to share, as well as a new theory to go along with it.
What could possibly be behind all this?
On Dec. 16, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration and Defense Department released a joint statement that said that they’d “closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens”, and they believed that the drones posed no threat to the populace. They stated that “the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones”, and added that planes, helicopters and even stars could also have been mistaken for drones. John Kirby, spokesman of the National Security Council also disclosed that of the 5,000 hotline tips citizens gave to state agencies, fewer than 100 leads had been generated and deemed worthy of further investigation.
This explanation appears to be the most plausible and is at least partially accurate, as similar instances of false identifications have already occurred. For example, N.J. Senator Andy Kim took to social media to share that he went out on a drone-finding mission and thought he found a couple, but after further analysis of the evidence and the help of civilian pilots, Kim concluded that “most of the possible drone sightings that were pointed out to me were almost certainly planes.” In another instance, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan posted on X that he “personally witnessed (and videoed) what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence in Davidsonville, Maryland” on Dec. 13, the date of many other drone sightings, and called out the government’s apathetic response to what’s happening. Later, it was revealed that the spots of light that Hogan saw and thought were drones were actually stars in the constellation Orion.
However, even with the federal government’s insistence that citizens can rest easy and trust that they are in no danger, the people do not seem convinced, and in some cases, even the state authorities are doubtful.

What is being done to solve the drone mysteries?
From a lot of people’s perspectives, the federal government has been sending mixed messages about how we should feel about these drones, and their response is sluggish or halfhearted at best. The only decisive action they have taken is the FAA heavily restricting and in some places, even banning UAS flights, but those are only temporary. Multiple state officials have spoken about how hard it’s been to open an honest line of communication with the national agencies in charge of handling this issue.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy reveals that even though he attempted to assuage people’s concerns by sticking with what the federal authorities have said, it has largely failed, which led him to send correspondence to President Biden requesting additional resources to “fully understand what is behind this activity”. Four U.S. Representatives and Senators (Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Andy Kim, Chuck Schumer) have joined in Murphy’s efforts by sending their own letter to the U.S Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the FAA requesting that they receive a briefing from the agencies to break down what their plan is to address the source of the UAS incidents and how the local and state governments are going to collaborate with the federal government. “These sightings have exposed the federal government’s limitations when it comes to the authorities for protecting against the illicit use of UAS,” Schumer shares.
Meanwhile, other state officials are focusing on reforming major legislation governing how we deal with UAS. New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, for one, is advocating for relying more on state authorities and training them to track and even take down small unmanned aircrafts as soon as they can, instead of waiting for federal agencies to assist as per the current procedure. “Probably a designated unit could be established. You know, have real experts … They’d learn exactly what to do … How do you bring one down and how do you do that safely,” Smith explained.
Kathy Hochul, the Governor of New York on the other hand, believes that this issue should still be solved by the central governing body. She called on Congress to “pass the Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act”. According to her, this bill would better equip national agencies to counter the drone problem, and then it could trickle down to “select state and local law enforcement agencies”.

While these are all steps, the individual citizen might feel the urge to be a little more proactive. According to a semi-recent CBS News Poll, 78% of Americans think the government is keeping information about the drones from the public, and 53% of Americans believe the drones are a threat to the country. These two statistics paint the picture of a populace that is dissatisfied with the amount of progress that federal, state, and local governments are making due to their troubles working together.
Florida Rep. Mike Waltz expresses that he “believes the drone issue highlights lapses in authority between local law enforcement and federal agencies like the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security”. Senator Kim added that he was able to disprove his previous drone theories due to civilian experts, but that he should have been informed by government experts instead. “I share this because this is the kind of analysis we need but are not getting from the federal government to explain this situation,” Kim wrote on social media. “FAA experts have much more experience/resources to identify aircraft. Instead I’m left to draw on civilian support and public apps.”
These inconclusive investigations lead to people deciding to take matters into their own hands. Already, there have been reports of civilians trying to shoot down what they suspect are drones, an action that federal governments strongly advise against, as these vigilante efforts have led to more plane and helicopter pilots being blinded by laser beams, which obviously is extremely dangerous.
Other Americans aren’t taking it quite that far, and are instead taking to social media to play online detective, going out on ‘drone-hunts’ every night and posting what they find. For example, a group created on Facebook, named “New Jersey Mystery Drones — let’s solve it”, has amassed 85.4k members who are eager to uncover the mysteries behind these events.
In the end, the issue comes down to the facts and knowledge. The federal government does not know what’s going on and what’s causing this uptick in drones flying over the U.S. In the meantime, state and local governments don’t know everything the federal government does, and citizens are being held in the dark through it all. President Donald Trump, who has been very outspoken about his belief that the federal government is keeping some very serious secrets from everybody else, has promised that “in about one day” after he is sworn in, he will issue a report and share the truth behind it all with the public.
As Murphy concludes, “Based on everything we know, there is no public safety risk we’re aware of. On the other hand, is it frustrating to not have more answers on this? Is it frustrating to not have a source for these things? Yes.”
Sources: https://aviationsourcenews.com, www.forbes.com, https://www.cnn.com, https://www.cbsnews.com, https://www.nytimes.com, https://www.northjersey.com, https://nypost.com, https://www.nbcnews.com, https://theweek.com, https://www.foxnews.com, https://apnews.com