Sarah K. Burris
Matt Laslo
December 17, 2024
December 17, 2024
RAW ST0RY
A drone. (Shutterstock.)
WASHINGTON — A top member of the House Intelligence Committee shared new insight Tuesday on drone activity flying above New Jersey.
The panel exited a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, on Tuesday afternoon after a classified briefing on the machines.
Ranking Member Jim Himes (D-CT) told Raw Story on Tuesday they are "not US government drones."
Last week, the Justice Department, FBI and Customs and Border Protection testified to the House committee that they didn't know what was happening over the state's skies.
ALSO READ: New Trump foreign affairs pick has history of forging ties with right-wing authoritarians
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) told reporters outside the SCIF that the federal government is taking it "very, very seriously."
"They did not find anything that would indicate it was foreign actors or even little green men," the congresswoman said.
A statement from National Security Counsel spokesperson John Kirby on Monday said, "Having closely looked at the tips and collated them as best we can from concerned citizens, 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 aircraft, helicopters and even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones."
The intersection of those three statements seems to be that the drones are some form of federal law enforcement.
"I didn't hear anything that was concerning as far as a threat to the public," said Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX).
"What I learned is that the American people should have faith that all hands are on deck, that the different agencies are talking to one another," said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA). "And they should not be taking actions into their own hands."
On Tuesday morning, Belleville, New Jersey, Mayor Michael Melham told Fox 5 in New York that the drones could be related to missing radioactive material. A small amount of radioactive material went missing in transit from a New Jersey cancer treatment center, New Jersey Shore News Network reported Monday, citing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The members of Congress did not mention the missing material following the briefing.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) will have a secure briefing with the Virginia delegation on Thursday in Langley, he told Raw Story, complaining that several agencies seem to be trying to dodge responsibility.
"We don't think they don't know stuff that they're not telling us. We're shocked about the stuff that they don't know," he said.
Gomez said he thinks the government should provide the public with an explanation to calm fears. Reporters asked if he had learned anything in the classified briefing that wasn't already public information, and he answered "no."
See the comments from Rep. Houlahan below or at the link here.
A drone. (Shutterstock.)
WASHINGTON — A top member of the House Intelligence Committee shared new insight Tuesday on drone activity flying above New Jersey.
The panel exited a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, on Tuesday afternoon after a classified briefing on the machines.
Ranking Member Jim Himes (D-CT) told Raw Story on Tuesday they are "not US government drones."
Last week, the Justice Department, FBI and Customs and Border Protection testified to the House committee that they didn't know what was happening over the state's skies.
ALSO READ: New Trump foreign affairs pick has history of forging ties with right-wing authoritarians
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) told reporters outside the SCIF that the federal government is taking it "very, very seriously."
"They did not find anything that would indicate it was foreign actors or even little green men," the congresswoman said.
A statement from National Security Counsel spokesperson John Kirby on Monday said, "Having closely looked at the tips and collated them as best we can from concerned citizens, 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 aircraft, helicopters and even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones."
The intersection of those three statements seems to be that the drones are some form of federal law enforcement.
"I didn't hear anything that was concerning as far as a threat to the public," said Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX).
"What I learned is that the American people should have faith that all hands are on deck, that the different agencies are talking to one another," said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA). "And they should not be taking actions into their own hands."
On Tuesday morning, Belleville, New Jersey, Mayor Michael Melham told Fox 5 in New York that the drones could be related to missing radioactive material. A small amount of radioactive material went missing in transit from a New Jersey cancer treatment center, New Jersey Shore News Network reported Monday, citing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The members of Congress did not mention the missing material following the briefing.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) will have a secure briefing with the Virginia delegation on Thursday in Langley, he told Raw Story, complaining that several agencies seem to be trying to dodge responsibility.
"We don't think they don't know stuff that they're not telling us. We're shocked about the stuff that they don't know," he said.
Gomez said he thinks the government should provide the public with an explanation to calm fears. Reporters asked if he had learned anything in the classified briefing that wasn't already public information, and he answered "no."
See the comments from Rep. Houlahan below or at the link here.
Listening for the right radio signals could be an effective way to track small drones
The Conversation
December 18, 2024
A drone. (Shutterstock.)
The recent spate of unidentified drone sightings in the U.S., including some near sensitive locations such as airports and military installations, has caused significant public concern.
Some of this recent increase in activity may be related to a September 2023 change in U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regulations that now allow drone operators to fly at night. But most of the sightings are likely airplanes or helicopters rather than drones.
The inability of the U.S. government to definitively identify the aircraft in the recent incidents, however, has some people wondering, why can’t they?
I am an engineer who studies defense systems. I see radio frequency sensors as a promising approach to detecting, tracking and identifying drones, not least because drone detectors based on the technology are already available. But I also see challenges to using the detectors to comprehensively spot drones flying over American communities.
How drones are controlled
Operators communicate with drones from a distance using radio frequency signals. Radio frequency signals are widely used in everyday life such as in garage door openers, car key fobs and, of course, radios. Because the radio spectrum is used for so many different purposes, it is carefully regulated by the Federal Communications Commission.
Drone communications are only allowed in narrow bands around specific frequencies such as at 5 gigahertz. Each make and model of a drone uses unique communication protocols coded within the radio frequency signals to interpret instructions from an operator and to send data back to them. In this way, a drone pilot can instruct the drone to execute a flight maneuver, and the drone can inform the pilot where it is and how fast it is flying.
Identifying drones by radio signals
Radio frequency sensors can listen in to the well-known drone frequencies to detect communication protocols that are specific to each particular drone model. In a sense, these radio frequency signals represent a unique fingerprint of each type of drone.
In the best-case scenario, authorities can use the radio frequency signals to determine the drone’s location, range, speed and flight direction. These radio frequency devices are called passive sensors because they simply listen out for and receive signals without taking any active steps. The typical range limit for detecting signals is about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from the source.
These sensors do not represent advanced technology, and they are readily available. So, why haven’t authorities made wider use of them?
Drones were all the buzz in the Northeast at the end of 2024.
Challenges to using radio frequency sensors
While the monitoring of radio frequency signals is a promising approach to detecting and identifying drones, there are several challenges to doing so.
First, it’s only possible for a sensor to obtain detailed information on drones that the sensor knows the communication protocols for. Getting sensors that can detect a wide range of drones will require coordination between all drone manufacturers and some central registration entity.
In the absence of information that makes it possible to decode the radio frequency signals, all that can be inferred about a drone is a rough idea of its location and direction. This situation can be improved by deploying multiple sensors and coordinating their information.
Second, the detection approach works best in “quiet” radio frequency environments where there are no buildings, machinery or people. It’s not easy to confidently attribute the unique source of a radio frequency signal in urban settings and other cluttered environments. Radio frequency signals bounce off all solid surfaces, making it difficult to be sure where the original signal came from. Again, the use of multiple sensors around a particular location, and careful placement of those sensors, can help to alleviate this issue.
Third, a major part of the concern over the inability to detect and identify drones is that they may be operated by criminals or terrorists. If drone operators with malicious intent know that an area targeted for a drone operation is being monitored by radio frequency sensors, they may develop effective countermeasures. For example, they may use signal frequencies that lie outside the FCC-regulated parameters, and communication protocols that have not been registered. An even more effective countermeasure is to preprogram the flight path of a drone to completely avoid the use of any radio frequency communications between the operator and the drone.
Finally, widespread deployment of radio frequency sensors for tracking drones would be logistically complicated and financially expensive. There are likely thousands of locations in the U.S. alone that might require protection from hostile drone attacks. The cost of deploying a fully effective drone detection system would be significant.
There are other means of detecting drones, including radar systems and networks of acoustic sensors, which listen for the unique sounds drones generate. But radar systems are relatively expensive, and acoustic drone detection is a new technology.
The way forward
It was almost guaranteed that at some point the problem of unidentified drones would arise. People are operating drones more and more in regions of the airspace that have previously been very sparsely populated.
Perhaps the recent concerns over drone sightings are a wake-up call. The airspace is only going to become much more congested in the coming years as more consumers buy drones, drones are used for more commercial purposes, and air-taxis come into use. There’s only so much that drone detection technologies can do, and it might become necessary for the FAA to tighten regulation of the nation’s airspace by, for example, requiring drone operators to submit detailed flight plans.
In the meantime, don’t be too quick to assume those blinking lights you see in the night sky are drones.
Iain Boyd, Director of the Center for National Security Initiatives and Professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The Conversation
December 18, 2024
A drone. (Shutterstock.)
The recent spate of unidentified drone sightings in the U.S., including some near sensitive locations such as airports and military installations, has caused significant public concern.
Some of this recent increase in activity may be related to a September 2023 change in U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regulations that now allow drone operators to fly at night. But most of the sightings are likely airplanes or helicopters rather than drones.
The inability of the U.S. government to definitively identify the aircraft in the recent incidents, however, has some people wondering, why can’t they?
I am an engineer who studies defense systems. I see radio frequency sensors as a promising approach to detecting, tracking and identifying drones, not least because drone detectors based on the technology are already available. But I also see challenges to using the detectors to comprehensively spot drones flying over American communities.
How drones are controlled
Operators communicate with drones from a distance using radio frequency signals. Radio frequency signals are widely used in everyday life such as in garage door openers, car key fobs and, of course, radios. Because the radio spectrum is used for so many different purposes, it is carefully regulated by the Federal Communications Commission.
Drone communications are only allowed in narrow bands around specific frequencies such as at 5 gigahertz. Each make and model of a drone uses unique communication protocols coded within the radio frequency signals to interpret instructions from an operator and to send data back to them. In this way, a drone pilot can instruct the drone to execute a flight maneuver, and the drone can inform the pilot where it is and how fast it is flying.
Identifying drones by radio signals
Radio frequency sensors can listen in to the well-known drone frequencies to detect communication protocols that are specific to each particular drone model. In a sense, these radio frequency signals represent a unique fingerprint of each type of drone.
In the best-case scenario, authorities can use the radio frequency signals to determine the drone’s location, range, speed and flight direction. These radio frequency devices are called passive sensors because they simply listen out for and receive signals without taking any active steps. The typical range limit for detecting signals is about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from the source.
These sensors do not represent advanced technology, and they are readily available. So, why haven’t authorities made wider use of them?
Drones were all the buzz in the Northeast at the end of 2024.
Challenges to using radio frequency sensors
While the monitoring of radio frequency signals is a promising approach to detecting and identifying drones, there are several challenges to doing so.
First, it’s only possible for a sensor to obtain detailed information on drones that the sensor knows the communication protocols for. Getting sensors that can detect a wide range of drones will require coordination between all drone manufacturers and some central registration entity.
In the absence of information that makes it possible to decode the radio frequency signals, all that can be inferred about a drone is a rough idea of its location and direction. This situation can be improved by deploying multiple sensors and coordinating their information.
Second, the detection approach works best in “quiet” radio frequency environments where there are no buildings, machinery or people. It’s not easy to confidently attribute the unique source of a radio frequency signal in urban settings and other cluttered environments. Radio frequency signals bounce off all solid surfaces, making it difficult to be sure where the original signal came from. Again, the use of multiple sensors around a particular location, and careful placement of those sensors, can help to alleviate this issue.
Third, a major part of the concern over the inability to detect and identify drones is that they may be operated by criminals or terrorists. If drone operators with malicious intent know that an area targeted for a drone operation is being monitored by radio frequency sensors, they may develop effective countermeasures. For example, they may use signal frequencies that lie outside the FCC-regulated parameters, and communication protocols that have not been registered. An even more effective countermeasure is to preprogram the flight path of a drone to completely avoid the use of any radio frequency communications between the operator and the drone.
Finally, widespread deployment of radio frequency sensors for tracking drones would be logistically complicated and financially expensive. There are likely thousands of locations in the U.S. alone that might require protection from hostile drone attacks. The cost of deploying a fully effective drone detection system would be significant.
There are other means of detecting drones, including radar systems and networks of acoustic sensors, which listen for the unique sounds drones generate. But radar systems are relatively expensive, and acoustic drone detection is a new technology.
The way forward
It was almost guaranteed that at some point the problem of unidentified drones would arise. People are operating drones more and more in regions of the airspace that have previously been very sparsely populated.
Perhaps the recent concerns over drone sightings are a wake-up call. The airspace is only going to become much more congested in the coming years as more consumers buy drones, drones are used for more commercial purposes, and air-taxis come into use. There’s only so much that drone detection technologies can do, and it might become necessary for the FAA to tighten regulation of the nation’s airspace by, for example, requiring drone operators to submit detailed flight plans.
In the meantime, don’t be too quick to assume those blinking lights you see in the night sky are drones.
Iain Boyd, Director of the Center for National Security Initiatives and Professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
What’s up with all these drone sightings?
The 7 biggest questions, answered as best we can.
by Li Zhou
A drone is seen on December 12, 2024, over Ridge, New York.
Multiple states on the East Coast and beyond have fielded reports of mysterious drone sightings in the last few weeks, spurring questions and conspiracy theories about what they are, their purpose, and who might be operating them.
Details, so far, suggest many cases of misidentification — and no signs of risk. In a statement Thursday responding to sightings in New Jersey, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) emphasized that there’s “no evidence” the drones “pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus,” matching an earlier Pentagon statement. In a statement Monday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby reiterated the point, noting that the sightings included commercial drones, hobbyist vehicles, law enforcement drones, planes, helicopters, and stars mistaken for drones. As federal authorities previously stated, their investigations revealed that many sightings were “actually manned aircraft, operating lawfully.”
Cases of “mistaken identity” have been widespread, particularly on social media. Following an investigation into drone sightings in his home state, New Jersey Sen.-elect Andy Kim concluded that many of the sightings he spotted were “almost certainly planes.” It’s also unsurprising that more people are seeing drones, a Pentagon official noted Monday, citing the “thousands of drones flown around the US on a daily basis.”
State leaders and congressional lawmakers have nonetheless expressed concerns about the lack of available information about the drone sightings and requested that the federal government learn and share more. President-elect Donald Trump has chimed in as well, alleging that the federal government has more information it hasn’t disclosed.
These gaps in information are largely responsible for fueling the anxiety around the sightings: Although many have been found to be legitimate aircraft, the lack of clear explanation has left residents rattled. And while the federal government has tamped down worries that these aircraft are a security threat, officials also haven’t provided much explanation for who’s responsible for them and what they’ve been doing.
There’s still information we don’t know about the drone sightings and what exactly is behind them. Here’s what we do know, however.
What’s going on — and where are the sightings?
Reports of drone sightings first began in New Jersey in mid-November, and were initially concentrated in Morris County, in the northern part of the state. In recent weeks, they’ve come from other New Jersey towns as well, including Bedminster, where Trump has a golf course, and Colts Neck, where the Naval Weapons Station Earle is located.
Since then, there have been sightings reported in at least five other states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. On Friday night, drones were spotted near the New York Stewart International Airport in Hudson Valley, prompting state transportation authorities to shut its runways down for one hour. Drones were reportedly also seen flying over a home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on Thursday night, in a cluster of 10 to 15 vehicles, and near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, on Friday, forcing the facility to close its airspace for four hours.
Photos and videos of the sightings have shown a variety of different events, including multiple bright aircraft hovering over a neighborhood or a single aerial object traveling at night. It’s not yet clear if these sightings are linked or if they’re all separate from one another.
Are these actually drones?
The sightings appear to feature a mix of different aircraft, according to federal authorities, including both drones and passenger planes. Many of the reports they’ve evaluated have been manned aircraft operating as usual, officials say.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas noted in an interview with ABC News on Sunday that a fraction of these sightings were drones, while the rest were likely planes or other aircraft that were misidentified. “Some of those drone sightings are, in fact, drones,” Mayorkas said. “Some are manned aircraft that are commonly mistaken for drones.”
Pentagon Press Secretary Major Gen. Pat Ryder said Monday that the presence of drones — including near military bases — was also not uncommon as more of these aircraft now populate the skies. “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,” he told reporters.
Of more than 5,000 tips they’ve received about such aircrafts, officials have deemed around 100 worthy of follow-up investigation, federal authorities said in a press briefing on Saturday.
Who’s behind them?
There’s no evidence these drones are from a foreign adversary or from the US military, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters in remarks last Wednesday.
Singh’s statement comes after some Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith, have suggested that the drones could have been sent by foreign governments such as China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia.
That wouldn’t exactly be unprecedented — though not a drone, a Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down in US airspace in 2023, sparking a brief diplomatic crisis. China described the balloon as “mainly civilian” in purpose, but its flight path took it over “a number of sensitive sites,” according to the Pentagon.
Federal authorities have emphasized that the 2024 drone sightings aren’t a similar phenomenon, with Kirby noting they come from an array of commercial, law enforcement, and civilian sources.
One explanation for some of the increased activity could be new regulations, announced in 2023, that allow drones to fly at night, Mayorkas also told ABC News.
Have they caused any problems?
Some drones, like those near the Stewart International Airport and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, have prompted officials to close down these facilities’ respective runways and airspace for a brief period.
The FAA has also announced temporary flight restrictions over Trump’s Bedminster golf course and the Picatinny Arsenal Military Base in Morris County, New Jersey, after drones were seen flying over both.
Officials have emphasized, however, that there isn’t any indication that these drones pose a danger to the public.
Drone operations have also prompted a number of arrests. In Boston, two men were arrested on Saturday for operating a drone “dangerously close” to Logan International Airport. And in California, a Chinese citizen and legal US resident was arrested on December 10 for operating a drone and taking photos over Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County on November 30.
What’s the government doing about this?
Federal authorities have said they are closely monitoring the reports and sending specialized drone detection systems to New Jersey and New York to assist in state efforts.
State leaders, however, including New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, had previously expressed frustration at the pace and opaqueness of the federal response. Murphy and Hochul have both pressed President Joe Biden, with the former emphasizing that “residents deserve more concrete information” beyond what federal authorities had provided.
“While I am sincerely grateful for your administration’s leadership in addressing this concerning issue, it has become apparent that more resources are needed to fully understand what is behind this activity,” Murphy wrote. Trump has also accused the military and federal government of not “want[ing] to comment,” while alleging that they know more about what’s happening than has been disclosed to date.
How should people respond if they’re concerned?
The FAA encourages people to contact local law enforcement if they believe a drone is flying unsafely or poses a threat.
Law enforcement officials have discouraged drone-spotters from taking matters into their own hands, however, warning that shooting at drones, or what people believe to be drones, is both dangerous and illegal. A drone could, for example, create a safety hazard if it falls on people or property after being felled by gunfire, in addition to the danger of shooting at a misidentified manned aircraft.
Those warnings come after Trump previously stated that the solution to these drone sightings was to “shoot them down!!!” if the government failed to provide more information about their purpose and origin.
What’s next?
The House Intelligence Committee is expected to receive a classified briefing about the issue on Tuesday, and members of Congress have called for the federal government to share as much information as it can with the public about these sightings. For now, however, there’s little to do but wait — and hope we learn more soon.
Li Zhou is a politics reporter at Vox, where she covers Congress and elections. Previously, she was a tech policy reporter at Politico and an editorial fellow at the Atlantic.
The 7 biggest questions, answered as best we can.
by Li Zhou
Dec 17, 2024
VOX
A drone is seen on December 12, 2024, over Ridge, New York.
Grant Parpan/Newsday RM/Getty Images
Multiple states on the East Coast and beyond have fielded reports of mysterious drone sightings in the last few weeks, spurring questions and conspiracy theories about what they are, their purpose, and who might be operating them.
Details, so far, suggest many cases of misidentification — and no signs of risk. In a statement Thursday responding to sightings in New Jersey, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) emphasized that there’s “no evidence” the drones “pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus,” matching an earlier Pentagon statement. In a statement Monday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby reiterated the point, noting that the sightings included commercial drones, hobbyist vehicles, law enforcement drones, planes, helicopters, and stars mistaken for drones. As federal authorities previously stated, their investigations revealed that many sightings were “actually manned aircraft, operating lawfully.”
Cases of “mistaken identity” have been widespread, particularly on social media. Following an investigation into drone sightings in his home state, New Jersey Sen.-elect Andy Kim concluded that many of the sightings he spotted were “almost certainly planes.” It’s also unsurprising that more people are seeing drones, a Pentagon official noted Monday, citing the “thousands of drones flown around the US on a daily basis.”
State leaders and congressional lawmakers have nonetheless expressed concerns about the lack of available information about the drone sightings and requested that the federal government learn and share more. President-elect Donald Trump has chimed in as well, alleging that the federal government has more information it hasn’t disclosed.
These gaps in information are largely responsible for fueling the anxiety around the sightings: Although many have been found to be legitimate aircraft, the lack of clear explanation has left residents rattled. And while the federal government has tamped down worries that these aircraft are a security threat, officials also haven’t provided much explanation for who’s responsible for them and what they’ve been doing.
There’s still information we don’t know about the drone sightings and what exactly is behind them. Here’s what we do know, however.
What’s going on — and where are the sightings?
Reports of drone sightings first began in New Jersey in mid-November, and were initially concentrated in Morris County, in the northern part of the state. In recent weeks, they’ve come from other New Jersey towns as well, including Bedminster, where Trump has a golf course, and Colts Neck, where the Naval Weapons Station Earle is located.
Since then, there have been sightings reported in at least five other states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. On Friday night, drones were spotted near the New York Stewart International Airport in Hudson Valley, prompting state transportation authorities to shut its runways down for one hour. Drones were reportedly also seen flying over a home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on Thursday night, in a cluster of 10 to 15 vehicles, and near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, on Friday, forcing the facility to close its airspace for four hours.
Photos and videos of the sightings have shown a variety of different events, including multiple bright aircraft hovering over a neighborhood or a single aerial object traveling at night. It’s not yet clear if these sightings are linked or if they’re all separate from one another.
Are these actually drones?
The sightings appear to feature a mix of different aircraft, according to federal authorities, including both drones and passenger planes. Many of the reports they’ve evaluated have been manned aircraft operating as usual, officials say.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas noted in an interview with ABC News on Sunday that a fraction of these sightings were drones, while the rest were likely planes or other aircraft that were misidentified. “Some of those drone sightings are, in fact, drones,” Mayorkas said. “Some are manned aircraft that are commonly mistaken for drones.”
Pentagon Press Secretary Major Gen. Pat Ryder said Monday that the presence of drones — including near military bases — was also not uncommon as more of these aircraft now populate the skies. “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,” he told reporters.
Of more than 5,000 tips they’ve received about such aircrafts, officials have deemed around 100 worthy of follow-up investigation, federal authorities said in a press briefing on Saturday.
Who’s behind them?
There’s no evidence these drones are from a foreign adversary or from the US military, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters in remarks last Wednesday.
Singh’s statement comes after some Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith, have suggested that the drones could have been sent by foreign governments such as China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia.
That wouldn’t exactly be unprecedented — though not a drone, a Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down in US airspace in 2023, sparking a brief diplomatic crisis. China described the balloon as “mainly civilian” in purpose, but its flight path took it over “a number of sensitive sites,” according to the Pentagon.
Federal authorities have emphasized that the 2024 drone sightings aren’t a similar phenomenon, with Kirby noting they come from an array of commercial, law enforcement, and civilian sources.
One explanation for some of the increased activity could be new regulations, announced in 2023, that allow drones to fly at night, Mayorkas also told ABC News.
Have they caused any problems?
Some drones, like those near the Stewart International Airport and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, have prompted officials to close down these facilities’ respective runways and airspace for a brief period.
The FAA has also announced temporary flight restrictions over Trump’s Bedminster golf course and the Picatinny Arsenal Military Base in Morris County, New Jersey, after drones were seen flying over both.
Officials have emphasized, however, that there isn’t any indication that these drones pose a danger to the public.
Drone operations have also prompted a number of arrests. In Boston, two men were arrested on Saturday for operating a drone “dangerously close” to Logan International Airport. And in California, a Chinese citizen and legal US resident was arrested on December 10 for operating a drone and taking photos over Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County on November 30.
What’s the government doing about this?
Federal authorities have said they are closely monitoring the reports and sending specialized drone detection systems to New Jersey and New York to assist in state efforts.
State leaders, however, including New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, had previously expressed frustration at the pace and opaqueness of the federal response. Murphy and Hochul have both pressed President Joe Biden, with the former emphasizing that “residents deserve more concrete information” beyond what federal authorities had provided.
“While I am sincerely grateful for your administration’s leadership in addressing this concerning issue, it has become apparent that more resources are needed to fully understand what is behind this activity,” Murphy wrote. Trump has also accused the military and federal government of not “want[ing] to comment,” while alleging that they know more about what’s happening than has been disclosed to date.
How should people respond if they’re concerned?
The FAA encourages people to contact local law enforcement if they believe a drone is flying unsafely or poses a threat.
Law enforcement officials have discouraged drone-spotters from taking matters into their own hands, however, warning that shooting at drones, or what people believe to be drones, is both dangerous and illegal. A drone could, for example, create a safety hazard if it falls on people or property after being felled by gunfire, in addition to the danger of shooting at a misidentified manned aircraft.
Those warnings come after Trump previously stated that the solution to these drone sightings was to “shoot them down!!!” if the government failed to provide more information about their purpose and origin.
What’s next?
The House Intelligence Committee is expected to receive a classified briefing about the issue on Tuesday, and members of Congress have called for the federal government to share as much information as it can with the public about these sightings. For now, however, there’s little to do but wait — and hope we learn more soon.
Li Zhou is a politics reporter at Vox, where she covers Congress and elections. Previously, she was a tech policy reporter at Politico and an editorial fellow at the Atlantic.
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