Drone mystery befuddles New Jersey officials, frustrates residents

The chief of police in Harwich, Massachusetts said that a resident called local authorities after spotting 10-15 drones hovering above her house.

According to a release from Harwich Chief of Police Kevin Considine, a resident called police to report "unknown drone activity over her house" on Thursday, Dec. 12 at 9 p.m.

"The resident could not hear the drones but stated they were very bright, and she observed them for over an hour," Considine said.

The local's report was corroborated by a Harwich officer who spotted similar drone activity while on patrol.

"We have forwarded all the information we have received to the Boston FBI and the Massachusetts State Police," he said. "We will continue to work with our state and federal partners."

The sighting in Massachusetts adds the Bay State to a growing list of states that are experiencing mysterious drones in the night sky.

"These drones are similar to the ones reported over the last couple of weeks over New Jersey, New York and most recently over Connecticut," he said.

Drones were spotted flying over a major U.S. Air Force base in Germany earlier this month, according to media reports.

The aircraft flew over a U.S. air base at Ramstein, Reuters reported.

A security source told Reuters that German authorities have not traced the operators of the drones, but ruled out that they were operated by amateurs.

An Air Force spokesperson told the news outlet that there were “no impacts to base residents, facilities, or assets.”

“In concert with host nation authorities, we continue to monitor the airspace to ensure safety and security of the community,” the spokesperson said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Air Force. 

The sightings were flagged by German officials over the base on Dec. 3 and 4.

U.S. Rep. Thomas Kean, R-N.J., said Garden State residents are “at our wits end” as mysterious drone sightings across the state continue to raise more questions than answers.

If the federal government can't provide clarity on the sightings, they should “remove one from sky for examination,” Kean wrote on X.

“Either option would lead us to an answer- and the public is rightfully demanding closure here,” he said.

President Biden and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy need to step up, said Kean, saying “nothing about what is occurring is acceptable."

White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby maintained that the government still lacks definitive answers regarding the nature of reported drone sightings as public frustration intensifies.

"Many of the corroborated sightings have turned out to be piloted aircraft. I didn't say all of them, and what I said was those are the ones we were able to corroborate," Kirby said on "The Story." "There certainly is ones that we have not been able to, and we don't know the answer to it, and I strongly recommend that for folks that are seeing these things and documenting them to share that as they can with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI."

Kirby addressed the possibility that the reported drone sightings could be linked to a private company, saying that they "could very well be" commercially developed drones of some kind. 

"Why don't we know? I wish I could tell you exactly why we don't have an answer for you here in the afternoon on the 13th of December," Kirby said. "But I can tell you that we are working on it very, very hard to know, because we want to answer those questions the same as those folks in New Jersey want answers to them."

Kirby disclosed that there was an inter-agency conversation Friday morning about the topic. 

"We have now decided to employ some additional technology to New Jersey and some additional personnel to try to get a better sense of what these things are," he said. 

This is an excerpt from an article by Joshua Comins.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday said the government doesn't have the authority to shoot down drones and believes reports of some sightings are cases of mistaken identity.

Mayorkas appeared on CNN when he was asked about why the federal government doesn't take down one of the many drones that have been spotted across multiple states in recent weeks.

“Our authorities are very limited,” Mayorkas told CNN host Wolf Blitzer, citing missions involving unmanned aircraft conducted by various federal agencies. "We have various authorities that are discreet to their particular missions. We can't just shoot a drone out of the sky."

Mayorkas said officials believe reported drone sightings are “cases of mistaken identity” where drones are actually small aircraft “where people are misidentifying them," noting that some can be purchased at "convenience stores."

“We know of no threat or nefarious activity,” he said.

Mayorkas noted that officials have asked Congress to expand the scope of authority to empower local and state officials to counter drone activity.

“Those authorities need to be expanded,” he said.

Earlier in the evening, President-elect Trump called for the Biden administration to start providing answers about the drones or shoot them down.

An uptick in alleged drone sightings along the East Coast touched off a flurry of panicked calls for investigation on Friday from residents and state lawmakers, even as public officials stress the aircraft in question are, in fact, being flown lawfully, and a retired port authority aviation expert tells Fox News Digital that fears are overblown.

The drone complaints began pouring in last month in New Jersey, where witnesses and residents first began reporting drone sightings off of coastal areas, including off of Cape May, a scenic town located outside of Atlantic City.

Retired Port Authority Police Detective Lt. John Ryan told Fox News Digital in an interview Friday that the uptick in activity is likely due to two things.

The first, he said, is that drones are a fast-evolving technology that has seen a boom in both recreational and commercial use in the U.S. in the last 10 years. Federal data on drone registration reflects this sharp uptick in use, most if not all of which is legal.

Federal data on drone registration reflects this sharp uptick in use: As of October of this year, there were more than 790,000 drones registered with the Federal Aviation Association (FAA), and nearly 400,000 registered commercial drones. 

That's "just to give you an idea" of the magnitude of the number of legal drones in the U.S., said Ryan, whose extensive police career included serving for a decade as the emergency service special operations commander at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, and then later, the chief officer of the Port Authority, whose role includes oversight of all transportation facilities, including Kennedy, LaGuardia and all other airports and ports in the area.

This is an excerpt from an article by Breanne Deppisch.

President-elect Trump chimed in on the numerous drone sightings happening across several states in recent weeks.

“Mystery Drone sightings all over the Country,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge. I don (sic) think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shot (sic) them down!!! DJT”

The sightings have raised more questions than answers from government officials, as well as national security and public safety concerns.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Trump's representatives.

The New York State Police on Friday said it has received “numerous” reports of drone sightings over the past 24 hours.

The agency said it was investigating each report and was sharing information with federal and local law enforcement.

“We have no evidence at this point that any of the reported sightings post a security threat,” a state police statement said.

In Yonkers, north of New York City, Mayor Mike Spano said his office fielded calls from residents about drone sightings in the area. The city has been in touch with Gov. Kathy Hochul's office, he said.

“The @FBI and @DHSgov have also been notified. We have been assured there is no threat to public safety,” Spano wrote on X. “We will continue to monitor the situation and we will share more when we know more.”

Elon Musk jokingly said he believes the recent series of mysterious drone sightings are the work of aliens working on behalf of Iran.

Fox News reporter Bill Melugin asked Musk over X about his thoughts on the sightings that have perplexed authorities in several states.

“@elonmusk any thoughts on the mass drone sightings off the east coast?” Melugin asked.

“Alien spaceships controlled by Iran obv,” Musk replied.

More drone sightings were reported in Pennsylvania on Thursday.

The Monroe County Office of Emergency Management said it was aware of the sightings.

“Please report any drone sightings in Monroe County, PA, by calling 911,” the agency said in a Facebook post. “Report the size, shape and color or any lights visible on the drones and the location of the drone sightings.”

Multiple reports of the sightings were also being called into authorities in Lehigh and Northampton counties, according to emergency radio dispatches, The Morning Call reported.

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Nathan Branosky told the newspaper that authorities received four calls in the southeast area of the state from people reporting seeing drones in the sky. None indicated any immediate threat to the public, he said.

“We’re in touch with our local and federal partners, and will continue to monitor the situation,” Branosky said.

No drones were found amid reports that one crashed into power lines in New Jersey before crashing in a field, police said.

The Hillsborough Police Department responded Thursday night to reports that a drone crashed into a field. A caller said they saw drones in the sky, with one striking high-tension power lines before crash-landing.

Multiple agencies searched the area from the air and on foot and didn't find any drones, police said.

On Friday morning, authorities used drones to get an aerial view of the area but nothing was found.

A woman who captured what appeared to be multiple drones in the nighttime sky above Connecticut on Thursday had just posted an article on the mysterious drone activity occurring across the northeast before spotting the aircraft.

Lucy Biggers, who works as a social media editor for The Free Press, posted several videos on X showing drone activity in Fairfield after departing a train station. On Friday morning, Biggers said she began questioning what she saw.

“In the light of day, I began questioning myself,” she told Martha MacCallum on “The Story.” “Am I crazy or were those actually planes?”

Biggers said she had been on FlightRadar24, a website that tracks flights around the world in real time, all morning. She said she had tracked flights around the Connecticut area for the 10-minute period during which she filmed the drones.

“From 6:51 p.m., when I got off the train, to 7:04 p.m. when I started filming. I didn't find anything to corroborate that these were planes,” Biggers said.

“They didn't look or sound or act like planes. They kind of put your spidey senses up,” she added.

Biggers noted that the aircraft looked normal and that no one else noticed them in the sky.

“If you weren't looking for it, you wouldn't notice it,” she said. “They look kind of normal. They're blinking, they're a certain size.”

A drone crashed into the backyard of a New Jersey home Thursday night as mysterious sightings of unmanned aircraft continue to perplex authorities.

The drone fell into a residential area of Pequannock Township, the Pequannock Police Department said.

Officials determined the aircraft to be a “hobby or toy type drone,” not a large commercial or military-grade drone, police said.

The mayor of Pequannock, Ryan Herd, went to the scene to survey the crash scene for himself, the New York Post reported.

He told the newspaper that was concerned that “nobody knows whose drones are flying over us and what they’re flying over us for and where they’re taking off and landing.”

“Drones are flying over our houses, which is our private property. My family is here,” he added. 

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is asking President Biden to direct more federal resources to get to the bottom of the numerous drone sightings across the Garden State in recent weeks.

In a Wednesday letter to Biden, Murphy thanked the president for addressing the issue that began on Nov. 18 with sightings of drones in parts of the state.

“It has become apparent that more resources are needed to fully understand what is behind this activity," Murphy wrote. ”The continued reporting of UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) activity has raised more questions than answers and prompted an outcropping of conspiracy theories across social media and other platforms."

Murphy noted the federal law limits the ability of state and local law enforcement to counter drones.

In a separate letter to congressional leaders, Murphy asked lawmakers to pass legislation to empower local authorities to use advanced detection and mitigation technology to deal with drone activity.

“The emerging threat from UAS flights, coupled with the inability of state and local law enforcement to engage meaningfully with them, is a cause for concern,” Murphy wrote. 

The Connecticut State Police are investigating drone sightings spotted across the state in recent days.

The state’s emergency services unit has deployed a drone detection system in response, the state police told Fox News Digital.

“We are aware of suspicious drone activity occurring in various areas of the state. The Emergency Services Unit has deployed a drone detection system to assist with these investigations, which is presently set up in the Groton/New London area,” a police statement said.

Authorities have been monitoring all drone flights in the area and “will continue to report all suspicious flights to our both Federal and local partners in law enforcement,” police said.

There is no known threat to the public at this time, authorities said.

On Thursday, videos posted online showed what appeared to be multiple drones hovering over Fairfield. On Friday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wrote the Federal Aviation Administration, the FBI, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security demanding a briefing on the drone sightings, WTNH-TV reported.

“The proliferation of reported drone activities in this region raises significant safety and security concerns for both commercial and private aviation as well as national security concerns,” he reportedly wrote. “Incidents involving drones interfering with aircraft operations have increased, posing a real and substantial risk to passengers, crews, and others in the vicinity. And, I am particularly concerned about the potential for these unmanned aerial vehicles – many of which are as large as a car— to disrupt air traffic and, more alarmingly, to be used maliciously to threaten national security.”

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said he is "frustrated" by the government's lack of transparency surrounding the recent drone sightings in his state and surrounding areas in the mid-Atlantic region.

On Capitol Hill on Thursday, the senator said that he has issued a letter asking for more information because Americans should be aware of what is happening in the skies.

"I’ve been a little frustrated," he told reporters. "There hasn't been enough transparency letting people know what's happening. It's allowing a lot of potentially misinformation to spread, or at least fear. We should know what's going on over our skies."

Booker said he has been hearing from his constituents and other elected leaders, all of whom share his concerns about the mysterious drones.

"We have agencies and organizations from the government that should be able to provide a lot more information than the public has," he said, adding that the public should have "good information" on a situation that is "understandably concerning."

The senator also worries that the lack of transparency about the drones could potentially fuel misinformation.

"I've heard a lot of things about them, and again, I want to make sure that we have all the facts," he said.

New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said Empire State residents, too, have seen unidentified drones flying in the skies at night this week.

"At this time, there's no evidence that these drones pose a public safety or national security threat," Hochul posted Friday on X.

She added that the state is coordinating with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to protect New Yorkers. 

The source of the drones remains a mystery, and it's not even clear that all of the flying objects are drones and not manned aircraft. Experts note that the navigation lights are a big hint that whoever's flying them isn't trying to keep them hidden.

"Upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully," White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters Thursday.

Many of the reported sightings, however, involve objects that witnesses say look larger than typical retail drones, like the ones spotted above Island Beach State Park.

An Army spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Picatinny Arsenal had requested and received a temporary flight restriction until Dec. 26 for its airspace as a result of the abundance of reported drone sightings in the area.

The FAA said it is investigating the reported sightings and also issued a temporary flight restriction for the airspace around the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.

"We look into all reports of unauthorized drone operations and investigate when appropriate," a spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "Drone operators who conduct unsafe operations that endanger other aircraft or people on the ground could face fines up to $75,000. In addition, we can suspend or revoke drone operators’ pilot certificates."

Fox News Digital's Michael Ruiz, Julia Bonavita and Morgan Phillips contributed to this update.

Mayor Michael Melham of Belleville said the state of New Jersey has issued guidance to local governments on what to do if a drone is downed.

Officials have advised fire departments to immediately call the nearest bomb squad and to wear protective hazmat suits when approaching a drone that has fallen out of the sky.

"They're not quite sure if there's a payload or not," Mayor Melham explained on the "Faulkner Focus."  

The mayor expressed frustration with officials who have downplayed the significance of these drone sightings.

"We're being told that people in New Jersey must e crazy, that they're only seeing small aircraft. That's just not the case," Melham said. "If you're on the ground in New Jersey, my residents are alarmed because they have no idea what's hovering just over their houses." 

Melham said that the reported drones "look like small aircraft" and "don't look like the personal drones we're used to seeing." 

New Jersey residents frustrated with a lack of answers regarding dozens of potential drone sightings in the skies above their homes are threatening to take action on their own if the government doesn't start providing answers.

James Ward, a Jersey Shore realtor, shared video on Facebook that he said showed "SUV-size drones" above Island Beach State Park taken Sunday. It's difficult to judge their size in the clip, which showed a number of lights hovering in the sky.

"Dozens of SUV-size drones in all directions," the caption read. "Emerging at same time and flying over the ocean and then heading in different directions – what do you think?"

"A good shotgun will fix that problem," one commenter replied.

"Why hasn't anyone shot one down to look for a serial number to trace it back to the operator?" another wrote. "I would think that could provide a clue."

"Semi auto 3 inch magnum 00 buck full choke!" yet another replied.

Experts warn that it is typically illegal to shoot down a drone flying over a property. The Federal Aviation Administration told Forbes in 2016 that shooting down a drone is illegal under the same federal law prohibiting the sabotage of any other aircraft.

FAA regulations also prohibit the unsafe or unauthorized operation of an aircraft — manned or not.

Fox News Digital's Michael Ruiz and Julia Bonavita contributed to this update.