Ed Stasiak
2024-12-13 08:22:43 UTC
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PermalinkThursday December 12, 2024
The Mystery Drones Are Back—This Time Over New Jersey
Dozens of mysterious drones have appeared in the skies over New Jersey in recent weeks, perplexing state and federal officials and agitating residents.
The drones, which residents there have reported seeing over military installations, power lines and suburban neighborhoods, appear eerily similar to a fleet that swarmed sensitive national security sites on Virginia’s eastern shoreline one year ago.
Eyewitnesses in New Jersey describe the sightings as loud and numerous, much larger than those typically used by hobbyists, and appearing primarily at night. They have been spotted in eight counties across the state including near at least three military facilities.
The drone incidents over New Jersey are the latest in a series of bizarre episodes involving large, unmanned aircraft flying freely over American soil near sensitive sites that have baffled investigators.
Over two weeks last December, swarms of drones buzzed over Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia, forcing commanders there to remove sensitive aircraft. Officials from the Pentagon to the White House brainstormed responses, but never publicly identified who was flying them or what they were doing.
A Pentagon spokesperson attempted on Wednesday to bat down rumors that the New Jersey drones were being launched by a U.S. adversary but offered no visibility into their origin or purpose. The cryptic nature of the U.S. government’s response only seemed to fan theories about what might be behind the appearances.
The Pentagon said in a statement that it was monitoring the reports of unauthorized drone flights in the vicinity of Naval Weapons Station Earle and Picatinny Arsenal, an Army research center, in New Jersey.
A defense official said they have also appeared near Joint Base McGuire-Dix, about an hour from New York City. Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said the Defense Department has “no evidence” that the New Jersey drones are coming from “a foreign entity or the work of an adversary.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and state officials are investigating the recent sightings. “While we currently have no evidence or information to indicate these drones pose an imminent threat at this time, their presence appears nefarious in nature,” the police department in one of the affected towns, Florham Park, said in a statement.
Other state officials have said that local law enforcement have tracked the drones flying to and from the ocean, in a similar pattern to some of those that appeared over Langley last year.
At a New Jersey briefing on Wednesday, attended by at least 150 township mayors and the state police, officials reported that the Coast Guard has witnessed 50 such drones flying from the ocean to land and then back.
State police have been investigating the incidents for three weeks, with the first sighting on Nov. 18, said the mayor of Pequannock Township, Ryan Herd, who attended the meeting. The drones fly for six or seven hours at night, and don’t emit radio signals, so can’t be detected, Herd said.
These events, and the debate over which government agency has authority to handle them, point to what officials describe as a broader problem of the U.S.’s limited ability to respond to the growing threats posed by the proliferation of drones. Such incursions near military facilities, even if they don’t pose an imminent physical threat, raise concerns about potential spying on sensitive national security infrastructure. It is illegal to fly drones over military facilities without permission.
Last week, the Pentagon announced some limited measures to address the issue, saying U.S. Northern Command, in Colorado Springs, Colo., was given the authority to respond to domestic incidents over military bases in the U.S. Individual services, such as the Army, Navy or Air Force, are ultimately responsible for their own base security.
The drones in New Jersey have also appeared near critical civilian infrastructure such as reservoirs, electric transmission lines, rail stations and police departments, local police officials said.
Melissa Pedersen, 46, described the aircraft she observed hovering over her neighborhood in Chatham, N.J., as significantly louder and larger than a typical hobbyist drone. Intrigued, the following evening she followed one of the drones as it flew along the power lines, leading her through neighboring towns.
Incidents over facilities that aren’t military fall to a smattering of local law enforcement, the FBI and other security forces. How to deal with such incidents have been the subject of a long-running policy and legal argument on Capitol Hill. The White House, Pentagon and even sports entities such as the NFL have sought more authority from Congress, including the ability to use counterdrone technology to confront what they see as an emerging safety threat.
At a Homeland Security hearing about unmanned aircraft on Tuesday, FBI official Robert Wheeler Jr., who leads the bureau’s Critical Incident Response Group, said the activity in New Jersey was “concerning” and asked the committee to expand who can use antidrone technology.
“The use of counter unmanned aircraft systems to protect against these situations is crucial and can only be fully addressed by expanding the capability to include our state and local partners,” he said.
But air-safety officials have been leery of such technology’s potential harm to civilian aviation, according to current and former federal officials. The Federal Aviation Administration has urged caution in letting such technology proliferate across the U.S.
“It becomes a Wild, Wild West,” said Billy Nolen, who led the FAA as acting administrator between 2022 until 2023. “You start having people say, ‘Oh, someone has sold me some technology, I’ve got an event, and I’m going to suddenly go start shooting things down.’”
For instance, the FAA has in recent years received reports of Defense Department counterdrone technology interfering with radar and aircraft navigation systems, according to former senior FAA officials familiar with the matter. The agency has conducted testing on counterdrone technology to measure its effects on aircraft systems, according to former agency and industry officials.
Under current law, only a handful of federal agencies have authority to take down drones, which enjoy the same legal status as piloted aircraft. Everyone else, including businesses and state and local law-enforcement agencies, could be subject to prosecution for violating criminal laws against interfering with aircraft operations.
The Biden administration and some lawmakers are trying to close some of those gaps. The administration has pushed for legislation that would renew expiring authority for the Department of Homeland Security, including the Coast Guard, and Justice Department to take out drone threats near their facilities, either electronically by jamming the systems or kinetically by shooting them down. It would also extend that authority for the first time to the Central Intelligence Agency, FAA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Sen. Gary Peters (D., Mich.), who chairs the homeland security panel, has introduced similar bipartisan legislation that would also extend that authority to the Transportation Security Administration for the first time. The TSA is currently prohibited from taking out drone threats at airports and must call in federal or local law enforcement to deal with such incidents. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) and Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) are also pursuing an effort to give the Pentagon additional authority to protect against drones threatening bases in the United States.
If investigators are able to capture any of the drones, they might be able to extract more details about who is behind them. But for now, they are still hunting for clues.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas) asked the FBI’s Wheeler: “You’re telling me we don’t know what the hell these drones in New Jersey are?”
“That’s right,” Wheeler replied.
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