AFP, EDGEWATER, New Jersey
A rash of unexplained drone sightings in the skies above New Jersey has left locals rattled and sent US officials scrambling for answers.
Breathless local news reports have amplified the anxious sky-gazing and wild speculation — interspersing blurry, dark clips from social media with irate locals calling for action.
For weeks now, the distinctive blinking lights and whirling rotors of large uncrewed aerial vehicles have been spotted across the state west of New York.
Multiple drones fly over Bernardsville, New Jersey, on Thursday last week.
Photo: AP
However, military brass, elected representatives and investigators have been unable to explain the recurring UFO phenomenon.
Sam Lugo, 23, who works in the Club Studio gym in New Jersey’s Bergen county, one of the corners of the state that has seen several drone sightings, called the reports “crazy.”
“It’s pretty concerning they were sighted … without explanation. It can be alarming,” he said.
Officials, including the governor, have called on people not to be alarmed, but have not yet offered an explanation for the aerial activity.
“I’ve seen them every night since Thanksgiving, they’re smaller than my Jeep,” Gus Seretis wrote on X.
Thanksgiving Day was on Nov. 28.
“They hover just about tree height or a little higher,” Seretis added, describing them as like aircraft too small for a pilot and vowing to “shoot at one if it comes low enough.”
New Jersey Representative Chris Smith on Tuesday wrote to the Pentagon demanding answers.
“There have been numerous instances of unmanned aerial systems flying over New Jersey, including in close proximity to sensitive sites and critical infrastructure, to include military installations located in my district,” he wrote to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Smith said he had been told that more than a dozen drones pursued a US Coast Guard lifeboat over the weekend.
The lawmaker then spent “hours” monitoring the night sky with the sheriff of Ocean County, the location of a number of sightings, Smith’s office said.
The Pentagon said that the objects are not “US military drones.”
“Our initial assessment is that this is not the work of a foreign adversary or a foreign entity,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said.
Singh also rejected claims by US Representative Jeff van Drew on Fox News that Iran was behind the spate of sightings.
“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,” she said.
New Jersey native Joseph Boutros, 21, said he had seen the reports of drone activity on social media, “but I’ve not seen them myself.”
“It’s not something that worries me as long as they aren’t carrying weapons,” the suited local said as he collected takeout from a Bergen county strip mall as night fell.
In the cloudy skies above, the only aerial vehicles with flashing lights were passenger jets on approach to New Jersey’s Newark airport.
The FBI told reporter it was aware of the sightings “in multiple locations over the past several weeks” and said it was working with other agencies on the issue.
However, the agency would not confirm reports of a crisis meeting between government departments over the mounting concern.
Witnesses said that the unexplained aerial objects are larger than those commonly used by drone enthusiasts.
“I don’t want to get abducted or anything like that,” Lugo said with a smile.
In other news, a Chinese citizen has been charged with flying a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base in California where he is alleged to have recorded images of the military facility, the US Department of Justice said on Wednesday.
Zhou Yinpiao (周應標), 39, was arrested as he readied to board a flight to China from San Francisco, authorities said.
“This defendant allegedly flew a drone over a military base and took photos of the base’s layout, which is against the law,” US Attorney Martin Estrada said. “The security of our nation is of paramount importance and my office will continue to promote the safety of our nation’s military personnel and facilities.”
Charging documents said that detection systems at Vandenberg tracked a drone as it flew about a 1.6km above the facility late last month.
Security personnel at the base, which is the launch site for space missions — including SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets — as well as missile tests, traced the drone to a nearby public park where they allegedly found Zhou with the device concealed in his jacket.
