The government seems either unwilling or incapable of resolving rapidly growing public concern over the wave of aerial drone sightings that have afflicted New Jersey in recent weeks. But New Jersey is only a fraction of the full story. From Virginia to Colorado to Maryland to Oregon, credible reports of unexplained aerial drone activity keep coming in. Drone incursions have also complicated operations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, home to the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, and the Marine Corps Camp Pendleton facility in recent days. This risks making a mockery of the government and military’s power.
What’s going on?
For one, massive public attention and media interest are fueling some false reporting. People seek participation in seemingly extraordinary events. They want to be part of the fun. That means stars are reported as drones so folks can tell their friends, “I saw one!” Flight tracking evidence and analysis by aeronautical experts also suggest that a majority of these reports pertain to hobbyist drones, aircraft misidentified as drones, or misidentified meteorological and astronomical phenomena.
Still, there remains the problem that the federal government appears both incompetent and deceptive about the origin, intent, and possible threat of drones that continue to fly without identification of their type, intent, or operator. This is leading to conspiracy theories such as that the government is using drones to search for a hidden nuclear or radiological weapon. This is highly unlikely, not so much because it is infeasible but because of the absence of certain other government efforts we would see in the situation of a nuclear-radiological weapon scare.
Government incompetence is an undeniable complicating factor. Consider that the Pentagon’s UFO research arm, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, recently referred to a drone that crashed near a Michigan nuclear power plant. AARO added that it had “no further information” about the drone. This kind of language risks public concern that perhaps the government is hiding something.
It seems that far from being part of a conspiracy, AARO simply couldn’t be bothered to spend the time getting more answers. After all, a relatively short Washington Examiner investigation found that the drone was a basic Exo-Ranger vehicle that the FBI took possession of shortly after it crashed. FBI engagement can be explained by the agency’s interest in ensuring a nuclear power plant was not being surveilled by a spy or terrorist. But this example underlines how the government is often inefficient rather than nefarious.
The government isn’t helping itself. As public alarm has grown, the government has neglected to respond appropriately and provide answers. Instead, it displays increasingly thinly veiled frustration over public concern. It also gives out only half-truths.
Until recently, the White House said there were no credible reports of drone incursions near military bases. In a statement on Monday, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense released a statement saying, “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 stars mistakenly reported as drones. … [We have] not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk.”
Yet, considering that the drone sightings have been reported over military bases in New Jersey and elsewhere, government claims that they do not constitute a credible threat are disingenuous. An unknown drone operated by unknown persons with unknown intent over a military base is a prima facie threat.
The Chinese intelligence services are engaged in rapacious spying on U.S. soil. Chinese operatives have launched drones both from U.S. territory and from international waters. Their efforts have included repeated drone operations within U.S. military-controlled airspace. Chinese spy platforms have wrongly been identified as unidentified flying objects. This has been a focus of FBI investigations.
Drone incursions at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia in 2023 were probably Chinese intelligence efforts to gather radar and electronic signature data on F-22 fighter jets based there. Recent drone incursions at a U.S. Air Force base in the United Kingdom were likely the result of Russian intelligence activities. As exclusively reported by the Washington Examiner, British authorities were so concerned with these incursions that they deployed special forces to the base.
Even if the scale and geographic spread of drone reports is unprecedented, unexplained drones are nothing new. Between 2019 and 2020, Colorado saw numerous unexplained drone reports that led to an inconclusive FBI investigation.
The key questions are: Who is flying the drones? And why? We don’t know.
Considering that some of the recently reported drones appear to be engaging in active concealment and defeating anti-drone countermeasures, it is possible they are equipped with unknown technologies. This suggests they are either the product of a breakthrough adversarial technology on the part of an unknown U.S. entity, China, or Russia or UFOs of the strangest kind. The kind of UFOs, that is to say, that constitute intelligently controlled unknown technology operated by something other than an Earth nation or corporation.
This possibility is something most media are loath to talk about for reasons of stigma, and the government and military for reasons of strategic vulnerability. While the subject of UFOs attracts legitimate curiosity and a concern for scientific open-mindedness, it also attracts fantasists, fraudsters, and people who care more about lucrative media opportunities than about diligent reporting.
That said, there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that the strangest UFOs sometimes mimic conventional aircraft, balloons, or drones and so hide in plain sight. While it is probable that earthbound explanations account for what is happening in New Jersey, the recent, rapid global proliferation of reported drones that sometimes cannot be detected on radar, don’t communicate with a controller, and cannot be intercepted makes this open-mindedness necessary.
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The current situation undermines public trust. People are increasingly fearful, and members of Congress and top state officials demand answers.
Unfortunately, the federal government’s response is a mix of half-truths and vapid assurances that it has the situation in hand. This is clearly not true. Whether we’re seeing top-secret U.S. government or private sector activities, foreign spying, the stranger kind of UFOs, or a mix of all these, the public deserves better answers.