Worry over drones is spreading from New Jersey across the Atlantic seaboard, with leaders in other states also demanding that the federal government figure out what’s going on in the skies.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania Republican, asked for the feds to send his state new resources to try to track the drones back to their origin, just as they now have reportedly done in New Jersey.
“Pennsylvanians should not have to be afraid of what may be flying over their homes or over areas of critical infrastructure,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said in a letter demanding answers from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
His letter came as President-elect Donald Trump weighed in, saying he thinks the government knows more than it’s letting on.
“And for some reason, they don’t want to comment. I think they’d be better off saying what it is,” Mr. Trump said. “Our military knows, and our president knows, and for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense.”
Mr. Trump declined to say if he’s received an intelligence briefing on the matter, but implied that the drones are not coming from a foreign enemy.
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“If it was the enemy, they’d blast it out,” he said. “Even if they were late, they’d blast it. Something strange is going on. For some reason, they don’t want to tell people.”
After a week of weak excuses, Homeland Security and the FBI have now deployed infrared cameras and other drone-detection technology to New Jersey, ABC News reported.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said he wants to see that technology in his state too.
“What we need right now is data,” he said in a statement Sunday. “The briefings I have had tell me there is no evidence that this is a government or foreign activity, and so, we have to answer the logical of question of: who?”
The reports of drones have now been going on for about a month and federal officials are starting to speak out more, though it’s not clear if they’re having much effect on the public conversation.
The current argument from the feds is that most of the sightings are actually airplanes.
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That has not sat well with residents in New Jersey, who say it doesn’t jibe with what they’ve seen.
And their elected officials are generally siding with them.
Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican who went drone-spotting last week, said it was odd for federal officials to be able to rule out the drones being a threat — yet not be able to say what exactly they are.
“Why can’t we bag at least one drone and get to the bottom of this?” the congressman said at a news conference Saturday.
A senior FBI official on Tuesday called the drones “concerning.” By Thursday, though, the FBI and Homeland Security said they had ruled out nefarious motives or foreign governments as the source of the drones. And a White House spokesman said most of the sightings were airplanes anyway.
Sen. Andy Kim, New Jersey Democrat, was initially resistant to that notion. He’d gone out drone-spotting and had a flight-tracking app to be able to rule out airplane traffic. He said he saw drones doing things that airplanes couldn’t have replicated.
“We clearly saw several that would move horizontally and then immediately switch back in the opposite direction in maneuvers that [a] plane can’t do,” he said on social media.
But by Saturday, he’d changed his mind.
“After more analysis and help from civilian pilots/experts and flight data, I’ve concluded the possible drone sightings pointed out to me were almost certainly planes,” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.