The Biden administration’s claim that the drones over New Jersey are mostly regular aircraft isn’t sitting well with the state’s residents or politicians, who say it’s a demeaning explanation, given what people have seen with their own eyes.
Rep. Chris Smith, who this week was on the state’s coastline with local officials recounting boats being trailed by drones, said President Biden’s team was using “doublespeak” to shut down valid questions about what people are seeing.
“The Biden administration continues to be dismissive of New Jersey residents who have witnessed these drones in swarms, including coming from the ocean, following a Coast Guard lifeboat, and flying over extremely sensitive military bases like Naval Weapons Station Earle in my congressional district,” the Republican congressman said.
His comments came after New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told Mr. Biden to get personally involved.
“New Jersey residents deserve more concrete information about these [unmanned aircraft system] sightings and what is causing them,” the Democratic governor wrote to the president.
Sightings have been going on for weeks, and reports total in the thousands.
High-level officials on Tuesday said the sightings were “concerning.” By the end of the week, they insisted there was no cause for alarm and the sightings were a case of “mistaken identity.”
“We are supporting local law enforcement in New Jersey with numerous detection methods but have not corroborated any of the reported visual sightings with electronic detection,” the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft, operating lawfully.”
At the White House, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby echoed those conclusions on Thursday.
That didn’t sit well with Sam Morris, the Republican mayor of Mine Hill in Morris County, who called it “condescending” and “incredibly insulting.”
“It was very much like a Marie Antoinette press conference: ‘You serfs and lowlifes aren’t seeing what you’re seeing. We’re gonna rewrite the narrative,’” Mr. Morris said in a phone interview with The Washington Times.
He said residents are intrigued and using night-vision goggles or naked eyes to try to spot drones from their homes or around town. Mr. Morris said he’s seen them with his own eyes, including from his municipal complex in Mine Hill.
SEE ALSO: Feds say New Jersey drones are actually airplanes
He said residents are confused as to how drones were able to fly over nearby Picatinny Arsenal, a major Army research facility.
“I’m to the point now of frustration with this. I want to see the FAA boots on the ground looking into this,” Mr. Morris said. “To my knowledge, there have been no in-person efforts that way.”
Homeland Security and the FBI, in their statement, specifically said there was no evidence of foreign operations, no “malicious” activity and no reports of drones in restricted airspace.
That didn’t appease the state’s lawmakers.
Sen. Andy Kim, New Jersey Democrat, went out with police Thursday night and posted video of what he saw to social media.
He said they had a flight-tracker app to rule out lights that were coming from airplanes, and some of the lights they saw were maneuvering in ways that couldn’t have been from planes.
One officer told him the lights are out every night, start when it gets dark and disappear before dawn. When police tried to close in with a helicopter, the lights would go dark.
“This has gone on for weeks,” Mr. Kim said. “It’s hard to understand how with the technology we have we aren’t able to track these devices to determine origin and this makes me much more concerned about our capabilities more broadly when it comes to drone detection and counter measures.”
Mr. Murphy has said some of the drones appear to be larger and more sophisticated than what’s commercially available. Defense officials have said they’re not responsible, and other government officials have said no federal agency is flying them.
One New Jersey congressman said high-placed sources told him Iran was likely launching the drones from a “mothership” off the coast.
The Coast Guard says that’s not true, according to the FBI/Homeland Security statement. The Coast Guard is a part of Homeland Security.
But Mr. Smith told fellow members of Congress at a hearing Tuesday that he had met with a Coast Guard commander about the drones and the commander seemed as miffed as anyone. The commander reported one boat being trailed by 12 to 30 drones.
Mr. Smith asked why the Coast Guard didn’t bring down one of the drones, and the commander said no “rules of engagement” came from on high to justify an interdiction effort.
“The Biden administration has an obligation to the American people to figure out and tell us what is going on immediately,” Mr. Smith said Friday. “Their lack of decisive action and empty reassurances will only cause increased speculation and continue to escalate the valid concerns that so many people have.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.