NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Federal agencies investigating the reported drone sightings over New Jersey, New York and other states have not identified “anything anomalous” from their observations, they said Tuesday in a statement.
The joint statement came from four agencies—U.S. Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense—and indicated close examination of numerous reports from the public yielded nothing unusual in the skies.
“Having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, 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,” the agencies said.
“We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast,” the statement continued.
A “limited number of visual sightings” of drones over military facilities in New Jersey and elsewhere, including within restricted air space, are also “not new,” the statement said, adding such incursions are taken seriously and actively looked into.
More than 1 million drones are lawfully registered with the FAA, with “thousands of commercial, hobbyist and law enforcement drones lawfully in the sky on any given day,” they said. “With the technology landscape evolving, we expect that number to increase over time.”
The FBI received tips on more than 5,000 reported drone sightings in the past few weeks, which generated around 100 leads that local, state and federal officials have been exploring. The federal government sent advanced detection technology to the region, as well as trained visual observers, after requests from New Jersey and New York.
Despite a lack of evidence for anything out of the ordinary, the agencies said they “recognize the concern among many communities” and will continue to support local and state authorities.
“We urge Congress to enact counter-UAS legislation when it reconvenes that would extend and expand existing counter-drone authorities to identify and mitigate any threat that may emerge,” the statement concluded.
The release from federal officials echoed remarks made by Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday, when he encouraged New Jerseyans to "calm down" about drones and said there was "little to no evidence" of anything nefarious or threatening.
Murphy also joined calls by state officials elsewhere for Congress to allow them to deal with drones. Nearly all the power currently rests with the federal government.
"It is extraordinary to me that, that a nation as great as ours and as powerful as ours has the deficiencies that we have now seen in living color as it relates to drone incursions,” the governor said.
Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, spoke with 1010 WINS on Monday and also called on federal lawmakers to pass a pilot program that would allow law enforcement to mitigate drone threats without the requirement of a federal partner.
Weiner said there was a flurry of drone reports over the weekend, but they all checked out and there is no threat.
“We had more 911 and 311 calls over this weekend—around 120—than we did in the entire month of November," she said. "People are seeing something and they are saying something, but what they are seeing is actually pretty common."
There are about 2,000 drone flights per week in the city, but the NYPD has a team of experts and the technology to identify what's in the sky. So far it hasn't had to shoot anything down.
“We’ve never gotten to that eventuality, and we hope not to,” Weiner said.
Drone reports first began emerging in New Jersey in mid-November and have since exploded into a firestorm of sightings. Conspiracy theories about foreign actors, the U.S. government and the “deep state,” abound online, while elected officials concerned about threats to military bases, airports and other locations have increased their calls for federal officials to act.