“Last night, the runways at Stewart Airfield were shut down for approximately one hour due to drone activity in the airspace. This has gone too far,” said New York Gov Kathy Hochul in a Saturday statement about mystery drones that have been spotted in the area since last month.
While most of the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have been spied flying over New Jersey airspace, this week Audacy station KNX Newsradio in Los Angeles reported that drones have also been seen in Temecula, Calif., near Camp Pendleton. So, what the heck is going on?
In her statement, Hochul said that she directed the New York State Intelligence Center to “actively investigate drone sightings and coordinate with federal law enforcement to address this issue,” and added that those efforts are ongoing. This Wednesday, fellow Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey also said that he reached out to federal officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to investigate the UAS.
“While I am sincerely grateful for your administration’s leadership in addressing this concerning issue, it has become apparent that more resources are needed to fully understand what is behind this activity,” Murphy said in a letter addressed to President Joe Biden.
He said that the people of his state deserve more information about the situation. During a Wednesday press briefing with National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby, reporters also pushed for answers about the drones.
“I think people in New York and New Jersey see drones the size of an SUV over their house every night and think that that doesn’t make any sense,” said one reporter.
“Certainly I understand why people would be looking at this and being concerned about it. I — we’re concerned about it too, which is why we have the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, my goodness, looking at this, and we’re taking it seriously,” Kirby said.
However, he also said he stood by his opening statement. In it, Kirby said that the federal government had “no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”
Kirby said the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the sightings “using numerous detection methods to better understand their origin,” and “very sophisticated electronic detection technologies provided by federal authorities.” With these methods, they have not been able to “corroborate any of the reported visual sightings,” and that some of sightings were manned aircraft operated lawfully, he told reporters.
South Jersey reporter Mike Dougherty of Audacy station KYW Newsradio in Philadelphia also discussed the sightings this week.
“You know, since the middle of last month, there have been drone sightings all over the place. Not your typical, like little kids, hobby drone or even those ones you can buy on Amazon for a couple of grand. A lot of questions still being asked,” he said. “There was a hearing in Trenton. Legislators left kind of exasperated that there were no answers for them. They were asking, what’s going on? Where are they coming from? Where are they going? And the answer to every question was pretty much: ‘We don't know.’”
Dougherty said the drones are about six feet wide or so, “large enough to be pretty alarming,” and have been seen all over the state. This includes near military bases, near President-elect Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster and in Medford.
“I have friends that have these popping up on their ring cameras down near the shore. Like the scale is kind of just staggering,” he said. Dougherty said they UAS have not been aggressive.
He also explained that the Coast Guard said they told an elected official that while they have the ability to take the drones down, they don’t have the authority to do so. A law from on the books in 2018 covers how drones are supposed to be engaged and handled and dealt with, but it expires this month on Dec. 20, Dougherty said.
Dr. Pramod Abichandani of the New Jersey Institute of Technology told KNX Newsradio that the drones spotted on the East Coast are unique because of the number that have been seen at the same time.
“They’re seeing a bunch of drones flying in concert with each other,” said Abichandani. “And it’s rather fascinating to see that, because most of the times such type of groups of drones are used for military purposes or research purposes, like in my case, but not necessarily for civilian purposes.”
According to Kirby’s Wednesday statements, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that there was no evidence of any foreign-based involvement from coastal vessels. Despite the fact that the sight of multiple drones flying in concert is unusual, Abichandani said he thinks its unlikely that another country’s mothership is sending drones over the U.S., in part because it would be too far for the drones to fly.
He also said that “it takes a lot of money, technical wherewithal, like a team of people who are smart enough to carry out ground operations and flight operations,” to carry out multi-drone operations.
“I think right now it’s mostly leaning towards a group of smart people who have enough funding and enough time, enough resources to test out these systems. Now, who they are, we don’t know. We have some work to do there,” said Abichandani.
Back on the East Coast, retired Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton told Audacy station 1010 WINS there are “lots of possibilities” as to what the drones are and why they are being spotted. In Staten Island, WINS reported that local officials are “not buying the White House response” about them.
Kirby said Wednesday that “there are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted airspace,” though reporters countered that some elected officials have said otherwise.
“While there is no known malicious activity occurring, the reported sightings there do, however, highlight a gap in authorities,” Kirby said. “And so, we urge Congress to pass important legislation that will extend and expand existing counter-drone authorities so that we are better prepared to identify and mitigate any potential threats to airports or other critical infrastructure and so that state and local authorities are provided all the tools that they need to respond to such threats as well.”
Hochul also called for Congress to pass the Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act in her Saturday announcement. She said the bill “would reform legal authorities to counter-UAS and strengthen the FAA’s oversight of drones, and would extend counter-UAS activities to select state and local law enforcement agencies.”
Additionally, Hochul said “the Biden Administration must step in by directing additional federal law enforcement to New York and the surrounding region to ensure the safety of our critical infrastructure and our people.”