Remember back in November and December when Americans looked up into the sky and became convinced it was filled with mysterious drones? That calmed down over the past month after the FAA placed flight restrictions on drone flights in the northeast. But they’re back. Or, at least, the sightings from people who believe they’re seeing weird drones are back.
Enigma Labs, a company that researches unidentified aerial vehicle sightings, reports it has received over 650+ drone-related sightings since Nov. 20 with a majority in New Jersey. But there are other states with sightings, including New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
“This month we received 54 reports in January to date, 48% of which were from NJ. Combined, NY and NJ make up 61% of sightings in January,” the company told Gizmodo over email Monday.
The FBI has said there’s nothing “anomalous” about the flights they’ve investigated, but there’s still an air of mystery around what’s actually happening when people see things they can’t explain. But that doesn’t mean there’s something nefarious happening.
On one end of the spectrum, people believe they’re seeing aliens from another planet visiting Earth. But the more likely explanations fall into three major buckets: 1) They’re exceptional aircraft from a foreign adversary, 2) they’re exceptional aircraft controlled by either the U.S. government or contractors for the government, and 3) they’re regular aircraft that people are identifying as odd because we’ve whipped ourselves into mass hysteria.
Some combination of two and three seems most likely at this point, especially since the Pentagon has repeatedly said that whatever the aircraft are, they’re not a threat to the country. But that hasn’t stopped some right-wing politicians from insisting they’re actually drones from a foreign country wishing to harm the U.S.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Republican from New Jersey, even claimed last month that the UAPs are actually Iranian drones launched by a mothership off the eastern coast of the U.S. There’s been no evidence presented so far that whatever people are spotting in the sky have been launched by Iran, China, or any other geopolitical adversary.
“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,” a joint statement from DHS, FBI, FAA, and the Department of Defense said last month.
“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.
Donald Trump promised to get to the bottom of what was happening with the supposed drones back in November. But he has yet to make a substantive statement about what they are since he took office on Jan. 20.
Trump was even asked about the drones by Fox News reporter Steve Doocy in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 20, where Trump responded, “I would like to find out what it is and tell the people. In fact, I’d like to do that,” according to Newsnation.
Trump even seemed to instruct his White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to get right on that, turning to her and saying, “Could we find out what that was, Susie? Why don’t we find out immediately?”
Needless to say, they did not get on that immediately. And we’re not going to hold our breath waiting for Trump to explain whatever people are seeing in the sky.
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