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The spate of drone sightings across New Jersey has alarmed residents and confounded authorities — but the Garden State’s governor said Thursday the mysterious flying objects don’t seem to pose any immediate threat.
In a social media post, Gov. Phil Murphy said he spoke Wednesday with a handful of state and federal officials — including US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — about the drones, which began appearing over North Jersey skies several weeks ago.
And there seems to be nothing for residents fear.
“We are actively monitoring the situation and in close coordination with our federal and law enforcement partners on this matter,” Murphy wrote.
“There is no known threat to the public at this time.”
Still, the feds are looking into it — and the dozens of nighttime sightings over homes, neighborhoods and near military installations have left local police and federal law enforcement officers scratching their heads.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have many answers, and we don’t want to guess or hypothesize about what’s going on,” FBI spokeswoman Amy J. Thoreson told NJ.com on Wednesday.
“We are doing all we can to figure it out.”
The drones — which fly alone and in groups — started appearing around Nov. 18, when cops responded to calls about them hovering over parts of Morris County.
People have seen them in eight counties since then, from Bergen in the east to Hunterdon in the west, and near the Pennsylvania border, according to the Bergen Record.
One of the drones disrupted a medevac helicopter set to airlift a patient, and the sightings led the Federal Aviation Administration to restrict drone flights over Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County and the Trump National Golf Club in Somerset.
“It’s a complete mystery,” Mark Chiarolanza, spokesman for the Morris County Sheriff’s Office, told NJ.com.
“The best way we’re going to figure this out is if somebody can get a good, solid picture of these things,” he said, adding that some of the drones’ large size indicates a recreational group isn’t behind this.
“We can’t knock these things out of the sky,” he continued.
“That’d be dangerous.”
But even if it wasn’t hazardous to people on the ground, taking down one of the machines would be exceedingly difficult.
“Shooting a drone out of the air is really hard, and disrupting it is really difficult,” a New Jersey law enforcement source told The Post.
“There are certain technologies which enable you to do so,” the source continued. “But I think actually shooting it with a bullet — it’s really almost impossible.”
At a Thursday press briefing, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the agency had drawn up plans to deal with the sightings, which have also occurred over military sites in Virginia.
But he declined to share specifics of the classified arragnements.
“Unmanned systems, more commonly known as drones, have the potential to pose both an urgent and enduring threat to US personnel, facilities and assets overseas — and, increasingly, in the US homeland,” Ryder said.
The plan, he said, will ensure the department is “prepared to conduct counter unmanned system operations.”
“Again, I’m not going to go into the specific tactics, techniques, procedures at this point,” the US Air Force general said.
“But it enables the department to approach this in a way … that’s comprehensive, cohesive and holistic.”
