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At least 17 military bases adjacent to Chinese-owned farmland across the US have experienced a rash of drone sightings in recent weeks, The Post has learned.
Mysterious drones have been reported near military bases in Hawaii and by installations in Utah, California, Maine and Florida — among other facilities scattered throughout the country.
The Post previously identified 19 military bases that lie in close proximity to farmland bought up by Chinese-owned companies — a situation that has worried China analysts, who feared the Communist country would use the land to spy on US military operations.
All of those facilities apart from Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota and Joint Base San Antonio-Camp Bullis in Texas had reports of drones either attempting to fly over their bases or nearby, according to local reports.
It comes as residents in New York and New Jersey have reported thousands of sightings of unexplained mystery drones in the night skies.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Tuesday he believes some of the unidentified drones are “spy drones” from China.
“We need to identify who is behind these drones,” he said. “My judgment based on my experience is that those that are over our military sites are adversarial and most likely are coming from the People’s Republic of China.”
In southern California, drones were reported over Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in recent days.
Spokesman Capt. James C. Sartain told The War Zone that between Dec. 9 and 15, “there were six instances of unmanned aerial systems (UAS)” seen entering the airspace over Camp Pendleton.
At the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, officials were forced to shuts its airspace for four hours last week because of concern about the “small unmanned aerial systems,” Bob Purtiman, the chief spokesman for the 88th Air Base Wing, told The Post.
In Virginia, drones have been spotted over Virginia Beach, which is about 24 miles from the Naval Station in Norfolk.
Meanwhile, in Washington state, mysterious drones were also spotted earlier this week close to the Fort Lewis Army base near Tacoma.
Unidentified aircraft have also been reported this month above New Jersey’s Picatinny Arsenal and the state’s Naval Weapons Station Earle — and on Sunday forced the temporary closure of Stewart International Airport in New York near Poughkeepsie.
Sources have previously raised their concerns to The Post over Chinese landowners, who are usually linked to, or working on behalf of, the country’s communist government.
Morgan Lerette, a former contractor for private military contractor Blackwater, previously told The Post: “The Chinese are, or will, use this farmland to learn more about US military capabilities, movements, and technology.
“This will allow them to better understand how to transition their military from a defensive strategy to an expeditionary one.”
A report in the Wall Street Journal from September 2023 found Chinese intruders attempted to breach military facilities over 100 times in recent years, including sneaking onto a missile range in New Mexico and scuba divers spotted near a government rocket-launch site in Florida.
Menawhile, analysis from the Farm Service Agency of the USDA, Chinese investors owned 349,442 acres of US farmland as of December 31, 2022.
Billionaire and Chinese Communist Party member Chen Tianqiao is the second-largest foreign owner of farmland in the US. He bought nearly 200,000 acres of farmland in Oregon in 2015 at about $430 an acre, according to the Land Report.
However, his purchase of the acreage did not appear in government records of land ownership by foreign investors when it was first revealed in January, according to the Daily Caller.
Chinese holdings total under one percent of foreign-owned agricultural land in the US, per NBC, but its the proximity to critical military installations which raises concerns, critics have charged.
Meanwhile, the FBI said this week it has received over 5,000 reports of drones since November, but that less than 100 of them required further probing.
The FBI, FAA, Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security have all tried to downplay concerns, and said in a joint statement Monday there was little reason for citizens to worry.
“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.
