'Drone' sightings in the Northeast spark 'unfounded' panic, says expert
An uptick in alleged drone sightings along the East Coast touched off a flurry of panicked calls for investigation on Friday from residents and state lawmakers, even as public officials stress the aircraft in question are, in fact, being flown lawfully, and a retired port authority aviation expert tells Fox News Digital that fears are overblown.
The drone complaints began pouring in last month in New Jersey, where witnesses and residents first began reporting drone sightings off of coastal areas, including off of Cape May, a scenic town located outside of Atlantic City.
More recently, lawmakers in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland have reported new alleged drone sightings in their home states, with some witnesses alleging the aircraft in question have been the "size of cars" or seen flying above sensitive infrastructure or in restricted airspace.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, told reporters on Friday he had written to President Biden to share his concerns about the fresh reports of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) sightings in New Jersey airspace, and called for more federal resources to investigate the issue.
"It has become apparent that more resources are needed to fully understand what is behind this activity," Murphy wrote in the letter.
Other lawmakers in the state have gone even further, calling for the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to join in their investigations into the unmanned aircraft, with one Garden State lawmaker urging the objects be "shot down" if necessary.
"We are literally being invaded by drones," Pequannock Mayor Ryan Herbwe told reporters on Wednesday night following a town hall meeting in New Jersey.
"We have no idea who is doing [this] and where they're coming from."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., issued a statement on Friday citing concerns "about the potential for these unmanned aerial vehicles — many of which are as large as a car — to disrupt air traffic and, more alarmingly, to be used maliciously to threaten national security."
These remarks have added to a growing collective sense of panic — but a panic that many in the law enforcement community say is both unfounded and unnecessary.
White House national security communications adviser John Kirby sought to assuage these fears, stressing during a press briefing Thursday that there is "no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus."
Others in the law enforcement community also echoed this sentiment. Retired Port Authority Police Detective Lt. John Ryan told Fox News Digital in an interview Friday that the uptick in activity is likely due to two things.
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The first, he said, is that drones are a fast-evolving technology that has seen a boom in both recreational and commercial use in the U.S. in the last 10 years. Federal data on drone registration reflects this sharp uptick in use, most if not all of which is legal.
Federal data on drone registration reflects this sharp uptick in use: As of October of this year, there were more than 790,000 drones registered with the Federal Aviation Association (FAA), and nearly 400,000 registered commercial drones.
That's "just to give you an idea" of the magnitude of the number of legal drones in the U.S., said Ryan, whose extensive police career included serving for a decade as the emergency service special operations commander at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, and then later, the chief officer of the Port Authority, whose role includes oversight of all transportation facilities, including Kennedy, LaGuardia and all other airports and ports in the area.
The second mistake, Ryan said, is that the individuals in question are asking the wrong authorities for help.
"The mistake I see people making is that they're going to the wrong agencies and asking these questions," he added.
The FAA is the federal body tasked with registering drones and other U.S. aircraft. It’s also the one tasked with monitoring recreational and commercial drone use in the U.S.
"In New Jersey, they've been asking the FBI, they've been asking the Department of Homeland Security — they've been asking everybody except the people that they should be asking," said Ryan.
The Pentagon also reiterated this view, noting that an initial assessment had shown the drones were not from another country, and were not shot down because they were not deemed a threat to national security.
Kirby echoed this sentiment on Thursday. Asked whether the U.S. would consider banning drone use in U.S. airspace, he told reporters, "I don't know that we're at a stage right now where we're considering that" as a policy option.