(New York) The drones and flying devices observed in the skies of the northeastern United States and which cause concern among some Americans do not represent a foreign threat, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro reiterated on Sunday Mayorkas.
Posted at 1:05 p.m.
Updated at 2:55 p.m.
A controversy has grown in recent days around the multiplication of reports of drones or unidentified flying devices by residents of the New York or New Jersey regions, to which the national authorities are accused of not providing a sufficient response.
A year and a half after the incident of the balloon from China shot down by the United States and which Beijing had assured was not used for espionage activities, certain elected officials, such as the Republican representative of New Jersey in the House Congressman Chris Smith, have raised the threat of a foreign state like Russia, or even China, without any evidence to support it.
American authorities have been seeking to reassure the population for several days, while videos of lights in the sky invade social networks. On Friday evening, US President-elect Donald Trump, who is due to take office in January, questioned the government’s sincerity and suggested “shooting down” drones.
“There is no doubt that people are seeing drones,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas agreed on ABC Sunday morning. “These are drones, or piloted aircraft which are mistaken for drones by mistake,” he added, repeating a message conveyed in recent days by the federal police (FBI) and the spokesperson for the National Security Council, John Kirby.
“There are thousands of drones flying every day in the United States, recreational drones, commercial drones,” the official further put things into perspective.
“We have not observed any foreign involvement in relation to these observations in the northeast and we remain vigilant,” he added.
PHOTO J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Alejandro Mayorkas, United States Secretary of Homeland Security
On Saturday evening, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, Andy Kim, explained on the X network that he had observed multiple devices in the sky, but that after analysis with civilian pilots and the police, “the majority of the observations possible drones almost certainly turned out to be airplanes.”
He nevertheless called on national authorities to communicate better on the subject and to provide more resources to local authorities for better monitoring and regulation of these devices.
