Alejandro Mayorkas, the US homeland security secretary, has said federal authorities “know of no foreign involvement” in the apparent mass drone sightings across the nation’s north-east region, though social and political anxieties nonetheless continued surging over the weekend amid a lack of official information.
“I want to assure the American public that we are on it,” Mayorkas said.
He called for “extended and expanded” authority to shoot down drones, beyond only those that pass over restricted military airspace. And the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, announced on Sunday that the federal government was prepared to deploy a high-tech drone detection system in response to the spate of sighting there, in New Jersey and Connecticut, where state and local officials are demanding more assertive federal action – with one calling the drones a “very considerable danger”.
The Democrat US Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, later added his name to the request for drone detection technology. And congressman Mike Waltz of Florida, who has been chosen as the incoming White House national security adviser, said the drone issue points to gaps in security between federal agencies, and with local law enforcement.
“Americans are finding it hard to believe we can’t figure out where these are coming from,” he told CBS’s Face the Nation. “From the defense department standpoint, they’re focused on bombers and cruise missiles. It’s pointing to gaps in our capabilities and in our ability to clamp down on what’s going on here.”
Meanwhile, reports that an Iranian drone ship is patrolling off the US east coast were discarded as unfounded.
The US domestic security chief told ABC News that there are “thousands of drones flown every day in the United States, recreational drones, commercial drones”. He also pointed out that – in September 2023 – aviation regulators enacted rules allowing drones to be flown at night, leading to more such activity.
US authorities are anxious to avoid vigilantes’ responding to New Jersey’s drone invasion, fearing that innocent bystanders could be hit by falling debris or that legitimate commercial aviation could be mistaken for unexplained drones.
“We want state and local authorities to also have the ability to counter drone activity under federal supervision,” Mayorkas said.
Hoping to counter the relative impotence of officials to quell the public anxiety stemming from the drone sightings, Mayorkas said some were drones and others manned aircraft mistaken for drones.
“There’s no question … people are seeing drones,” Mayorkas remarked. “And I want to assure the American public that we, in the federal government, have deployed additional resources, personnel, technology, to assist … in addressing the drone sightings.”
A Chinese national was arrested on 9 December in California, allegedly for flying a drone over Vandenberg air force base, used for space launches and missile testing. Other military bases have also reported drone over-flights.
“If we identify any foreign involvement or criminal activity, we will communicate with the American public accordingly,” Mayorkas added.
Meanwhile, as Donald Trump prepares to begin his second presidency, he has demanded greater official transparency around what he has called “mystery drone sightings all over the country”.
“Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge? I don’t think so,” Trump added. “Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down.”
On Sunday, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie was asked if the state’s residents were experiencing an outbreak of mass hysteria.
“To say that this is not unusual activity is just wrong,” Christie said. “I’ve lived in New Jersey my whole life and this is the first time I’ve noticed drones over my house.”
Christie said that a lack of official information had allowed conspiracy theories to overwhelm authorities’ officialese.
“If you don’t fill that vacuum then all the conspiracy theories get filled in there,” Christie added. “So you get congressman Jeff Van Drew saying there’s an Iranian mothership off the coast which is provably not true.”
Joe Biden’s outgoing presidential administration and state authorities have to be more vocal and let people know what they’re doing, he added.
Pointing to a newish technology used in conflict zones as weapons, Christie said it was understandable that people were concerned.
Hochul on Saturday joined a chorus of other elected US officials pressuring the White House for a federal response after runways at Stewart international airport were temporarily closed due to what was described as “drone activity in the airspace”.
Phil Murphy, the New Jersey governor, has also contacted Biden to voice “growing concern about reports of unmanned aircraft systems”. In Connecticut, another state with elevated drone sightings since mid-November, US senator Richard Blumenthal said the aircraft should be shot down “if necessary”.
But the lack of a coherent response by officials has set residents off on their own search for answers.
The director of the Rebovich institute at Rider university, Micah Rasmussen, told NJ.com that the Biden administrations’ response was “a textbook case of exactly how misinformation happens and disinformation happens.
“When people don’t know what to believe, they don’t believe anything,” Rasmussen said, “and that’s a dangerous position for us to be in”.
The federal response had achieved the near impossible by bring Republicans and Democrats in the state together over the issue, said the New Jersey Republican assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia.
“I don’t know who’s running crisis communication from the White House, but it’s embarrassing,” Fantasia told the outlet. “You know, we’re at the point now where I feel like I’m watching Star Search from the ‘80s, and they’re just auditioning spokesmodels to say stupid things.”
Another New Jersey political figure, Democratic congressman Josh Gottheimer, said that hundreds of reports of drones flying overhead in federally-controlled airspace “leaves a large vacuum of information”.
Since 13 November, when an unauthorized drone was spotted flying near Picatinny Arsenal, a US army research facility in New Jersey, hundreds more sightings of unidentified flying objects have been reported.
Some have been described as “SUV-sized”. Some were reportedly flying in coordinated clusters. Domestic security agencies have consistently maintained they do not pose any national security or public safety threat.
But military officials have confirmed 11 sightings over Picatinny base and multiple sightings over a naval weapons station, fueling anxiety.
The done sightings come after the Biden administration sought to downplay a Chinese spy balloon crossing the US in early 2023 before it was ultimately shot down off the east coast.
The White House national security spokesperson John Kirby has said that “it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully”.
But that hasn’t satisfied New Jerseyans, Rasmussen told NJ.com.
He said: “You only get so many chances to explain something before people say, ‘I’ve heard enough from you. I don’t believe what you have to say. I’m done listening to you now, because clearly you’re going to insult my intelligence.’”
