Officials Say Drone Drama Doesn’t Match The Facts

Social media cited as an accelerant.

Credit: Pexels-Jeshoots

Appeals for government transparency over drone reports have led to media statements from John Kirby, National Security Council spokesman, yesterday; a classified briefing for lawmakers on Capitol Hill today; and a public briefing at the Pentagon, also today, from U.S. Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder, who serves as Press Secretary for the U.S. Department of Defense. The message was consistent.

While there have been some 100 reports from the public that have led to further exploration, the overwhelming majority of the 5,000+ drone-sighting reports in New Jersey involve either commercial, law-enforcement or privately operated recreational drones; crewed aircraft mistaken for drones; or even stars and planets. They also assert that social media has played an outsized role in the ongoing drama.

Kirby told reporters, “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 even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones. We have not identified anything anomalous or any national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the Northeast.”

Gen. Ryder told the Pentagon briefing there are no military operations in New Jersey involving drones. He said there are more than 1 million civilian drones in the U.S. and there are some 8,500 flying “on any given day.” He also outlined some of the technology used to control drones without having to shoot them down. He described active and passive detection systems and “non-kinetic” means of “interrupting their signals and affecting their ability to operate.”

In a New York Times article, science writer Mick West, who focuses on debunking conspiracy theories, said, “People’s brains aren’t very good at judging how big things are in the night sky. You see something in the sky, you have heard stories about it being drones, so you think maybe that is a drone. A majority of the videos are just big planes.”

Still, Kirby acknowledged that many of the sightings are, in fact, drones. But with research, most have been triangulated to show they are lawfully operated commercial, recreational or law-enforcement drones. In many cases, the latter have been launched to investigate reports of other drones. And it is thought that hobbyists have embraced the attention and launched their legal drones in large numbers to be a part of the spectacle.

Citing the figure of 1 million drones already in the market, Kirby said, “That is the ecosystem we are dealing with, and it is legal and proper. With the technology landscape evolving as it is, we have every expectation that the number of drones over the United States will increase over time.”

Mark Phelps is a senior editor at AVweb. He is an instrument rated private pilot and former owner of a Grumman American AA1B and a V-tail Bonanza.