Gov. Phil Murphy fielded questions about drones from the press Monday at the Statehouse in Trenton. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
Federal authorities arrived in New Jersey Friday to investigate if the nighttime lights reported across the state since mid-November are drones on mysterious, malevolent missions or just aircraft mistaken by a panicked public as drones, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday.
The governor, talking to reporters at the Statehouse in Trenton, said he pressed the Biden administration to send drone experts to investigate — and so far, they have found nothing alarming. Authorities do not believe public safety is at risk, he added.
“First of all, I’d say, calm down. There’s no evidence of anything nefarious here,” he said.
He added: “We never say never, but … take a breath.”
Murphy declined to detail exactly what the feds were doing to investigate, saying only there now are three “very sophisticated systems” that “come with really sophisticated individuals” scrutinizing the skies to determine what’s happening.
The systems have a range of up to 15 miles and will hopscotch around the state until investigators have answers. Sunday night, they set up in two locations — at the state police headquarters in West Trenton and at Naval Weapons Station Earle in Colts Neck — and the governor and several FBI investigators joined them to observe, Murphy said.
While countless citizens have reported drone sightings, federal investigators “are not seeing much, if any, of that right now,” he said.
He acknowledged the uncertainty is unnerving. But he also took aim at elected officials who he said should be “calming influences” instead of fueling fears with speculation and conspiracy theories.
“There is zero evidence, with all due respect, that somebody’s hiding the pea here, that the federal government or our military or somebody knows what’s going on here, and they’re not admitting to it. I see zero evidence of that,” he said. “There’s a lot of conspiracy theories out there right now. Let’s put that one with the Iranians off to the side.”
U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-02) last week blamed drone sightings on an Iranian “mothership” off the coast before walking that claim back on Friday (the Defense Department denied his allegation).
Murphy attributed some reports of drones to harmless hobbyists, noting that drones are affordable, legal, and permitted to fly at night, while others are people misidentifying airplanes, helicopters, and other manned aircraft as drones.
There also are more eyes on the sky, which likely has inflated drone reports, he added.
“You also have the phenomenon of … 18 to 19 million eyeballs looking up at the sky every night,” Murphy said. “So there’s a volume question, in terms of just pure observations. I’m doing it myself. We take the dog out. The other night, I’m looking up, and I’m trying to figure out, is it a star? Is it an aircraft? What is that? So I get it.”
He resisted labeling the public’s drone concerns as mass hysteria, saying: “It implies that people are completely hearing footsteps and there’s nothing there. But I do think there is a huge mismatch right now between the noise and the reality.”
Still, residents in other states, including Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut, have increasingly been reporting drone activity, too, he noted. Drone activity also has been documented near airports and military sites, critical infrastructure, and President-elect Donald Trump’s home in Somerset County.
So the drone mania is “a wake-up call” signaling the need for federal and state policymakers to tighten oversight over drones, he said. He called on federal authorities to pass legislation now before Congress that would give the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice more authority over drones.
“We need a better act as it relates to drones and drone incursions as a country,” Murphy said. “It is extraordinary to me that a nation as great as ours and as powerful as ours has the deficiencies that we have now seen, in living color, as it relates to drone incursions.”
Several state and federal lawmakers have criticized authorities’ response to the drone drama, saying the thousands of people who reported drones can’t all be wrong.
Assemblyman Brian Bergen (R-Morris) said focusing on passing legislation is the “exact wrong answer,” he added.
“We need to figure out where these things are coming from right now. Like all of the governor’s resources, all of his manpower, everything should be dedicated to figure out why are they there, and what’s going on right now. If you rush to policy, you’re going to come up with policy that is rushed,” he said.
Bergen was an Apache helicopter pilot in the military who served a year in Iraq. Investigating the source of the drones should not be a huge challenge, he added.
“All you got to do is follow one — one! — back to wherever the hell it’s going and figure out what’s going on,” he said.
Assemblyman Christopher DePhillips (R-Bergen) echoed calls for a federal probe, saying the feds have authority over New Jersey’s airspace and the drones could pose a national security threat. He introduced a resolution Monday urging such action.
“The federal government must take decisive action and communicate their findings quickly and clearly to prevent those with nefarious motives from causing harm and copycat hobbyists from adding to the chaos in our skies,” DePhillips said.
New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com.
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