TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — A U.S. senator has called for mysterious drones spotted flying at night over sensitive areas in New Jersey and other parts of the Mid-Atlantic region to be “shot down, if necessary,” even as it remains unclear who owns the unmanned aircraft.
“We should be doing some very urgent intelligence analysis and take them out of the skies, especially if they’re flying over airports or military bases,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Thursday, as concerns about the drones spread across Capitol Hill.
People in the New York region are also concerned that the drones may be sharing airspace with commercial airlines, he said, demanding more transparency from the Biden administration.
The White House said Thursday that a review of the reported sightings shows that many of them are actually manned aircraft being flown lawfully. White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said there were no reported sightings in any restricted airspace. He said the U.S. Coast Guard has not uncovered any foreign involvement from coastal vessels.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh has said they are not U.S. military drones.
The agencies said they have not corroborated any of the reported sightings with electronic detection, and that reviews of available images appear to show many of the reported drones are actually manned aircraft.
“There are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted air space,” according to the statement.
The drones appear to avoid detection by traditional methods such as helicopter and radio, according to a state lawmaker briefed Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security.
The worry stems partly from the flying objects initially being spotted near the Picatinny Arsenal, a U.S. military research and manufacturing facility, and over President-elect Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster.
In a post on the social media platform X, Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia described the drones as up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) in diameter and sometimes traveling with their lights switched off.
Drones are legal in New Jersey for recreational and commercial use but are subject to local and Federal Aviation Administration regulations and flight restrictions. Operators must be FAA certified.
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said he was frustrated by the lack of transparency, saying it could help spread fear and misinformation.
“We should know what’s going on over our skies,” he said Thursday.
John Duesler, president of the Pennsylvania Drone Association, said witnesses may be confused about what they are seeing, especially in the dark, and noted it’s hard to know the size of the drones or how close they might be.
“There are certainly big drones, such as agricultural drones, but typically they are not the type you see flying around in urban or suburban spaces,” Duesler said Thursday.
Duesler said the drones — and those flying them — likely cannot evade detection.
“They will leave a radio frequency footprint, they all leave a signature,” he said. “We will find out what kind of drones they were, who was flying them and where they were flying them.”
Duesler said the public wants to know what’s going on.
“I hope (the government agencies) will come out with more information about this to ease our fears. But this could just be the acts of rogue drone operators, it’s not an ‘invasion’ as some reports have called it,” Duesler said. “I am concerned about this it but not alarmed by it.”
Associated Press reporters Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and reporter Darlene Superville and videojournalists Serkan Gurbuz and Nathan Ellgren in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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