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Tag: drones

Federal officials’ authority to track and disable drones set to expire, snared in budget battle

As suspected drone sightings over the eastern U.S. including New Jersey continue to captivate many, the federal government’s authority to track and disable unmanned aircraft deemed threatening is set to expire after Friday and a temporary spending bill before Congress that would extend that power is now in question.

Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday temporarily banned drone flights in 22 areas of New Jersey where critical infrastructure is located. FAA officials said the flight restrictions were requested by federal security agencies and are effective through Jan. 17.

Federal and local authorities have been investigating sightings of suspected drones, but officials say there has been nothing so far to suggest that any drones have posed a national security or public safety threat. In fact, authorities say, many of the drone sightings have actually been legal drones, manned aircraft, helicopters and even stars.

Tucked into the bipartisan plan to prevent a government shutdown is a provision that would extend the authority of the departments of Homeland Security and Justice to track and disable unmanned aircraft deemed a credible threat from Dec. 20 until March 14.

That authority is vital, homeland security officials and experts say, to detect and disable any threatening drones flying near military bases, the president’s location, U.S. borders, prisons and mass gatherings such as New Year’s Eve celebrations and the Super Bowl — and they were hopeful a reauthorization of those powers will be approved before Friday’s expiration.

But the temporary spending bill including the reauthorization fell into question Wednesday when President-elect Donald Trump abruptly rejected it and told Republicans to essentially renegotiate only days before the deadline when federal funding runs out. Congress continued working Thursday to pass a bill to avert a shutdown.

It wasn’t immediately clear what a lapse in that authority would mean, including to drone detection systems the federal government has deployed to states, including New Jersey where numerous sightings have been reported, at the request of local officials. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s office referred questions about the detection systems to Homeland Security officials.

The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday declined to comment on the expiration of the drone authorities. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, along with other Biden administration officials and both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, has repeatedly called for the reauthorization and expansion of the authority for “counter-unmanned aerial systems” operations, or C-UAS.

“Ensuring that existing authorities do not lapse is vital to our mission, including protecting the president and vice president, patrolling certain designated areas along the Southwest Border, securing certain federal facilities and assets, and safeguarding the public,” Mayorkas told the House Homeland Security Committee in November 2023. “Any lapse in DHS’s current C-UAS authority would entail serious risks for our homeland security, as DHS would have to cease or curtail existing C-UAS operations.”

Bills in the House and Senate that would extend and expand the federal government’s drone powers remain pending. The bills also would allow state and local officials for the first time to track and disable threatening drones under a pilot program overseen by federal authorities.

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, was blocked from quickly advancing the Senate bill when Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, objected to its passage. Paul said it wasn’t clear there is a threat from drones that warrants urgent action.

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December 19, 2024
US agencies should use advanced technology to identify mysterious drones, Schumer says

BOSTON — After weeks of fear and bewilderment about the drones buzzing over parts of New York and New Jersey, elected officials are urging action to identify and stop the mysterious flights.

“There’s a lot of us who are pretty frustrated right now,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“’We don’t know’ is not a good enough answer,” he said.

National security officials have said the drones don’t appear to be a sign of foreign interference or a public safety threat. But because they can’t say with certainty who is responsible for the sudden swarms of drones over parts of New Jersey, New York and other eastern parts of the U.S. — or how they can be stopped — has led leaders of both political parties to demand better technology and powers to deal with the drones.

Sen. Chuck Schumer called Sunday for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to deploy better drone-tracking technology to identify the drones and their operators.

“New Yorkers have tremendous questions about it,” Schumer, the Senate Majority leader, told reporters about the drone sightings. “We are going to get the answers for them.”

The federal government did little to answer those questions in its own media briefings Sunday morning. “There’s no question that people are seeing drones,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “But I want to assure the American public that we are on it. We are working in close coordination with state and local authorities.”

Some of the drones reported above parts of New York and New Jersey have turned out to be “manned aircraft that are commonly mistaken for drones,” Mayorkas said. “We know of no foreign involvement with respect to the sightings in the Northeast. And we are vigilant in investigating this matter.”

Last year, federal aviation rules began requiring certain drones to broadcast their remote identification, including the location of their operators. It’s not clear whether that information has been used to determine who is behind the drones plaguing locations over New York and New Jersey. Mayorkas’ office didn’t respond to questions about whether they’ve been able to identify drones using this capability.

Schumer wants the federal government to use a recently declassified radio wave technology in New York and New Jersey. The radio wave detector can be attached to a drone or airplane and can determine whether another flying object is a bird or a drone, read its electronic registration, and follow it back to its landing place. Schumer said state and local authorities do not have the authority to track drones.

On Sunday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said federal officials were sending a drone detection system to the state.

“This system will support state and federal law enforcement in their investigations,” Hochul said in a statement. The governor did not immediately provide additional details, including where the system will be deployed.

Dozens of mysterious nighttime flights started last month over parts of New Jersey, raising concerns among residents and officials. Part of the worry stems 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. Drones are legal in New Jersey for recreational and commercial use, but they are subject to local and Federal Aviation Administration regulations and flight restrictions. Operators must be FAA certified.

Drones are now being reported all along the northern East Coast, with suspicious sightings in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to news reports.

Some U.S. political leaders, including Trump, have called for much stronger action against these drones, including shooting them down.

Certain agencies within the Department of Homeland Security have the power to “incapacitate” drones, Mayorkas said Sunday. “But we need those authorities expanded,” he said.

A bill before the U.S. Senate would enhance some federal agencies’ authority and give new abilities to local and state agencies to track drones. It would also start a pilot program allowing states and local authorities to disrupt, disable or seize a drone without prior consent of the operator.

“What the drone issue points out are gaps in our agencies, gaps in our authorities between the Department of Homeland Security, local law enforcement, the Defense Department.,” said Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., Trump’s pick to be his national security adviser, speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “Americans are finding it hard to believe we can’t figure out where these are coming from.’’

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Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut.

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December 15, 2024
Drones, planes or UFOs? Americans abuzz over mysterious New Jersey sightings

CHATHAM, N.J. — That buzzing coming out of New Jersey? It’s unclear if it’s drones or something else, but for sure the nighttime sightings are producing tons of talk, a raft of conspiracy theories and craned necks looking skyward.

Cropping up on local news and social media sites around Thanksgiving, the saga of the drones reported over New Jersey has reached incredible heights.

This week seems to have begun a new, higher-profile chapter: Lawmakers are demanding (but so far not getting) explanations from federal and state authorities about what’s behind them. Gov. Phil Murphy wrote to President Joe Biden asking for answers. New Jersey’s new senator, Andy Kim, spent Thursday night on a drone hunt in rural northern New Jersey, and posted about it on X.

But perhaps the most fantastic development is the dizzying proliferation of conspiracies — none of which has been confirmed or suggested by federal and state officials who say they’re looking into what’s happening. It has become shorthand to refer to the flying machines as drones, but there are questions about whether what people are seeing are unmanned aircraft or something else.

Some theorize the drones came from an Iranian mothership. Others think they are the Secret Service making sure President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster property is secure. Others worry about China. The deep state. And on.

In the face of uncertainty, people have done what they do in 2024: Create a social media group.

The Facebook page, New Jersey Mystery Drones — let’s solve it, has nearly 44,000 members, up from 39,000 late Thursday. People are posting their photo and video sightings, and the online commenters take it from there.

One video shows a whitish light flying in a darkened sky, and one commenter concludes it’s otherworldly. “Straight up orbs,” the person says. Others weigh in to say it’s a plane or maybe a satellite. Another group called for hunting the drones literally, shooting them down like turkeys. (Do not shoot at anything in the sky, experts warn.)

Trisha Bushey, 48, of Lebanon Township, New Jersey, lives near Round Valley Reservoir where there have been numerous sightings. She said she first posted photos online last month wondering what the objects were and became convinced they were drones when she saw how they moved and when her son showed her on a flight tracking site that no planes were around. Now she’s glued to the Mystery Drones page, she said.

“I find myself — instead of Christmas shopping or cleaning my house — checking it,” she said.

She doesn’t buy what the governor said, that the drones aren’t a risk to public safety. Murphy told Biden on Friday that residents need answers. The federal Homeland Security Department and FBI also said in a joint statement they have no evidence that the sightings pose “a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”

“How can you say it’s not posing a threat if you don’t know what it is?” she said. “I think that’s why so many people are uneasy.”

Then there’s the notion that people could misunderstand what they’re seeing. William Austin is the president of Warren County Community College, which has a drone technology degree program, and is coincidentally located in one of the sighting hotspots.

Austin says he has looked at videos of purported drones and that airplanes are being misidentified as drones. He cited an optical effect called parallax, which is the apparent shift of an object when viewed from different perspectives. Austin encouraged people to download flight and drone tracker apps so they can better understand what they’re looking at.

Nonetheless, people continue to come up with their own theories.

“It represents the United States of America in 2024,” Austin said. “We’ve lost trust in our institutions, and we need it.”

Federal officials echo Austin’s view that many of the sightings are piloted aircraft such as planes and helicopters being mistaken for drones, according to lawmakers and Murphy.

That’s not really convincing for many, though, who are homing in on the sightings beyond just New Jersey and the East Coast, where others have reported seeing the objects.

For Seph Divine, 34, another member of the drone hunting group who lives in Eugene, Oregon, it feels as if it’s up to citizen sleuths to solve the mystery. He said he tries to be a voice of reason, encouraging people to fact check their information, while also asking probing questions.

“My main goal is I don’t want people to be caught up in the hysteria and I also want people to not just ignore it at the same time,” he said.

“Whether or not it’s foreign military or some secret access program or something otherworldly, whatever it is, all I’m saying is it’s alarming that this is happening so suddenly and so consistently for hours at a time,” he added.

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Associated Press reporter Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

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December 13, 2024
US senator says mysterious drones spotted in New Jersey region should be ‘shot down, if necessary’

A U.S. senator has called for mysterious drones spotted flying over sensitive areas in New Jersey and other parts of the Mid-Atlantic region to be “shot down, if necessary,” as it remains unclear who owns them.

“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.

“The Biden administration ought to be acting more aggressively against these drones that have been reported. If only to tell the American people who owns them, who’s flying them, what they are. The lack of information is absolutely unacceptable,” said Blumenthal, a fellow Democrat, of the president.

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.

Gov. Phil Murphy and law enforcement officials have stressed that they don’t appear to threaten public safety. The FBI has been investigating and has asked residents to share any videos, photos or other information they may have.

The number of sightings has increased in recent days, though officials say many of the objects seen may have been planes rather than drones. It’s also possible that a single drone has been reported more than once.

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 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.

Most, but not all, of the drones spotted in New Jersey were larger than those typically used by hobbyists.

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said he was frustrated by the lack of transparency, saying it could help spread fear or misinformation.

“We should know what’s going on over our skies,” he said Thursday.

Fantasia, a Morris County Republican, was among several lawmakers who met with state police and Homeland Security officials to discuss the spate of sightings that range from the New York City area through New Jersey and westward into parts of Pennsylvania, including over Philadelphia. It is unknown at this time whether the sightings are related.

Two Republican Jersey Shore-area congressmen, U.S. Reps. Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, have also called on the military to shoot down the drones.

Smith said a U.S. Coast Guard commanding officer briefed him on an incident over the weekend in which a dozen drones followed a motorized Coast Guard lifeboat “in close pursuit” near Barnegat Light and Island Beach State Park in Ocean County.

Coast Guard Lt. Luke Pinneo on Wednesday told The Associated Press “that multiple low-altitude aircraft were observed in the vicinity of one of our vessels near Island Beach State Park.”

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AP reporters Mike Catalini in Morrisville, Pennsylvania; Wayne Parry in Point Pleasant, New Jersey; and videojournalists Serkan Gurbuz and Nathan Ellgren in Washington contributed to this report.

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December 12, 2024
What do we know about the mysterious drones reported flying over New Jersey?

A large number of mysterious drones have been reported flying over parts of New Jersey in recent weeks, sparking speculation and concern over who sent them and why.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and law enforcement officials have stressed that the drones don’t appear to be a threat to public safety, but many state and municipal lawmakers have nonetheless called for stricter rules about who can fly the unmanned aircraft.

The FBI is among several agencies investigating, and it has asked residents to share videos, photos and other information they may have about the drones.

Dozens of witnesses have reported seeing drones in New Jersey starting in November.

At first, the drones were spotted flying along the scenic Raritan River, a waterway that feeds the Round Valley Reservoir, the state’s largest aquifer, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of New York City.

But soon sightings were reported statewide, including near the Picatinny Arsenal, a U.S. military research and manufacturing facility, and over President-elect Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster.

The aircraft have also recently been spotted in coastal areas.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith said a Coast Guard commanding officer told him a dozen drones closely followed a Coast Guard lifeboat near Barnegat Light and Island Beach State Park in Ocean County over the weekend.

Gov. Murphy has said the aircraft do not pose a threat, but has not provided any details to support this.

Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia, who was briefed by the Department of Homeland Security, said the reported drones have been up to 6 feet in diameter and sometimes travel with their lights switched off. This is much larger than those typically flown by drone hobbyists and she said they appear to avoid detection by traditional methods such as helicopter and radio.

Officials say some witnesses may actually be seeing planes or helicopters rather than drones.

Authorities say they do not know who is behind the drones.

The FBI, Homeland Security and state police are investigating the sightings. Authorities say they don’t know if it is one drone that has been spotted many times or if there are multiple aircraft being flown in a coordinated effort.

Speculation has raged online, with some expressing concerns that the drone or drones could be part of a nefarious plot by foreign agents. Officials stress that ongoing state and federal investigations have found no evidence to support those fears.

Two Republican Jersey Shore-area congressmen, Smith and U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, have called on the military to shoot down the drones, citing safety concerns.

The Pentagon said Wednesday that “our initial assessment here is that these are not drones or activities coming from a foreign entity or adversary.”

The flying of drones for recreational and commercial use is legal in New Jersey, but it is subject to local and Federal Aviation Administration regulations and flight restrictions.

Operators must be FAA certified.

Sightings also have been reported in neighboring New York and Pennsylvania.

Drones were also spotted last month in the U.K. The U.S. Air Force said several small unmanned aircraft were detected near four bases in England that are used by American forces.

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December 12, 2024