Strange drones: “Shoot them down!” demands Trump

What’s that buzz in New Jersey? It’s unclear whether they’re drones or something else, but what’s certain is that the nighttime sightings are generating a lot of conversation, a slew of conspiracy theories, and craned necks.

The rumor of the drones spotted over New Jersey reached incredible proportions on local news and social media around Thanksgiving.

This week, a new, highly publicized chapter in the saga began: Lawmakers are demanding explanations from federal and state authorities about the background to the drones. Gov. Phil Murphy wrote to President Joe Biden asking for answers. New Jersey Senator Andy Kim spent Thursday night on a drone hunt in rural northern New Jersey and reported on it on X.

But perhaps the most fantastic development is the dizzying proliferation of conspiracy theories – none of which have been officially confirmed. It has become commonplace to refer to the flying machines as drones, but the question arises as to whether what people are seeing are really unmanned aircraft or something else entirely.

Some suspect the drones came from an Iranian ship. Others believe it is the Secret Service securing President-elect Donald Trump‘s Bedminster estate. Others worry about China. The “deep state”. And so forth.

Faced with uncertainty, people did what they do in 2024: They created a social media group.

The Facebook page “New Jersey Mystery Drones – let’s solve it” has almost 44,000 members. People post their photo and video sightings, and online commenters do the rest.

A video shows a whitish light flashing across a darkened sky, and one commentator concludes that it is something extraterrestrial. “They are bullets,” the person says. Others think it is an airplane or perhaps a satellite. Another group called for hunting down the drones and shooting them like turkeys. (Don’t 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 posted photos online for the first time last month and wondered what the objects were. When she saw them moving and when her son showed her on a flight monitor site that there were no planes nearby, she was convinced they were drones. Now it’s stuck to the side of Mystery Drones,” she said.

“Instead of doing Christmas shopping or cleaning my house, I look at the site,” she says.

She doesn’t believe the governor that the drones don’t pose a risk to public safety. Murphy told Biden on Friday that residents need answers. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said in a joint statement that they had no evidence that the sightings posed a threat to national or public safety or were foreign-related.

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

Additionally, people could misunderstand what they see. William Austin is the president of Warren County Community College, which offers a drone technology degree program and happens to be in one of the sighting areas.

Austin says he watched videos of alleged drones and noticed that planes were being misidentified as drones. He referred to an optical effect called parallax, that is. the apparent displacement 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 are seeing.

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

“It’s typical of the United States of America in 2024,” Austin said. “We have lost trust in our institutions.”

Federal officials share Austin’s view that many of the sightings involve piloted aircraft such as planes and helicopters that are being mistaken for drones. However, that’s not entirely convincing to many who follow the sightings beyond just New Jersey and the East Coast, where others have seen the objects.

For Seph Divine, 34, another member of the drone hunter group who lives in Eugene, Oregon, it feels like it’s up to citizen detectives to solve the mystery. He says he tries to be a voice of reason by encouraging people to verify their information while also asking probing questions.

“My main goal is that people don’t fall into hysteria, but also that they don’t just ignore the matter,” he said. “Whether it’s a foreign military, a secret access program or something else, whatever it is, I’m just saying it’s disturbing that this is happening so suddenly and so continuously over hours,” he added.

Recently, even the future president got involved. “Mysterious drone sightings across the country. Can this really happen without the knowledge of our government? I don’t believe that,” wrote Donald Trump on the platform he co-founded, Truth Social. “Inform the public, immediately. Otherwise she’ll shoot!”