They’re as loud as lawnmowers and as big as a large car, only appearing after dark and captured on blurry videos that have gone viral on social media.
And they’ve managed to rattle Americans who don’t expect to see mysterious flying objects in their skies that even the Pentagon cannot explain.
Not since a startlingly realistic 1938 Orson Welles radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds convinced thousands of listeners that a Martian invasion was actually taking place has there been so much concern – and confusion – about unidentified flying objects over the US.
The sightings started over New Jersey nearly a month ago and have since spread to other parts of the US.
Initial confirmations that they were drones reassured the more superstitious that they were not, at least, extra-terrestrial and carrying little green men.
Then, last Thursday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby complicated the picture when he told reporters that images suggested many of the reported sightings were actually of manned aircraft.
The consensus, however, is that America is being buzzed by scores of drones – but who sent them, where from and why remains tantalisingly mysterious.
Critics have urged the US government to say what it knows as soon as possible.’
The sightings started over New Jersey nearly a month ago and have since spread to other parts of the US – pictured are the drones over New Jersey
Swarms of drones have been spotted in the skies of New Jersey for weeks, sparking officials to call for a ‘limited state of emergency’
Mystery drone sightings all over the country,’ Trump complained on social media.
‘Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge? I don’t think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!’
Alarm has been stoked by claims, including from politicians, that one of America’s enemies – China, Russia or Iran – is responsible and may be launching squadrons of the intruders from ships lurking out at sea.
On sites such as Facebook, theories are flying that the craft are alien UFOs which the US government is keeping secret.
Other conspiracists have latched on to a possibly even more outlandish theory — Project Blue Beam, which insists NASA, the US space agency, is attempting, along with global elites, to establish a single world religion led by the Antichrist so they can easily control everyone on the planet.
Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist who has been at Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, and is reportedly advising him on his second White House term, wrote on X: ‘We are f****d.
‘The drones are Project Blue Beam. Look for vids of them transforming from balls of light to planes when filmed to see for yourself.’
The first sightings occurred on November 18 near New Jersey’s Raritan River which feeds into the Round Valley Reservoir, the biggest in the state, some 50 miles from New York City.
Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist who has been at Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, and is reportedly advising him on his second White House term, wrote on X: ‘We are f****d’
Within days, the reports had spread to other parts of New Jersey where officials said they had more than 3,000 calls reporting sightings in just 48 hours.
A New Jersey mayor fuelled the panic after revealing his fire department had been briefed by state officials to wear hazmat suits in case the objects crashed.
Concern grew when some of the craft were spotted near Picatinny Arsenal – a military research facility involved in robotics research.
They were also seen buzzing around important infrastructure such as power lines, railway and police stations, and an emergency communications centre.
The objects were generally larger than those used by amateur drone hobbyists – low-flying and nocturnal.
They often flew in groups and made a loud humming sound, some with rotors, others fixed wings, and were of a sophistication rarely seen outside the military.
The New Jersey sightings prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ban drones from flying over Picatinny Arsenal and another potentially sensitive place where they’d been spotted – Donald Trump’s golf course in the New Jersey town of Bedminister.
The bans were later extended to military facilities in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Even so, state officials and politicians reassured the public that they posed no threat to people. And yet if they were so confident, some asked, why did they not say who was operating them or why?
The Pentagon behind the United States Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Virginia
Local police admitted they were in the dark and one concerned chief officer put out a statement that, though the drones posed no ‘imminent threat’, they appeared to be ‘nefarious in nature’.
Other officers described them as ‘unlike anything we have seen before’, and undetectable on radar.
The FBI has asked people to report all sightings to a tip line. At around the same time in late November, the US Air Force confirmed that unidentified drones were spotted over three US airbases in the UK: RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk and RAF Feltwell in Norfolk.
Soldiers were dispatched to investigate and British defence sources said they suspected these, at least, to be the work of a foreign ‘state actor’.
Earlier this month, drones were also spotted over the huge US airbase at Ramstein in south-western Germany.
Back in the US, unexplained drone sightings have spread beyond New Jersey into neighbouring states such as Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York.
In Maryland, the state’s former Governor, Larry Hogan, claimed he saw ‘dozens’ near his home 25 miles from Washington DC.’
Like many who have observed these drones, I do not know if this increasing activity over our skies is a threat to public safety or national security,’ he said.
A mysterious ‘glowing orb’ seen hovering in skies above New Jersey – where most of the drones have been documented
‘But the public is increasingly concerned and frustrated with the complete lack of transparency and the dismissive attitude of the federal government.’
In New York, there have been unconfirmed reports of drone sightings over La Guardia Airport while another airport 50 miles north of the city had to be closed due to drone activity.
The US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are playing down concerns.
And yet, alarmingly for sceptics, the federal government has been better at saying what the objects aren’t than what they are.
Last week, the Pentagon was forced to deny claims – made by, among others, Jeff Van Drew, a US congressman for New Jersey – that Iran had stationed a ‘hostile mothership’ off the eastern seaboard from which it was now unleashing the drones.
He said: ‘We are not being told the truth. They are treating the American public like we are stupid.’
However, the Pentagon insisted there was ‘no truth’ to the Iranian mothership theory and that its initial assessment was that the drones were not coming from a ‘foreign entity or adversary’.
Given the Pentagon has also said the drones are not operated by the US military, either there are some mischievous amateur drone enthusiasts trying to spook everybody that the aliens have arrived (again) – or the US government is very behind on its assessment of enemy capabilities.
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