Drone fever is sweeping New Jersey, as new data shows residents have reported more than 1,000 sightings of the flying objects across the state in less than a month.
Some 964 incidents have been logged in total since the first sighting on November 19 up until December 13, according to statistics collected by the state’s Office of Emergency Management and shared with the New York Post.
Yet despite the startling volume of apparent sightings – which have prompted locals to shoot into the sky and even sparked the closure of an airport in neighboring New York – officials are yet to provide answers about who or what is behind the drones.
As the flashing objects continue to circle the skies above New Jersey and beyond, theories about the source have proliferated in the homes of lawmakers and residents below – from Project Blue Beam to foreign conspiracies.
Iran
New Jersey lawmaker Jeff Van Drew made the stunning claim this week that Iran could be behind the mysterious drones.
The Republican told Fox News the Middle East power had launched a ‘mothership’ stationed off the Garden State coast.
‘These are from high sources,’ he claimed. ‘I don’t say this lightly.’ He then added the drones should be ‘shot down’ – something which is illegal under federal law and can be punished with up to 20 years in prison.
However, the Pentagon promptly cast this theory out – saying there is no evidence the drones are the work of an adversary and denied there’s an Iranian ‘mothership’ lurking off the US coast.
Russia
White House officials have long noted how Russia and Iran collaborate on military drone development, and Russia is also high on the list of foreign adversaries experts have speculated could be behind the latest flurry of activity over New Jersey.
Intelligence analysts have hypothesized that the Kremlin could have sent the drones to the East Coast as part of a mission linked to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Retired police lieutenant and intelligence analyst Tim McMillan told DailyMail.com suspicions were raised due to the location of many sightings – Picatinny Arsenal, a major plant which manufactures ammunition supplied to Ukraine.
Lt McMillan also noted that descriptions of the flying objects ‘sound exactly like Russian Orlan-10 drones’ — secretive craft which fly in packs of three to five.
Meanwhile, US Army general Darryl Williams said the situation mirrors what has unfolded at American/NATO bases across Europe which are also are known to supply arms to Ukraine.
Pictured: Picatinny Arsenal’s Commanding Major General John Reim welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before a tour of the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant on Sept 2024. Picatinny’s role supplying ammo to Ukraine may explain the mystery drones over NJ
Other foreign powers
Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at conservative think tank the Gatestone Institute and an expert on Chinese affairs, said the drones are likely a result of foreign powers spying on the US.
He said the drones appeared to be highly sophisticated and so were not being controlled by amateurs.
‘These activities are too large and well-organized to be the work of hobbyists,’ Chang told Fox Business on Saturday.
‘That leaves foreign powers. It could be Iran in connection with China, but clearly, somebody is trying to divert our attention.’
Chang suggested that while the drones themselves are unsettling, he was more troubled by the fact that they could be a distraction for a far greater threat.
‘What really worries me is what they might be doing elsewhere. We could very well get hit,’ he told Fox.
Project Blue Beam
Social media has gone wild with conspiracy theorists insisting the alleged drones are connected with a chilling government plot.
Trump-supporting actress Roseanne Barr was among those touting the Project Blue Beam theory, which claims global elites are planning to use advanced technology to stage celestial events in order to manipulate the world’s population.
‘Now you see why I mention Project Blue Beam every week on my podcast…..,’ the 72-year-old wrote on X.
The theory dates back to the 1990s, but it recently found traction again online as commentators such as Barr claim that the US government could stage an alien invasion as a pretext for imposing authoritarian rule.
An inside job
Others have also espoused the idea that the Biden Administration could be behind the drone activity, given its refusal to provide reassuring answers amid the mounting crisis.
Former CIA operations officer Laura Ballman revealed her chilling theory that the drones lighting up multi-state skies may be a ‘classified exercise.’
She told Fox News Live that the drone sightings are ‘extremely unsettling,’ and shared her theory that they may be part of a technology ‘test,’ orchestrated by the federal government.
Ballman said: ‘Now in terms of who is behind this, seeing the statements that have been made by John Kirby, who has said that these objects are not operating illegally.
‘Coupled with the several op-eds that have been out there in the last 24 hours about the need to look at our detection systems, [it] makes me think perhaps this is actually a classified exercise to test either evasion technology or detection technology in urban areas.’
Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland, who said he recently witnessed ‘what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky’ above his home for about 45 minutes, questioned why the government seemed unwilling to do anything about it.
Airing his grievances to the Financial Times, Dodd said: ‘We could shoot a missile down 5,000 miles away, but we can’t determine where these drones are originating from?’
Dodd said he was left ‘frustrated’ by the ‘scant information on a serious issue’, and blasted the ‘complete lack of transparency and the dismissive attitude of the federal government’ in an X post.
Hobbyists
Americans have speculated that the airborne phenomenon could simply be amateur hobbyists trolling residents with drones – though military experts have said the aircraft appear too sophisticated for this to be the case.
Celebrity podcaster Joe Rogan also echoed the theory that it could be young bored men ‘f***ing’ with people for fun.
‘This is what the kids call “sus,”‘ Rogan posted to X.com, then floated his own theory.
‘I want to believe it’s adderalled-up incels holed up in a basement f****** with “the man” more than I want it to be aliens,’ Rogan joked. ‘#iwanttobelieve.’
Long a trusted source for interviews with investigative journalists who cover UFOs, military witnesses and government whistleblowers, Rogan garnered over 1.8 million views for the X post on the ongoing drone crisis.
Celebrity podcaster Joe Rogan (above) posted video of the White House’s national security spokesperson John Kirby telling reporters that New Jersey’s mystery drones posed no ‘national security or public safety threat.’ Rogan said: ‘This is what the kids call “sus”‘
There are no drones
White House National Security spokesman John Kirby has said the aircraft are not foreign – and they may not even be drones.
‘We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat or have a foreign nexus,’ Kirby told reporters on Thursday.
‘The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are investigating these sightings, and they’re working closely with the state and local law enforcement to provide resources using numerous detection methods to better understand their origin,’ Kirby said.
He said the agencies used ‘very sophisticated electronic detection technologies’ but ‘have not been able to – and neither state or local law enforcement – corroborate any of the reported visual sightings.’
‘To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft being operated lawfully,’ he said, denying the aircraft were even drones.
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