For weeks, residents in several states, including California, have reported seeing drone-like objects flying in clusters across the night sky.
Concern over the sightings has reached new heights in recent days, prompting some officials to call for calm.
But there are still many unanswered questions about why people seem to see so many drones and, if this is a rare phenomenon, what is the case?
Here’s what we know.
Authorities downplay concerns
Federal officials said this weekend that multiple drone sightings over New Jersey and other states were “in fact manned aircraft misidentified as drones.”
On Saturday, officials said in a White House statement that there was no evidence that the drones were involved in illegal activity or foreign involvement.
“At this point, we have not identified any basis to believe that there would be any criminal activity involved, that there would be a threat to national security, that there would be any particular threat to public safety or that there is a malicious foreign actor involved in these drones,” a US department said. » said a Homeland Security official during a press briefing.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy urged the public Monday morning to “calm down” and stressed that there was “no evidence of anything nefarious here.”
Murphy declined to elaborate on details of the federal investigation into the sightings, but said there are “very sophisticated systems” that are “staffed with really sophisticated individuals” to understand what’s going on.
New Jersey is the epicenter
Reports of drones in the sky have been increasing for three weeks. New Jersey has been the epicenter of the sightings, along with some neighboring states.
California has seen some reports, but far fewer than on the East Coast.
On Nov. 18, several reports of drones operating at night were made through New Jersey’s suspicious activity reporting system, officials said. The FBI opened an investigation into the sightings two days later.
By December 3, the FBI network had established 800 tip lines to free up 911 call centers that were receiving drone reports. Around 5,000 reports were received via the national reporting line and fewer than 100 leads were deemed worthy of further investigation.
Through visual observation teams throughout New Jersey, FBI officials “determined that all reported sightings of large fixed-wing aircraft involved manned aircraft.” The sightings also appear to match approach patterns at Newark-Liberty, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports.
“This modeling indicates that manned aviation is quite often confused with unmanned aviation or UAS,” they said.
Homeland Security officials said they also “determined that there is no evidence to date of any foreign involvement in sending drones ashore from ships in the region.”
View from Southern California
Southern California residents have also participated in the nationwide wave of drone tracking.
On social media, viral videos from Temecula and Riverside appeared to show groups of bright objects hovering in the sky.
Damon Angel, a music producer from Temecula, posted several videos on Instagram showing what he says are suspicious lights coming from an elevated roadway.
In a later video, he said he hoped his videos of the suspicious drones — which have attracted millions of views online — would help draw attention to the problem. Another video, made by a TikTok user in Riverside, purported to show several unidentified objects in the sky.
FAA recalls drone rules
The Federal Aviation Administration released drone guidelines on Friday that detail their use. “More and more people are using drones, which means more and more people are noticing them in the sky,” the FAA guidelines read.
The FAA emphasized that it is legal to fly a drone in most places in the United States, day or night, as long as they stay below 400 feet, avoid other aircraft and do not present any danger to people or property.
Two temporary flight restrictions have been put in place for Picatinny Arsenal, a military base in New Jersey, and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The Picatinny Arsenal restriction extends 2 nautical miles and 2,000 feet and will expire on December 26. Trump’s golf course restriction has a 1 nautical mile, 1,000 foot restriction that expires on December 20.
Murphy and New York Governor Kathy Hochul urged Congress to pass the Anti-UAS Safety, Security, and Authorities Reauthorization Act, which would renew federal authority to investigate and track drones and give authorities state authority to create their own drone mitigation program.
