Drones over New Jersey?

I don't really get it.
Maybe I'm missing something.

Yes, there were drones.
Yes, they were cleared by the FAA.

My questions are:
Specifically, what were these drones doing? What was their purpose?
Should we expect to see drones over populated areas in the future?
 
Leekster said:
I don't really get it.
Maybe I'm missing something.

Yes, there were drones.
Yes, they were cleared by the FAA.

My questions are:
Specifically, what were these drones doing? What was their purpose?
Should we expect to see drones over populated areas in the future?
Click to expand...
You are missing that most of the sightings were planes, because Trump (if it was even him) didn't include that bit.

Any drones seen were just doing the normal things that drones do anywhere in the world.

There's no indication of any mysterious drones. Just a few normal drones and a lot of misidentification.
 
Leekster said:
I don't really get it.
Maybe I'm missing something.

Yes, there were drones.
Yes, they were cleared by the FAA.

My questions are:
Specifically, what were these drones doing? What was their purpose?
Should we expect to see drones over populated areas in the future?
Click to expand...
External Quote:
".....the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/lea...authorized-faa-white-house/story?id=118187426

That means there were test/flight plans and reports. Hopefully Greenewald is making a FOIA request for these and other documents.
 
Mick West said:
This is what ChatGPT makes of the the first 500 posts in this thread:

External Quote:

Briefing on Unexplained Drone Activity Over New Jersey

Key Findings

  • Multiple reports emerged of large, unauthorized drones flying over Morris County, NJ, on November 18, 2024.
  • Law enforcement and military assets, including a Black Hawk helicopter, were reportedly tracking them.
  • Some claims escalated to suggest 30-40 drones near highways and military research facilities.
  • No conclusive video or photographic evidence confirms the presence of multiple large drones.
  • Many sightings appear to be misidentified commercial aircraft or celestial objects (Venus, Jupiter).
  • A local journalist misidentified planes as drones, spreading misinformation.
  • No confirmed security threat, but further monitoring is warranted.

Assessment

The available evidence does not support claims of a coordinated drone operation or foreign involvement. Most reports likely stem from misidentifications and social media amplification rather than confirmed hostile activity.
Click to expand...

That's not bad. It's pretty good, considering some of the things I've gotten with ChatGPT. Of course, there is always the old adage of "garbage in, garbage out" or in this case "logical, evidence-based ideas in, logical evidence-based conclusions out", or something like that.

Would other AIs give slightly different answers? I remember a few weeks ago, the automatic AI on the Bing search engine gave me what I was asking for, even though it was wrong. I searched emergency landings near Ft. Lauderdale on a certain date in December of last year. It came back with an emergency landing in that area on that date, but when I checked the source, it was a different date. The AI simply combined the date I asked about with an emergency landing a year previous in a different month in the area I asked about. It gave me what I specifically wanted but was wrong.

Can an AI be prompted to read through a Metabunk thread like this one, to show it's all disinformation?
 
Duke said:
External Quote:
".....the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/lea...authorized-faa-white-house/story?id=118187426

That means there were test/flight plans and reports. Hopefully Greenewald is making a FOIA request for these and other documents.
Click to expand...
Does it, though?
Most drones are "authorized by the FAA" implicitly if the pilot has taken a test, and they keep to designated airspaces. That's the "various other reasons". The FAA also routinely issues exceptions for a number of reasons (e.g. for a roof inspection near a major airport). FOIAing these will involve a lot of redacted adresses and make for boring reading.

The press statement is worded for the maximum amount of "there's a secret here" that could be truthfully stated. That doesn't mean the "secret" is actually exciting.
 
jarlrmai said:
The WH now not mentioning misidentified planes as making up a majority of sightings/videos (or at all) seems like it was a very short-sighted attempt just to try and placate people that these were just drones as they thought, so they now may feel vindicated even though almost all sightings were just mis-identified commercial and private air traffic.

This then further implies they were FAA approved drones means that people will want answers about them, but there are no FAA answers to give because there were never any large number of drones, they are overwhelmingly planes.

Does the FAA not make statements?
Click to expand...
Well, so many reports were so vague on details no one could authoritatively say what all the sightings were. There's no catalog with DTLs. (Though every case with details has pretty much been identified.)
 
NorCal Dave said:
That's not bad. It's pretty good, considering some of the things I've gotten with ChatGPT. Of course, there is always the old adage of "garbage in, garbage out" or in this case "logical, evidence-based ideas in, logical evidence-based conclusions out", or something like that.

Would other AIs give slightly different answers? I remember a few weeks ago, the automatic AI on the Bing search engine gave me what I was asking for, even though it was wrong. I searched emergency landings near Ft. Lauderdale on a certain date in December of last year. It came back with an emergency landing in that area on that date, but when I checked the source, it was a different date. The AI simply combined the date I asked about with an emergency landing a year previous in a different month in the area I asked about. It gave me what I specifically wanted but was wrong.

Can an AI be prompted to read through a Metabunk thread like this one, to show it's all disinformation?
Click to expand...
I have just tried to have this thread summarised by NoteGPT. Websites are explicitly on the list, but I got the error message: 'Can not extract HTML'. I have no idea what the problem is here.
 
@TEEJ
"Drones are flying". Even if they are all drones and not ordinary aircraft, is that supposed to be either surprising or alarming? I don't know the number of NJ residents who got a hobby drone for Christmas, but I think it would be more surprising if the governor never saw a drone.

External Quote:
As of 2024, the Federal Aviation Administration(FAA) in the United States registered 855,860 drones.
https://www.coolest-gadgets.com/drones-statistics/
 
Ryan Graves on a podcast last week said that drones over the US East Coast are using advanced evasion technology beyond the state-of-the-art, and that's why the police, FAA, and military are unable to find them. It's not clear what drone sightings he is specifically referring to, or what specific detection mechanisms were deployed and failed in those cases. In the same clip he says he believes a lot of the drone sightings are misidentifications. It is unclear how he is determining which ones are misidentifications and which ones aren't. He refers to the alleged drone sightings near Langley AFB as being credible and potentially related to the 2013 (and continuing to now) UAP sightings experienced by people stationed at the same Navy base he was. But it's not clear how the Langley AFB drone sightings, if they were indeed drones, were as numerous and frequent as alleged, were indeed violating airspace laws, and were indeed not possible to trace back to their pilot/origin, are related to the mass reporting of alleged drones all over the US in the last two months, which he acknowledges include a lot of misidentifications.

External Quote:
They are having a very difficult time detecting these on radar, on infrared. They are not having luck determining a source location based off of RF transmissions, so, you know, whoever is operating these seems to be exhibiting, you know, technology of a different form, right.
We'd have to assume that these are very sophisticated unmanned systems that are utilizing advanced signal management that's defeating multi-band detection systems. So again, is that a criminal activity, doing that? Is that coming from phantom ships? You know, those don't seem very likely when you kind of add up all those pieces, and I think that's where it leaves us with this big question mark. You know, I don't think we can rule out an adversary at this point, necessarily. We certainly can rule in a lot of misidentification once the media picked it up. But you know, where does that leave us with the ones that you know don't fit that bill. And we don't have that answer yet. I think it's premature to make the assumption that because we can't identify them, they must be quote unquote 'aliens', but you know they are fitting this category of exhibiting advanced capabilities beyond a state-of-the-art, and, you know, very much fit the bill of a UAP.
And you know so I think it's important to remember that you know this started in 2022 at Langley Air Force Base. Happened again in 2023 at Langley Air Force Base, same time period. And Langley Air Force Base is, you know, essentially the Air Force equivalent of the base I was operating at. It's only separated by about 100 miles, which is basically nothing in the air. So this is like an adjacent sister airspace to where we were having all these incidents from 2013ish to even today. So, can we tie them together? You know it's.. I don't think we can definitively make that statement right now but you know that's what adds to I think the mysteriousness of this event that's occurring. It's you know it's happened over years, it's been adjacent to areas that have had reports of this for nearly a decade, if not longer, and we're still no closer, it seems, to understanding what they are.
Source:

Source: https://x.com/UAPJames/status/1883203889887084938
 
NoParty said:
I want you to trademark that phrase, so you can collect each time they use it... :p
Click to expand...
I keep meaning to add:
Like most of us, I sometimes raise an embarrassed eyebrow at what videos YouTube feeds me!
"What kind of loser (based on my previous viewing) do they think I am?!?"

I have a weakness for "justice porn," & YouTube sends me lots of vids of so-called "sovereign citizens"
either being arrested roadside or losing spectacularly in a courtroom. And two phrases come up
in almost every video (sometimes 20x):
"I've done nothing wrong!" routinely screamed by people currently doing something wrong. And:
"I know my rights!!" which is almost always screamed by someone who literally has no clue at all
what rights they do and don't have.
I have plenty of issues with law enforcement (I haven't always been the angel I am now) ;P
but I'm absolutely fascinated at how these people seem to have no idea that the system has heard
their script before ("I'm not driving, I'm traveling!") and is not impressed that someone believes they
are above the law, based on some magical phrases they learned on a website. :rolleyes:
 
deirdre said:
add
Article: Just minutes after returning to the Oval Office on January 20, Trump was asked again about the drones, prompting him to direct his Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, to investigate the situation.

"I would like to find out what it is and tell the people," Trump said. "In fact, I'd like to do that. Can we find out what that was, Susie?" Source: https://thedebrief.org/white-house-issues-statement-on-mystery-drones-that-leaves-more-questions-than-answers/
Click to expand...

Did we ever hear back from the President or his Chief of Staff on this?
 
JMartJr said:
Did we ever hear back from the President or his Chief of Staff on this?
Click to expand...
you mean besides the Press Secretary statement linked in the comment i was responding to?

i havent seen anything new, but i havent expected to see anything new . They were asked about drones, and told us about the drones. Ask the twitter UFO crowd, they would know better than i.
 
They made an announcement that was misleading at best about the drones being FAA approved, but failed to mention that almost all sightings were almost all misidentified normal aircraft traffic, planes and helicopters as per the previous announcement.

So it's only led to more confusion as it appears to reinforce the belief that they were actual drones
 
jarlrmai said:
but failed to mention that almost all sightings were almost all misidentified normal aircraft traffic, planes and helicopters as per the previous announcement.
Click to expand...
where does it say that in the "previous announcement", can you link and quote it?
 
deirdre said:
where does it say that in the "previous announcement", can you link and quote it?
Click to expand...
https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/dhs-fb...ent-ongoing-response-reported-drone-sightings

External Quote:
Having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones. We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast.
Also this, 5 days earlier: https://www.dhs.gov/archive/news/2024/12/12/joint-dhsfbi-statement-reports-drones-new-jersey

External Quote:
Historically, we have experienced cases of mistaken identity, where reported drones are, in fact, manned aircraft or facilities. We are supporting local law enforcement in New Jersey with numerous detection methods but have not corroborated any of the reported visual sightings with electronic detection. To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft, operating lawfully. There are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted air space.
 
deirdre said:
where does it say that in the "previous announcement", can you link and quote it?
Click to expand...
This maybe?

External Quote:
Having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones. We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/dr...and-other-professionals-say.13869/post-331499
 
MonkeeSage said:
This maybe?

External Quote:
Having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones. We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/dr...and-other-professionals-say.13869/post-331499
Click to expand...
that doesnt say "almost all sightings were almost all misidentified normal aircraft traffic, planes and helicopters".

i know MB say that and maybe almost all the sightings MB chose to investigate HERE were planes or helicopters, but from the administration point of view (Biden or Trump) i dont see how they would have anyway of knowing that.. ergo how can they be being misleading?
 
deirdre said:
that doesnt say "almost all sightings were almost all misidentified normal aircraft traffic, planes and helicopters".

i know MB say that and maybe almost all the sightings MB chose to investigate HERE were planes or helicopters, but from the administration point of view (Biden or Trump) i dont see how they would have anyway of knowing that.. ergo how can they be being misleading?
Click to expand...
That's fair, that statement at least acknowledges them as a part of it.
 
Last edited:
deirdre said:
i know MB say that and maybe almost all the sightings MB chose to investigate HERE were planes or helicopters, but from the administration point of view (Biden or Trump) i dont see how they would have anyway of knowing that.
Click to expand...
To establish whether these sightings were predominantly conventional aircraft or drones, it would be useful to collect all the video clips published on social media during this period, and attempt to discriminate between the ones which show conventional aircraft and the ones which show actual drones (as well as the clips which show Venus and other celestial objects, and those which show illuminated LED kites). This would be a considerable task, and would not really have a particularly useful answer.

However it seems to me that the number of video clips of this type that actually show real drones of any kind are very few and far between, whereas the number that show misidentified planes are legion. This is just my subjective opinion; maybe other members have a different view.
 
Eburacum said:
To establish whether these sightings were predominantly conventional aircraft or drones, it would be useful to collect all the video clips published on social media during this period, and attempt to discriminate between the ones which show conventional aircraft and the ones which show actual drones (as well as the clips which show Venus and other celestial objects, and those which show illuminated LED kites). This would be a considerable task, and would not really have a particularly useful answer.

However it seems to me that the number of video clips of this type that actually show real drones of any kind are very few and far between, whereas the number that show misidentified planes are legion. This is just my subjective opinion; maybe other members have a different view.
Click to expand...
The field of interest is also contaminated by hoaxers -- people flying their own drones in odd ways and recording them, people knowingly recording aircraft for lolz, people posting other people's footage in misleading ways, and people doing CGI. So we know most of those "reports" can't be positively identified as conventional aircraft and drones.

(I think it was NBC that credulously ran footage of iceman_fox1's rendering of a TIE Defender flying over New Jersey on their nightly news -- though the creator didn't claim it was real, someone else reposted it for internet points.)

But I think we can argue that no one has yet presented any substantial footage with complete date-time-location information that shows anything particularly unusual, let a lone a mass of incidents.
 
A plausible explanation for why drones might be framed as a larger culprit, is that some reports received by officials that lacked data could have been simply dismissed as drones purely because their description made them sound like so while also not doing anything worth noting.

If I received a report of someone complaining about "a drone-like object with red/green lights" flying near their house which is nowhere special and not doing anything in particular, then unless I put effort into simulating if a plane could have been the cause of the mistake, I would just chalk it down to them just seeing a drone which would likely have been operating legally.

Outside of that, I do recall having seen one or two videos of actual drones floating around on reddit, but I agree that given how most videos shared have been manned craft, it stands to reason that most civilian reports the authorities received likely followed a similar distribution.
 
Before this particular panic, I don't remember folks being particularly alarmed by drones.
Many of us have them. I use mine to get photography shots I couldn't otherwise get. Often of campsites.

But in the Jersey case, there were claims of car-sized drones, :oops: in huge numbers, :eek: in places
they probably shouldn't be. :( That's what made this a panic. And I admit that'd get my attention, too.

Of course zero evidence of that ever materialized...
but in the wake of all the stupidity, it seems like now many are considering any drone...
even the tiny 249g ones, somehow newly scary. Grrrrrr.
 
Last edited:
Please don't think that drones can be ignored as a threat or as a source of unidentified aerial phenomena. I think we are only at the start of a drone-filled future, one which will have consequences for us all, for good or ill.

But it seems very likely that the recent sightings are just a panic-fuelled flap.
 
Mendel said:
Compare (source: avherald.com):
Click to expand...
Guess what caused today's incident in New Jersey:
• a drone,
• a UAP,
• birds,
• a coyote?
Article:
fedex_b763_n178fe_newark_250301_1.jpg

Answer: The crew reported it was birds.
 
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