Drones over New Jersey?

Maybe someone more knowledgeable on the military can help me with something that's been bothering me.

When the Chinese balloon and subsequent balloons were shot down, that was all handled by NORAD. If something was actually going on here, wouldn't NORAD be handling it and not the FBI/local police?
 
Mendel said:
Bad paraphrases all around. From the provided video clip:

was not stated at all

not US military drones, could well be PD/FD/civilian drones (or misidentified aircraft)

said "no evidence", was not "adamant"
Click to expand...

Source: https://x.com/AvirupM42/status/1866925469301375043


What does the Pentagon know?

a) the DoD top has probably asked all units (down the chain of command) "are these our drones" and drawn a blank. So they know for certain these are not US military drones.

b) the DoD has probably asked the intelligence community if they have any leads, and drawn another blank, thus "no evidence of foreign state actors". This could be false if they have leads they don't want to reveal; if so, the President etc. would be briefed and decide.

c) for there to be a foreign mothership off the US coast undetected would be an intelligence failure worse than Pearl Harbor, and for them to reveal this over drone flights, and to reveal it so civilians know but not intelligence, is unthinkable.

d) because the Pentagon doesn't actually have any evidence of the sightings (investigation is in the hands of local law enforcement), they do not know more.

That's what that press briefing means. (Do not listen to Coulthart.)
 
RTM said:
I wonder if there is any evidence that authorities are seeing that is not in the public eye. We had an elected official talk about a coast guard ship being followed. You'd like to think this is based on solid evidence, but as we've seen in recent years outlandish stories can be accepted very easily.
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Would still like one solid and specific report from a responsible person in a specific location looking in a specific direction of something that didn't turn out to be a conventional aircraft.
 
RTM said:
We had an elected official talk about a coast guard ship being followed.
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More specifically, he claimed the they were followed by "12 to 30" of whatever these objects supposedly were.
That seems like a suspiciously broad range. But of course even a single photo (or, god forbid, a video!) could easily confirm such declarations. Instead, this 'elected official' (for some inexplicable reason) holds up a photo of the coast guard boat instead. At least we now know what a boat looks like. :rolleyes:
 
Btek said:
Maybe someone more knowledgeable on the military can help me with something that's been bothering me.

When the Chinese balloon and subsequent balloons were shot down, that was all handled by NORAD. If something was actually going on here, wouldn't NORAD be handling it and not the FBI/local police?
Click to expand...
Yes.
If there was evidence this was a threat to the sovereignty of the United States:
Article:
NORAD Missions
In close collaboration with homeland defense, security, and law enforcement partners, prevent air attacks against North America, safeguard the sovereign airspaces of the United States and Canada by responding to unknown, unwanted, and unauthorized air activity approaching and operating within these airspaces, and provide aerospace and maritime warning for North America.

But since there is no evidence of any foreign involvement, nor evidence of a threat, they're out.
 
Ann K said:
Red and green PIGMENTS make a brownish color. Red and green LIGHTS make a yellow light.
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emb.png
Oops! Er, I mean, I was just making sure you were paying attention. Well done.
 
Mendel said:
Yes.
If there was evidence this was a threat to the sovereignty of the United States:
Article:
NORAD Missions
In close collaboration with homeland defense, security, and law enforcement partners, prevent air attacks against North America, safeguard the sovereign airspaces of the United States and Canada by responding to unknown, unwanted, and unauthorized air activity approaching and operating within these airspaces, and provide aerospace and maritime warning for North America.

But since there is no evidence of any foreign involvement, nor evidence of a threat, they're out.
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Would they not then be involved if the presence of mysterious unknown drones was seriously suspected? I mean, it DOES say "unknown...air activity." If they looked at the evidence and said "it's local folks freaking out over commercial airplanes," then the air activity would no longer be unknown, of course...
 
2snug said:
Anyone seen this video? Has navigation lights but appears to be in a full bank with the left wing pointed up? Is this another airplane from an odd angle or one of the drones?
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That's not in a full bank, although I understand how one might perceive it that way due the camera angle.

For one, a commercial aircraft (which is, in all probability, exactly what that is) could never manage such a maneuver without eventually crashing.

Two, it would seem that it's simply a plane flying almost directly overheard from the person recording. The plane is horizontal (as it should be) and not vertical. It's merely an illusion created by the camera's perspective.
 
Jack Mallory said:
OMFG!!! WTF is happening?!?!
View attachment 74378
12.11.24 | Rep. Van Drew: 'NJ Drones May Be Linked to Iran'

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT0ooXrOww8


MAKE IT STOP! :D Did Steven Greer write this?

I'm going to parse this line by line, idiotic claim by idiotic claim, but only after I take a long breather. LOL
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In fainess to the congressman, I think he's primarily guilty of a poor choice in terminology. "Mothership" is a term that has become synonymous with large UFOs, I'd bet a mental image of that big rascal in "Close Encounters" come/came to mind to many of a certain age when they saw the word.

Had the congressman claimed drones were being flown over his state from an Iranian merchant vessel or warship in international waters off the eastern seaboard, I doubt his claim would have gotten as much attention. Not saying he's right, or even that he was told the story by whoever he claims told him, just that the story is feasible because it's happened before.

Remember drones that buzzed the DDG USS Kidd and other warships off California and the THAAD anti-missile battery on Guam in 2019 were determined to have come from Chinese merchant/spy ships. Why would anyone doubt the Iranians (or other nations) could/would do the samething?

Again, not saying this claim is true. I certainly believe the overwhelming majority of what's being seen/reported over NJ are not even drones, but I don't think the probability off ship-launched drones overflying US territory is zero based on what we know/don't know at this time.
 
Duke said:
Remember drones that buzzed the DDG USS Kidd and other warships off California and the THAAD anti-missile battery on Guam in 2019 were determined to have come from Chinese merchant/spy ships. Why would anyone doubt the Iranians (or other nations) could/would do the samething?
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yeah, but a rusty cargo ship with some drone operators on it isn't a "mothership", nor is it a threat.
 
Mendel said:
yeah, but a rusty cargo ship with some drone operators on it isn't a "mothership", nor is it a threat.
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As I said, "mothership" was a poor choice of words on the congressman's part. What is or will be a threat is speculation at this point, but we know ship-launched drones that buzzed our warships and missile battery were considered threats.
As was the drone the USMC took down over Guam about a year ago, although I don't know if its point of origin has been released by the DoD yet.
 
Mendel said:
What would you have them do that they're not already doing?
If all we have is suspicion but no evidence?
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It's not what I would have them do,I am trying to understand IF they would be involved, if it was believed that unknown large drones were actually flying around NJ. I understood your earlier post to be saying that they would not until a threat was established, as opposed to them being a part of the process of determining whether a threat exists. Perhaps I misunderstood?

Edit to fix weird phone-posting typo.
 
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So is this entire hair-on-fire scenario down to ONE congressman, appearing on Fox News no less, trying to get his name in the paper? He has an interesting history, being elected as a democrat and then becoming a full-blown "the election was stolen!!1!" Trump acolyte.
 
Now there are stuffs of biden admin. What will happened if Trump put that all fox man and woman into its government? Than an minister say:Shoot it down! And than an iranian Boeing 747 hit by missiles. This frights me alot.
 
Nicole Schnaß said:
Now there are stuffs of biden admin. What will happened if Trump put that all fox man and woman into its government? Than a minister say:Shoot it down! And than an iranian Boeing 747 hit by missiles. This frights me alot.
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A LOT of us are frightened by Trump. But it seems more likely that an ordinary American plane will be attacked, if the hysteria around lights in the sky doesn't abate.
 
Duke said:
In fainess to the congressman, I think he's primarily guilty of a poor choice in terminology. "Mothership" is a term that has become synonymous with large UFOs, I'd bet a mental image of that big rascal in "Close Encounters" come/came to mind to many of a certain age when they saw the word.
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I'd say he is guilty of more than that. He's guilty of spreading an unsubstantiated rumor (at best, at worst he's guilty of making it up and lying about it) claiming that there are in fact drones from Iran flying over New Jersey -- this in a climate of looniness where people are goading each other in comments sections of "drone videos" that somebody ought to shoot one down, and at the same time the videos eliciting the comments show normal aircraft flying in and out of local airports. That is extremely irresponsible and dangerous: the poor choices the Congressman are making extend well beyond his choice of words.
 
Mendel said:
I read on the USS Kidd incident and could not find an official source labeling that as a threat.
View attachment 74383
https://www.twz.com/drone-swarms-that-harassed-navy-ships-demystified-in-new-documents

We might use terminology differently, but I'd label those "potential threats" at best.
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The USN considered them enough of a threat they tried to "shoot" them down with specialized ECM kit on a couple separate occasions. I remember reading excerpts of one of warship's log where a counter-drone team ("ghostbusters") deployed aboard engaged the drones with man-portable electronic gizmos.

Getting off topic here, but if anyone is interested I can probably find a source for ghostbusters story.
 
Further proof that we're living in a simulation:
The NBC Evening News just ran a segment on the mystery drones, and they included that now oft-repeated clip of the painfully obvious jet flying overhead. There's no way this can be real life.
(It'll be a few hours until the clip is available to share, but this is just ridiculously irresponsible and childish news work.)
 
Mendel said:
What would you have them do that they're not already doing?
If all we have is suspicion but no evidence?
Click to expand...

The faulty hidden assumption that I think we need to be more considerate of, is that if the behavior or claims made by government agencies were evidence based, then we would be privy to the evidence.

The fact is that we don't have a right to see the evidence. We don't know if their behavior or claims are evidence based or not, we can only speculate. We should remind ourselves that speculative hand-waved conclusions about this all being mass hysteria, isn't skepticism. And when it comes to potentially high risk or high impact situations, this kind of false skepticism can actually be a dangerous and irresponsible mentality to operate by.
 
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beku-mant said:
The faulty hidden assumption that I think we need to be more considerate of, is that if the behavior or claims made by government agencies were evidence based, then we would be privy to the evidence.

The fact is that we don't have a right to see the evidence. We don't know if their behavior or claims are evidence based or not, we can only speculate. We should remind ourselves that speculative hand-waved conclusions about this all being mass hysteria, isn't skepticism. And when it comes to potentially high risk or high impact situations, this kind of false skepticism can actually be a dangerous and irresponsible mentality to operate by.
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I am basing my belief that this is all (or almost all, at least) hysteria and misidentifications of normal aircraft on the evidence that we have. The evidence that we have shows either things that are too far away/to low quality video to tell what is shown, or shows normal aircraft. None of it shows us mystery drones. I don't give any weight one way or another to claims made by the military or anybody else based on evidence that we are not shown.

If New Jersey was swarming with car-sized drones, there'd still be videos of planes and such, people misidentify stiff -- but SOME of the footage would show the car-sized mystery drones. NONE does.

I don't see any way that this approach on our part is dangerous. IF the military or anybody else has better evidence, they can ignore us and act on what they have. (But notice, as far as has been seen so far they are not actively doing anything -- drones are not being chased by jet fighters or shot down -- if they were, all those people out videoing airplanes would be catching that exciting footage, too.) I do see a real danger that continuing hysteria on the topic is going to result in aircraft being fired on by "defend Ameroica, take matters into your own hands, the government is incompetent so WE'LL do it" types that are egging each other on in social media and comments on the videos. Most likely the overwhelming majority of those folks are all talk, and just spouting off to impress each other. But the danger that some of them are not, and might do something stupid based on a story with no substance behind it, is there.
 
JMartJr said:
I am basing my belief that this is all (or almost all, at least) hysteria and misidentifications of normal aircraft on the evidence that we have. The evidence that we have shows either things that are too far away/to low quality video to tell what is shown, or shows normal aircraft. None of it shows us mystery drones. I don't give any weight one way or another to claims made by the military or anybody else based on evidence that we are not shown.

If New Jersey was swarming with car-sized drones, there'd still be videos of planes and such, people misidentify stiff -- but SOME of the footage would show the car-sized mystery drones. NONE does.

I don't see any way that this approach on our part is dangerous. IF the military or anybody else has better evidence, they can ignore us and act on what they have. (But notice, as far as has been seen so far they are not actively doing anything -- drones are not being chased by jet fighters or shot down -- if they were, all those people out videoing airplanes would be catching that exciting footage, too.) I do see a real danger that continuing hysteria on the topic is going to result in aircraft being fired on by "defend Ameroica, take matters into your own hands, the government is incompetent so WE'LL do it" types that are egging each other on in social media and comments on the videos. Most likely the overwhelming majority of those folks are all talk, and just spouting off to impress each other. But the danger that some of them are not, and might do something stupid based on a story with no substance behind it, is there.
Click to expand...
Mass hysteria and misidentifications are expected whether or not there is something more substantial going on, so it isn't very strong evidence for, or against.

If New Jersey was swarming with car-sized drones, there'd
Click to expand...

So logic like this doesn't cover a lot of the reasonable hypothesis space. It can be that some mysterious drones were observed, not only by people but also instruments, and flagged as potential nefarious activity, after diligent investigation, for good reasons. Or maybe not. But, the fact is that we don't have access to any of that information.

But notice, as far as has been seen so far they are not actively doing anything -- drones are not being chased by jet fighters or shot down -- if they were, all those people out videoing airplanes would be catching that exciting footage, too.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I don't know what footage is out there. There may be an argument to be made from what you're describing. But to be convincing, you would need some form of objective systematic process that I could review, so that after some reasonable effort I could tell if what you're saying is probably true or not.

I also don't know what a car sized drone is supposed to look like or behave like. Many drones essentially are planes.

I don't see any way that this approach on our part is dangerous.
Click to expand...

It's not dangerous in isolation by people outside of decision making positions. But if everyone operated with this mentality it'd be dangerous. In security situations, a security mindset is important.
 
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AllTheQuestionsToday said:
... but if--if--they are drones, there does have to be a threshold where folks here would have to admit, "there are drones in the air and seems like the military, FAA and FBI aren't sure whose they are," if the military, FAA and FBI start saying they don't know whose they are, but they do know they are drones.
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Well, during my last deployment to Iraq (2021-22) there were thousands of false reports. Soldiers rotating through guard tower duty would constantly call up fixed-wing Iranian drones flying 500 meters away from their position, but when the big eye was put on target and verified against the radar data, it was a C-130 flying 5 km away. These Soldiers were equipped with both thermo and IR, where trained in range estimation and target identification, and would still call far flying manned aircraft as near flying drones.

I suspect this is at least part of the equation with the current drone scare in New Jersey.
 
Ann K said:
A LOT of us are frightened by Trump. But it seems more likely that an ordinary American plane will be attacked, if the hysteria around lights in the sky doesn't abate.
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I think the "iranian" Boeing 747 is sarcastic. But if this happened under Trump, and "Trump Media" was telling him that these were Iranian drones, would he demand the DoD do some dumb wasteful stuff like scramble some F22s or worst tell his base they have his permission to defend their homes against "Iranian" drones?
 
@beku-mant I'm not sure we're going to have a meeting of the minds on this one! ^_^ I guess we'll watch what happens, see if anybody ever gets any video of mystery drones, or one crashes, or the drone piloting organization comes forward -- or it just fizzles out as people lose interest, as usually happens with flaps. Don't want to keep re-hashing the same points, but do want to circle back to this one:

beku-mant said:
So logic like this doesn't cover a lot of the reasonable hypothesis space. It can be that some mysterious drones were observed, not only by people but also instruments, and flagged as potential nefarious activity, after diligent investigation, for good reasons. Or maybe not. But, the fact is that we don't have access to any of that information.
Click to expand...

We have access to the information that we have: new videos every night. The information we don't have does not matter, we don't have it -- and so can't factor it into our analysis. We CAN analyze what we DO have, the videos. I have seen none that show car-sized mystery drones, just planes and planes and more planes, and a few planets, and now a second consumer drone sighting that is not mysterious (I've lost the video, if I can find it again I'll post it here, it showed two consumer drones playing around over a WalMart.) There are enough videos that, if there was a swarm of giant weird unknown drones, it seems reasonable to expect that some would be captured on video. Of course, I have not seen EVERY video -- if you now of one that supports the Mystery Drones the Size of Cars Hypothesis by showing one as clearly as the planes we are seeing, please share it, I'd be interested in seeing it.

That's my take on it -- I'm going to try and bow out of this unless something new happens. Frankly, the whole situation is depressing and infuriating, at this point. I may not have the will-power, we'll see! ^_^
 
Jack Mallory said:
I've really nothing more to add than what this tweet is expressing, but this might be a fun story to follow.






Source: https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1858723577605873668
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Drones under 258 grams dont require a pilots liscence, im an amateur drone pilot , talking dji mini2 se, and it would be pretty simple for an idiot like me to fly several in unison, and purposely put bright lights on them to make sure they get seen. When they are flying around and are trying to not be seen, they wont be..
hoax , someone with 10 thousand bucks can buy enough of these things to program them to fly together and appear to be "6 foot" 8 dji minis which are under the 258 gram line, can easily be manuevered to look like whatever you want.. that being said... i flew my drone , once in a tiny sliver of a military base no fly zone, the highest level of a no fly zone which is 0ft-to-infinite ft.. and instantly my drone slowed down and i could tell right away it wasnt a flight lane restriction such as 380 ft at my home near a base, and flight lanes...,when i flew over the tiny sliver which i could see on my screen, near dupont, wa ...exit 112 off i -5, it slowed my drown and i couldnt cross this imaginary line, iut basically stopped me and forced me to turn around as i was trying to just get through this sliver " 300 ft or so" wouldnt let me cross that line, had to fly around it, and it stopped me in my tracks .. so, this... has to be a stunt to grab attention,, college kids? they wouldnt want this to be copycatted... is this a start to put an end to the hobbyists who own drones under 500$ with almost no restrictions? hope this dont ruin it for everyone, but i can see this for surely being a start of some new laws. newsnation and corbell and these folks making money on these fake leaks need more revenue? i mean more hits ... clicks whatever! of course i could be wrong
 
Jack Mallory said:
Further proof that we're living in a simulation:
The NBC Evening News just ran a segment on the mystery drones, and they included that now oft-repeated clip of the painfully obvious jet flying overhead. There's no way this can be real life.
(It'll be a few hours until the clip is available to share, but this is just ridiculously irresponsible and childish news work.)
Click to expand...
Here's the clip:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT9rrkYGAUU
 
After the balloons, what's so unbelievable about any one of the many countries out there (not to name one, or any) from flying surveillance drones for even just to see if they can tests or any other test for that matter. I find it not alarming, nor unbelievable that some of these could be that.
 
Jack Mallory said:
Further proof that we're living in a simulation:
The NBC Evening News just ran a segment on the mystery drones, and they included that now oft-repeated clip of the painfully obvious jet flying overhead. There's no way this can be real life.
(It'll be a few hours until the clip is available to share, but this is just ridiculously irresponsible and childish news work.)
Click to expand...
The BBC News website has joined in the reporting of the drone flap this morning, with an article titled "Mystery drones not from Iranian 'mothership' - Pentagon", which unfortunately does not put much in the way of investigation into its reporting.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crrwz91wqd9o

The article includes quotes from Jeff Van Drew, as well as those of the Pentagon Press Secretary.

It also, after the statement from the Pentagon Press Secretary, includes various statements from Dawn Fantasia, in which she's reported as saying that, drones are up to 6ft (1.8m) in diameter, travel with lights turned off and "operate in a co-ordinated manner." Her claims appear to be taken at face value in the article, even though she providees no evidence to support them.

The article falls into the trap of reporting that "Dozens of drones have been spotted across New Jersey in recent weeks..." rather than the more accurate "Dozens of drones have been reported". In doing so, it adds to the to current (mistaken) idea being promulgated, that there is anything more than a lot of misidentified airliners, in the vicinty of 3 very busy airports, plus possibly a much smaller number of un-newsworthy, small private drones.

I've contacted the BBC, suggesting that they take a look at this thread for a more evidence based approach to subject of these "drones".
 
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