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Drone Sightings Raise Questions about National Security

Drone sightings in New Jersey raise questions about security as the government has few answers for a nervous public.

What Happened?

In the past few weeks, a growing number of drone sightings have been reported in New Jersey and New York. It’s raising questions about the origins and purpose of the remotely piloted craft.

The reports have generated an increasing amount of attention on social media.

For example, the Facebook page ‘New Jersey Mystery Drones — Lets Solve It’ now boasts over 40,000 members. A skeptical public is demanding answers from local, state, and federal government authorities.

But so far, officials have provided little in the way of solid information to explain or account for the mysterious sightings.

Why it Matters

The number and type of commercially available drones has exploded in the past decade. It has provided the public with easy access to affordable models which require little or no training to operate.

Most drones contain cameras giving the operators the ability to record high-quality video footage from the air. That’s one of the main reasons consumers choose to purchase them.

Not everyone is convinced the sightings are drones. Speaking to the Associated Press, William Austin, President of Warren County Community College in New Jersey, said he looked at videos of purported drones and that airplanes are being misidentified as drones.

He cited an optical effect called parallax, which is the apparent shift of an object when viewed from different perspectives.

While its possible conventional aircraft could be mistaken for drones, especially at night, a drone’s ability to hover in place and then move quickly from side to side, give them a different flight profile which would be apparent to observers.

Some of the sightings have been near military installations and government facilities. This has raised questions about national security.

Drones have proliferated abroad and are being widely used in Ukraine and in the Israel-Gaza War. So, the potential for a foreign nation to be using drones for surveillance purposes in real.

But despite such possibilities, most military-grade drones used by nation-states can operate at night without any lighting. And the prevalence of lights spotted on the drones in recent weeks suggests they have a commercial and not military origin. 

How it Affects You

Because there are so many affordable drones available for purchase by consumers, it’s far more likely the sightings in New Jersey are the result of consumer drone activity rather than foreign governments or other-worldly aliens.

Yet consumer drones can still pose real risks, especially to commercial aircraft in flight and even to observers on the ground.

Though there haven’t been any drone attacks on U.S. soil to date, the technology required to do so is widely available and within the means of even buyers with a relatively modest budget. The government’s lack of answers and preparedness for increased drone activity remains worrisome.