On December 12, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security jointly issued a statement on reported drone sightings in New Jersey.
The statement raises questions about what was being observed, and indicates that there is “no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus. The FBI, DHS and our federal partners, in close coordination with the New Jersey State Police, continue to deploy personnel and technology to investigate this situation and confirm whether the reported drone flights are actually drones or are instead manned aircraft or otherwise inaccurate sightings.
“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.
“We take seriously the threat that can be posed by unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), which is why law enforcement and other agencies continue to support New Jersey and investigate the reports. To be clear, they have uncovered no such malicious activity or intent at this stage. While there is no known malicious activity occurring in New Jersey, the reported sightings there do, however, highlight the insufficiency of current authorities.”
The reported drone sightings in New Jersey are happening in the midst of the Department of Defense announcing its unified counter-UAS strategy (CUAS) and Anduril Industries’ partnering with OpenAI to advance CUAS capabilities using its AI algorithms. Apart from the actual risk of unauthorized UAS activity in the northeast near critical infrastructure and sensitive locations, public perception of drones is a critical component of adoption of advanced air mobility.
