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Game of Drones: “Watch the Skies!”

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

“As you all know, you just can’t believe everything you see and hear, can you?” –Jimi Hendrix, EXP

“Never believe anything until it is officially denied.” —Anonymous

New Jersey (“The Garden State”) has since mid-November been the site of a rash of drone sightings[1]. Here is a handy map:

That’s rather a lot of sitings, and in a short space of time. The drone story — and the intense local reaction — finally bubbled up this week to the opinion havers (Spectator, “What should we believe about New Jersey’s drones?“; The Atlantic, “What’s Going On With Those Drones Over New Jersey?“) and the What-We-Knowers (CNN, “What we know about the mysterious drones reported over the East Coast“; BBC, “What we know about the mysterious drones buzzing over New Jersey“; Associated Press, “Mystery drone sightings keep happening in New Jersey. Here’s what we know (and don’t know)”). As you can see, the drones are a complete “mystery” which, I suppose, makes it worthwhile to cover the story. Anyhow, who doesn’t like a good yarn about drones, or UFOs, or UAPs, or whatever they are?

In this essay, I will first outline the early sightings in New Jersey (i.e., before everybody and their siblings got into the act). I will then present the four most reasonable theories of the case that I have encountered, followed by the official reactions, unaddressed puzzle pieces, the usual suspects (like aliens), and conclude.

The Sightings Begin

USA Today provides an excellent drone sightings timeline, from which I excerpt five events:

Nov 18:

Witness accounts begin spotting several large drones in New Jersey measuring around 6 feet in diameter at night usually between dusk to 11 p.m, according to the Asbury Park Press…

The Morris County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey says patrolmen from law enforcement spotted the drones. The prosecutor’s office says the several agencies, including federal and state law enforcement partners, would “coordinate, monitor, and investigate the drone activity.”

Nov 22:

The FAA issues the first of two temporary flight restrictions prohibiting drones over the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey through Dec. 6. A second one was later issued on Dec. 4, extending the restriction through Dec. 20. The FAA told USA TODAY the move came “at the request of federal security partners.”

Nov. 25:

The FAA issues a temporary flight restriction over the Picatinny Arsenal Military Base in Morris County, New Jersey effective through Dec. 26.

Nov 26:

A medevac helicopter is prevented from picking up an injured car crash victim at the Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg, New Jersey, because drones were spotted in the area, a school spokesperson told USA TODAY on Dec. 4.

Dec 11:

A New Jersey closed-door briefing about the drones is held at State Police headquarters, where lawmakers are told that investigators have been unable to electronically detect the drones despite the frequent sightings.

November 18: Here is the Morris County Prosecutor Office’s statement from their Facebook account:

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November 26: Here is the episode of the Medevac helicopter, from NJ.com:

[A] medevac helicopter was unable to pick up a seriously injured patient last week due to drones hovering near the landing zone, a security official said.

The medical helicopter was headed to an accident in Branchburg Township in Somerset County on Nov. 26, local officials said.

Two security guards from Raritan Valley Community College closed roads around the scene of the crash, in preparation for the medevac to land and take an accident victim to the hospital, said Brian Serge, supervisor of security at the public college.

The captain of the fire department contacted the college’s security office at 6:54 p.m., canceling the request for a helicopter landing zone due to drones flying in the area, Serge said.

‘We never found out what the actual drones were,’ Serge said. ‘It’s kind of a mystery. We were asking around about that, but nobody knew anything.’

Some of the reporting on this story calls the medevac drone “SUV-sized,” and that some drones are big is supported by other sources (here, here, here). Whether this particular drone was SUV-sized is not clear to me, although it seems likely: “State Police later confirmed the landing zone was moved to a different location due to the ‘due to the presence of unmanned aircraft in the immediate area.'” Typically, one would not call a normal-sized drone an “aircraft,” let alone a hobbyist’s drone[2]. I focus on this episode because it seems to have the best potential witnesses. It should not be that hard to run down what the unnamed captain of the fire department detected, although (see below) “nobody knew anything” does seem a little odd.

December 11: Here New Jersey State Represenative Dawn Fantasia (!!) summarizes the state of play after the state police briefing:

tl;dr: “We know nothing.” Seems odd. Especially given the possibility of serious injury or death due to the diversion of a medevac helicopter; after all, the possibility of cerebral hypoxia following an automobile accident is why we have medical helicopters.

Now let’s look at some theories.

Theory: What drones?

From Andrew McCarthy (the astrophotographer, not the National Review legal affairs columnist):

And:

For example:

See reader-added context (1):

See reader-added context (2):

So, in strong form, there are no drones. All the sightings are planes (or planets). However, I don’t think McCarthy gives an account of the SUV-sized drones. In weaker form: I haven’t done serious investigation, but from the coverage, it seems to me that the SUV-sized drones are early in the coverage, and the bright lights in the sky drones are later; those are all planes.

Theory: Testing at Picatinny Arsenal

Picatinny Arsenal, NJ (“Joint Center of Excellence in Lethality“) does develop drones. There are two NOTAMs up in New Jersey, one for Picatinny Arsenal on November 25:

(A NOTAM, says the FAA, is a Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs), a notice containing information essential to personnel concerned with flight operations but not known far enough in advance to be publicized by other means.”) Here is the full version of the NOTAM:

So, the theory is that the drone are coming from Picatinny Arsenal drone testing. But I don’t think that matches the timeline, where we have the first burst of official actiity on November 18, and the NOTAM following a week after. Indeed, it seems more likely that Picatinny Arsenal got the NOTAM issued to protect its own airspace from the myterious drones, whose source it did not, for some reason, know.

Theory: A Search for Radioactive Material

The drones could be HPGe (High Purity Germanium) drones (strong form) searching for a dirty bomb, or (weak form) practicing such a search:

HPGe drones are indeed large. From Applied Radiation and Isotopes (2023): “[A] spectrometric monitoring system based on High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector carried by powerful unmanned helicopter has been developed. The presented unmanned aerial spectrometric system is reliable and heavy-duty.” And: “High payload capacity – Total weight of the detector and the holder is approx. 20 kg. (There are a “cryocooler” involved, but I can’t find its weight.) This theory is why I harped on SUV-sized drones. From Popular Science:

“When you see something of this capacity, you wonder why it would be needed [and] what they are doing. It implies a heavy payload,” retired four-star general Barry McCaffrey told NBC News on December 8th.

This theory explains why. Here is a drone manufacturer supporting this theory, in addition arguing that drones flying close to the ground[3] supports the idea of a search for radiation:

Since an actual search for a dirty bomb is the worst case scenario, I’ll place Walter Kirn’s delphic utterance here:

So, I have to say that this theory looks like the best one, based on the facts presented so far. It gives an account of the size, the low-to-the-ground flights, and of course (whether strong or weak form) the secrecy. It would sure be nice if we knew whether any of the SUV-sized drones had cryocoolers and horn antennas hanging off ’em, especially in the Raritan Valley Community College incident.

Theory: A “Classified Exercise”

From the New York Post, “Ex-CIA staffer offers ‘unsettling’ theory behind drones as feds dismiss concerns as ‘overreaction'”:

Former [ha ha] CIA operations officer Laura Ballman pressed the federal government to be more transparent about the mysterious drone sightings, theorizing that the disturbing phenomena might be part of a “classified exercise” mounted by the Biden Administration, during an interview with Fox News Live on Saturday.

“Now in terms of who is behind this, deducing the statements that have been made by John Kirby, who has said that these objects are not operating illegally coupled with the several op-eds that have been [planted] out the last 24 hours about the need to look at our detection systems, makes me think, perhaps, this is actually a classified exercise to test either evasion technology or detection technology in urban areas,” Ballman said.

(The Daily Mail has the same story.)

So, “detect” what? Well, see above. This looks to me like a modified limited hangout, based on “A Search for Radioactive Material” (weak form). I can’t imagine officialdom will take Ballman up on this; public opinion would, I think, immediately convert the weak form in the strong form, and rapidly depopulate the New York area. Best, I think, to gut it out and then bury it, as so much else has been buried.

The Official Reactions

From the U.S. Department of Defense:

During an on-background telephone call today, officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration and the Joint Staff provided comment and answered questions from reporters about the drone sightings.

Right now, the FBI, DHS, FAA and DOD have been unable to determine who is responsible for flying the drones, and there’s no indication that there are adversary nations involved.

“To date, we have no intelligence or observations that would indicate that they were aligned with a foreign actor or that they had malicious intent,” the spokesperson said. “But … we don’t know. We have not been able to locate or identify the operators or the points of origin.”

I will tell you that it is irresponsible. Here on the military side, we are just as frustrated with the irresponsible nature of this activity.”

That’s an interesting list of alphabet agencies. But hardly exhaustive. (I mean, “on the military side.” Something’s going on with the other side, then?) The President-elect:

Mystery Drone sightings all over the Country. Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I don’t think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!”

So, Trump is, I think, saying that the dog did not bark in the night… But note the extreme, even exaggerated reluctance of the military to get involved in any way (no matter what Representative Fantasia might wish). So who does the shooting?

Unaddressed Puzzle Pieces

Here are some unaddressed issues. Some theories can give an account of them, others cannot:

Source. From the Asbury Park Press:

Despite weeks of investigation, New Jersey authorities still don’t know where the mystery drones are coming from, who’s operating them, or where they are taking off or landing from, state lawmakers were told at a closed-door briefing on the drones Wednesday.

Tracking. Again from Lt. Ryan Graves on FOX:

“We have some of the most sophisticated radar systems on the Eastern seaboard. We should, with great certainty, know exactly where these objects are, where they’re going and where they’re setting down if they are. So, either these things have the ability to counter those technologies, or we’re simply lying about what’s happening.”

Funding. From the Asbury Park Press:

“What concerns us is that there has to be a lot of financial backing behind the drones,” Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardy told the Asbury Park Press. “That and the fact that nobody has seen them land or take off.”

Night Flight. From NJ.com, Mendham resident Nancy Read:

“It’s strange. They’re out there for hours, never during the day.”

The Usual Suspects

Of course, Iran or China.

So, we can’t find that out in a month, and then shoot them down?

Conclusion

“Watch the skies!” comes from the final lines of The Thing from Another World (1951). I suppose I should have included the aliens under the usual suspects, but I just couldn’t go there. Mentally, I had that quote misfiled under Orson Wells’s The War of the Worlds, tagged “Mass Hysteria.”[4] But since I can’t give an account of how Covid infection got normalized during an ongoing pandemic, I’m reluctant to psychologize anything anymore. That said, it’s clear we have a population under stress and in distress.

Loss of privacy. New York Times:

The day after Thanksgiving, Susan and Lorelai Woodruff saw approximately 10 brightly lit objects banking and turning quickly in the night sky above their home in Elsinboro, in southern New Jersey.

Every night since, they say, the objects have been back, emitting a strange, humming whir and flashing red, green and white[5].

“I think it’s like an invasion,” said Lorelai Woodruff, 52. “I feel like our privacy is kind of invaded.”

Loss of trust. FOX (!):

We are a low-trust society. The lack of transparency is almost worse than the drones.

Loss of hope. New York Times:

“The thing that really feels unsettling is just like, is this always going to be like this?” Ms. Dunbar said, adding that she feared for her family’s privacy, not knowing what surveillance capabilities the drones might have.

“I’m not a conspiracist by any means,” she said, “but I don’t love the idea of massive drones patrolling where I live.”

Constant gaslighting. NJ.com:

So goes life in New Jersey after federal officials on Thursday largely rejected the reported drone sightings, leaving some in the Garden State feeling gaslighted, infuriated or downright unmoored as they trekked on their own quest for answers.

Additional theories welcome!

NOTES

[1] One theory of the case is that in reality no drones have been spotted at all, so when I, as an agnostic, write “drone,” I mean “purative drone.”

[2] Here is an SUV-sized sighting on December 5:

During another press conference, Evesham, NJ, chief of police Walt Miller confirmed between four and eight drones also flew in the area between roughly 8:00PM and 11:00PM on December 5th.

“These weren’t the normal drones that somebody would purchase and use,” Miller said, who also likened them to “as large as an SUV” and capable of flying in wind conditions smaller vehicles couldn’t otherwise handle. At times the drones hovered in place, although Miller stated law enforcement couldn’t identify if they did so over critical infrastructure sites.

[3] That the drones flew close to the ground puzzled one pilot. From FOX: “Former F-18 U.S. Navy fighter pilot Lt. Ryan Graves [said] ‘”There’s zero benefit, all risk for operating these things so close to the ground, especially if it’s some type of classified equipment.'” But search for radioactivity use case refutes Graves.

[4] From 404 Media:

The calls about the mystery drones lighting up the night sky were sporadic at first. Then they came daily, from all over the state. A multi-agency task force was convened. The FBI got involved. So did the military. The local news reported on a “band of large drones” hovering over the state that came out most nights. The sightings became national news. People theorized that they were classified government aircraft, or foreign spies. Some people wondered whether they were aliens.

This was not New Jersey this month, where drone sightings have caused a mass panic and involvement from local officials all the way up to the White House. It was Colorado in December, 2019 and January, 2020. Months passed, and Colorado’s mystery drones turned out not to be mysterious at all. Authorities eventually determined that some of the “drones” were SpaceX Starlink satellites. Others were regular passenger aircraft approaching the airport, and many “were visually confirmed to be hobbyist drones by law enforcement” and which were not breaking any laws. Some were absolutely nothing and were chalked up to people perceiving lights because of atmospheric conditions. In other cases, law enforcement started to fly their own drones to investigate the supposed mystery drones, creating the possibility of further “mystery drone” sightings, according to public records released after the initial mass panic.

[5] Coincidentally or not, red, green, and white are the standard colors for external lights on commericial aircraft.

NOTES

[1] One theory of the case is that in reality no drones have been spotted at all, so when I, as an agnostic, write “drone,” I mean “purative drone.”

[2] Here is an SUV-sized sighting on December 5:

During another press conference, Evesham, NJ, chief of police Walt Miller confirmed between four and eight drones also flew in the area between roughly 8:00PM and 11:00PM on December 5th.

“These weren’t the normal drones that somebody would purchase and use,” Miller said, who also likened them to “as large as an SUV” and capable of flying in wind conditions smaller vehicles couldn’t otherwise handle. At times the drones hovered in place, although Miller stated law enforcement couldn’t identify if they did so over critical infrastructure sites.

[3] That the drones flew close to the ground puzzled one pilot. From FOX: “Former F-18 U.S. Navy fighter pilot Lt. Ryan Graves [said] ‘”There’s zero benefit, all risk for operating these things so close to the ground, especially if it’s some type of classified equipment.'” But search for radioactivity use case refutes Graves.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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4 comments

  1. Carolinian

    New Jersey was where the Martians landed in the Orson Welles War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Not saying there’s a connection but….

    Seriously though don’t all motorized aircraft make quite a lot of distinctive noise? Craig Murray said he could hear the Israeli drones flying around Beirut.

    So even in the dark identification shouldn’t be that hard unless they are very high up or they are indeed Martians.

    Reply ↓
    1. katiebird

      I was wondering if the SUV sized “drones” could be Chinooks … but then remembered that they almost make the earth quake when they fly over our house.

      Reply ↓
  2. JB

    The HPGe drone for detecting nuclear materials is a fascinating suggestion – because ever since reading The Fourth Protocol, it’s been blindingly obvious to me that the most likely way to win a nuclear war is to smuggle in nuclear weapons to the enemy state(s).

    No missiles, no warning, (potentially) no Mutually Assured Destruction. It’s one of the least talked about and most exceedingly dangerous things about nuclear weapons.

    So, can these drones/detectors find hidden nuclear weapons? The absence of that ability, could certainly be one of the most fatal vulnerabilities any nuclear power (or other potential target nation) can have.

    Reply ↓

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