The mysterious reported sightings of drone clusters in the night skies over New Jersey and other parts of the US north-east have prompted frustrated outbursts from Congress members, triggering calls for a limited state of emergency to be declared over the region.
Jon Bramnick, a Republican state senator in New Jersey, has demanded a ban on all drones until the mystery is solved. ABC’s Action News reported that he called for a “limited state of emergency … until the public receives an explanation regarding these multiple sightings”.
Concern about unexplained drone sightings began in mid-November as isolated postings by local residents on social media. The issue has steadily risen up the political food chain, bursting this week on to the stage of state and federal authorities.
On Wednesday, the governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, held a briefing call with the US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, as well as representatives in Congress and state police to discuss the drone reports. He emphasized there was “no known threat to the public at this time”.
Also on Wednesday, the House subcommittee on counter-terrorism, law enforcement and intelligence held a hearing on the subject. Robert Wheeler, an FBI official in charge of investigating the matter, confirmed to the hearing that the agency still had no explanation for the sightings.
When asked whether the public was at risk, Wheeler replied: “Are we concerned there are nefarious intentions that could cause either an actual security or public safety incident? There’s nothing that is known that would lead me to say that, but we just don’t know. And that’s the concerning part of it.”
He told Congress members that more than 3,000 sightings had been phoned in to a tip line set up by the FBI last week, but so far there had been no breakthrough.
The admission that the country’s pre-eminent law enforcement agency remains essentially clueless about the mystery underlines the confusion that continues to swirl. It is not known whether a group or individual might be behind the phenomenon, or whether any credible issue even exists – there has been speculation that the flurry of activity might merely amount to confusion over sightings of regular planes or be the product of social media distortions.
Sightings have been made in eight New Jersey counties. Mayors in 21 towns across the north and center of the state have written a joint letter to Murphy calling for statewide action.
Concerns have focused on drones spotted near the Bedminster golf course of president-elect Donald Trump, as well as sensitive infrastructure including electric transmission sites, rail stations and police departments.
Recently sightings have spread to parts of New York City and over the suburbs of Philadelphia. Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican Congress member representing Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, told the House hearing that drones had been reported over the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, close to US military bases.
“They are flying over sensitive infrastructure, and the fact that we don’t know what they are, or who’s behind them, or what they’re doing is very concerning to me, particularly in a post-Chinese spy-ballon world,” she said, according to a report in the local Morristown Daily Record.
On Wednesday, the Pentagon responded and addressed the baseless claims from one Republican New Jersey congressman that the drones were from an “Iranian mothership” lying off the coast of the state.
US military bosses do not believe the drones or other craft are coming from “a foreign entity or adversary”, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, Sabrina Singh, told reporters.
“There is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there’s no so-called mothership launching drones towards the United States,” she added.
The United States Northern Command also issued a statement.
“USNORTHCOM conducted a deliberate analysis of the events, in consultation with other military organizations and interagency partners … at this time we have not been requested to assist with these events,” it said.
