A New Jersey mayor has a new theory on the “drones” spotted over the state; they're searching for missing radioactive material.
Belleville Mayor Michael Melham has theorized that the lights people have been seeing above Essex County are "looking for something."
"What might they be looking for? Maybe that's radioactive material," he told Fox's Good Day New York.
Melham said that a shipment of radioactive material was delivered to the area, but was damaged and empty when it arrived., the New York Post reports.
Earlier this week, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an alert that a piece of medical equipment used in cancer scanning was "lost in transit" on December 2 while it was being shipped to the Nazha Cancer Center in Gloucester County in southern New Jersey.
The device in question is an Eckert & Ziegler HEGL-0132 and was being shipped for proper disposal. As the mayor said, the container transporting the device had been damaged and arrived empty.
The device contains a small amount of radioactive material, Germanium-68, which is used in PET scans.
According to the regulatory agency, the radiation produced by the material in the device registers less than a Category 3 on the International Atomic Energy Agency's scale, meaning it is "very unlikely to cause permanent injury to individuals or contain a very small amount of radioactive material that would not cause any permanent injury."
The radioactive material theory has been repeated on social media and spread around among more conspiracy-minded individuals.
The problems with the theory are numerous. If the government is willing to share the fact that radioactive material is missing, there would be no reason to not also disclose that the drones are searching for the device.
Further, there is already a team dedicated to searching out dangerous nuclear material: NEST.
The Nuclear Emergency Support Team — NEST — is "the umbrella designation that encompasses all DOE/NNSA radiological and nuclear emergency response functions."
In other words, if there was an actual threat posed by the missing device, a NEST team would be in action, not drones of unknown origin aimlessly crisscrossing the skies of New Jersey.
On Tuesday, US officials issued an explanation for the lights over New Jersey; according to the government, the lights are a combination of traditional aircraft sightings, commercial and hobby drones, and stars and planets mistaken for aircraft.
In a joint statement by the US Defense Department, the US Homeland Security Department, the FBI and the FAA, fewer than 100 of the more than 5,000 reported sightings in New Jersey warrant an investigation.
Members of the US House Intelligence Committee will be briefed in a classified meeting on the drone issue later today, according to Punchbowl.
