Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal has called for mysterious drones, which have been spotted flying at night over sensitive areas in New Jersey and other parts of the northeastern and southeastern United States, to be “shot down and taken out of the sky, if necessary.” However, it remains unclear who owns the unmanned aircraft, or if they are indeed drones.
“We need to conduct urgent intelligence analysis and remove them from the sky, especially if they’re flying over airports or military bases,” said Senator Blumenthal on Thursday, as concerns about the drones spread throughout Congress.
Various individuals in the New York area are also worried that the drones are flying in the same airspace as commercial flights, he added, calling for more transparency from the Biden administration.
The White House said on Thursday that after reviewing the issue, it was determined that many of the reported objects are actually manned aircraft flying legally. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said there had been no reports of these objects being seen in restricted airspace. He also stated that the Coast Guard had not uncovered any involvement of foreign entities through ships.
“We have no evidence at this time that the reports of drones represent a threat to national or public security, or that they are linked to any foreign country,” said Kirby.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh confirmed that the drones were not U.S. military drones.
In a joint statement issued Thursday afternoon, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security said that they and other federal agencies, in close coordination with the New Jersey State Police, “have deployed personnel and technology to investigate the situation and confirm whether these are drones or manned aircraft, or simply a misinterpretation of what different people might have seen.”
The agencies added that they had not verified any of the reports, and that a review of available images suggests that many of the objects reported as drones were, in fact, manned aircraft.
The number of individuals reporting sightings of drones has increased in recent days, but officials say that many of the flying objects may have been airplanes, not drones. There is also the possibility that a single drone may have been reported multiple times. /VOA
