A sudden spike in unidentified drone sightings in the northeastern United States is unnerving residents and lawmakers alike. Similar incidents have occurred for years, however, with little apparent action from the government.
Drone sighting reports in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia over the past month have raised questions about the possibility that drones are being used to surveil or attack U.S. infrastructure.
The sightings follow several high-profile incidents in recent months, including at U.S. military facilities throughout the country and in the UK and Germany.
The White House has downplayed the incidents and denied that there is any evidence of a sustained threat to public safety.
“We have not identified anything anomalous or any national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the Northeast,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Dec. 16.
Kirby did acknowledge that drones had penetrated restricted airspace, however, including that of the Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, and Picatinny Arsenal military research facility in New Jersey.
Although such sightings are currently receiving a lot of media attention, there have been several high-profile drone incidents in the past half-decade for which the federal government has yet to formally account.
The incident caused alarm throughout the military and incurred a joint investigation by elements of the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and FBI. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commander of the Pacific Fleet were kept apprised of the situation.
No administration nor the Department of Defense has publicly stated what the drones were seeking to accomplish or who was operating them.
Local officials eventually said no laws were being broken and that drone pilots were not required to file flight plans unless in controlled airspace, such as near an airport.
Similarly, the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration, and local authorities never publicly identified who was operating the drones and suggested that most of the sightings were attributable to hobby drones and people misidentifying planets and stars as aircraft.
Likewise, Kirby told reporters that many of the 5,000 reports of drone sightings over the past week were attributable to hobbyists, commercial drones, and people misidentifying stars as aircraft.
Similar incidents have continued, apparently unabated.
This year alone, drones have approached and entered the restricted airspace over U.S. military installations throughout the country and overseas.
Shortly thereafter, federal agents arrested a Chinese national for flying an unregistered drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and taking photos of the SpaceX rocket pads on a day on which the contractor launched a sensitive national reconnaissance payload.
Kirby attempted to assuage fears of a potential unidentified drone threat, saying that there were more than a million lawfully registered drones in the United States, with thousands of hobbyists and law enforcement offices using the technology.
Still, the lack of a federal response to the growing number of drone-related incidents in recent years has left both lawmakers and the public in a state of uncertainty about what is to be done.
“I am grateful for the support, but we need more,” she said on X.
President-elect Donald Trump suggested this week that the Biden administration had intelligence on the source of the drones but was not revealing it to the public.
Kirby rejected the idea.
“There’s absolutely no effort to be anything other than as up-front as we can be,” he said.
“If we had information, intelligence or otherwise, that told us that there was a national security threat posed by this drone activity, I would say that.”
Kirby said the administration has engaged personnel from the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to help identify and respond to the northeastern U.S. drone sightings.
