A modern-day “War of the Worlds” drama unfolding in New Jersey reveals a new reality: Drones are an airborne fixture in America.
Hundreds of thousands of drones, ranging in size from handheld to aircraft-size, criss-cross the sky at all hours, delivering goods, patrolling the border, collecting data, dazzling spectators with spectacular light shows, tending to crops, mapping plantations, and other tasks.
As of Oct. 1, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is responsible for monitoring drones, reported 791,597 registered drones in the U.S.
“Drones are becoming more affordable and accessible, leading to widespread adoption for both recreational and commercial purposes,” Melissa Swisher, chief revenue officer at SkySafe, which has developed technology to detect drones and identify their owners, said in an email. “Unfortunately, this accessibility also enables individuals with malicious intent to exploit drones for illegal activities. Additionally, advancements in technology, such as extended flight ranges and payload capacities, are increasing their potential for misuse.”
So when mysterious swarms of drones began popping up in the sky over New Jersey in recent weeks, the conspiratorial minded suspected UAPs — a flashback to the 1938 national scare caused by the infamous radio broadcast of the Mercury Theater’s “War of the Worlds” saga of fictional alien invasion of the Garden State — and suggested drastic measures. The resultant conversation has also sparked paranoia over national security.
On Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on the Department of Homeland Security to send in the Robin, 360-degree radar that can quickly identify the unidentified flying objects and track them back to their landing zones.
Schumer said despite mounting concern, there appears to be no laws broken “unless they are near a military base, or unless near an airport,” he said.
President-elect Donald Trump has called on the feds to “shoot them down.” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said certain agencies within the department have authority to “incapacitate” drones.
This month alone, there have been more than 3,000 sightings in New Jersey, prompting fear and uncertainty over the origin and intent of the drones, some of which are the size of cars.
With so many drones littering the skies, and with most people unfamiliar with them gazing into darkness, the odds of more suspicious sightings in the U.S. shouldn’t be surprising.
But theories as to what some of the strange drones could be run the gamut from aerial spies conducting nightly reconnaissance to life from another planet. Or it could be easily explained as folks misidentifying planes, planets and quadcopters.
“It could have been a defense-industry testing vehicle or a foreign entity doing surveillance, which is highly unlikely,” Eric Brock, CEO of Ondas Autonomous Systems, which makes industrial drones as first responders, said in an interview. His company’s identification system, Kestrel, can determine where a drone is operated from. “Once people saw some unidentified airplane, it could have multiplied from that, when all they really saw were normal drones.”
What is happening in New Jersey has happened before, especially near military bases. The top secret Area 51 military facility near Las Vegas has been a hotbed of UAP sightings and Martian-fueled speculation for decades; it is also a rumored hot spot for the development and testing of advanced weapons and aircraft. [New Jersey has nine military bases.]
“Think back to the days of the Model T,” Steven Shipner, managing director for research, development & engineering at Prescient Edge Corp., said in an email. “If a Tesla showed up back then, there wouldn’t be stop signs, traffic lights and road markers in place to keep everyone safe. With ever-evolving drone tech, regulations do need to constantly keep pace.”
Jeffrey Starr, chief marketing officer of D-Fend Solutions, a maker of field-proven radio frequency (RF) cyber-based, non-kinetic, non-jamming, counter-drone takeover technology, says the “sensational” story sometimes boils down to “nefarious use cases” such as boys playing with toys, criminally-motivated bad actors, and spying.
“Whenever you have the massive proliferation of a technology that for the most part does positive, beneficial things, there will be a small percentage of bad actors,” Starr said in an interview. “Air space defense in general came from the military realm, but this speaks to the need for new technologies more suitable for monitoring highly urban environments.”
Suspicions of spying have been reflected in a spate of arrests with political undertones.
A handful of Chinese students have been arrested in recent weeks for alleged spying with drones. A Chinese national graduate student convicted for taking footage of Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia will serve six months in prison. Another was arrested in South Korea for illegally taking footage of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier docked at Busan, a port city on the country’s southeastern coast. And a Chinese National was arrested last month for flying a small drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base in southern California. It collected images and videos for nearly one hour, but for whom and what purpose is unclear.
Then there’s this: A drone and fireworks show in China went haywire when about 2,000 quadcopters started falling from the sky, reports Australia’s ABC News.
Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., Trump’s pick for national security adviser, suggested Trump’s “Iron Dome,” a “state-of-the-art missile defense shield” to protect U.S. air space, could apply to drones.
