Drone Sightings, Reports of Crashes, Continue to Alarm and Befuddle New Jersey Residents

Authorities conducted an overnight search in Hillsborough, New Jersey following reports that a drone had crashed into a field Thursday night, Fox 29 reported.

Several witnesses reported that they heard a drone crash in the area, but after an intense, hours-long search, no drone was found.

On Thursday at 8:34 p.m., the Hillsborough Police Department went to a Lowes parking lot near the crash site and spoke to a witness. The reporting party said he saw drones in the air and one hitting the high-power tension lines before crashing into a field.

The Hillsborough Police Officers, Hillsborough OEM, Somerset County OEM, Somerset County Hazmat, Hillsborough Township Fire Department Unit 38, Millstone Valley Fire Department, Robert Wood Johnson EMS and the New Jersey State Police Aviation Unit converged on the area, searching by air and on foot for the downed drone.

Hillsborough Police set up a perimeter around the area until daylight, where the search resumed in more visible conditions. On Friday at around 7:30 a.m., Millstone Valley Fire Department deployed drones over the area for an aerial view of the area yielding negative results.

Somerset County Hazmat also conducted a foot search of the area yielding negative results.

After conducting a complete search, all units were cleared at 12:10 p.m. with no downed drone was recovered.

Another drone crashed into the backyard of a home Pequannock Township Thursday night and was determined to be a “hobby or toy type drone,” according to the Pequannock Police Department.

Pequannock Mayor Ryan Herd expressed concern that “nobody knows whose drones are flying over us and what they’re flying over us for and where they’re taking off and landing.”

“Drones are flying over our houses, which is our private property. My family is here,” he told the New York Post.

While New Jersey has been a hotspot for the UFO activity, drone sightings have also been reported in multiple other states across the nation in recent weeks, including Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Missouri, Florida, Oregon, California, Arizona, Idaho, Delaware, Texas, New York, Minnesota, Louisiana, Georgia, Maryland and Tennessee.

U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) gave an update on the ongoing phenomenon in N.J. after spending about two hours Thursday night observing drone activity with the Clinton Police Department,

Speaking from the North Hunterdon Regional High School in Annandale, Kim confirmed that the police are seeing the drones every night.

“We’re counting oftentimes five, six, seven or more at any given time,” he said, adding that they “fly low just above the ridgeline.”

Kim shared his thoughts on what he witnessed in a thread on X.  He noted that officers used a flight tracker app to help distinguish the drones from airplanes.

“We often saw about 5-7 lights at a time that were low and not associated with aircraft we could see on the tracker app. Some hovered while others moved across the horizon,” Kim wrote.

We saw a few that looked like they were moving in small clusters of 2-4. We clearly saw several that would move horizontally and then immediately switch back in the opposite direction in maneuvers that plane can’t do.

The police officer said they see them out every night. They only seem to start when it gets dark and they disappear before dawn. They get reports that they sometimes fly low over homes, especially up in the hills.

The officer said they’ve tried to get closer with use of a helicopter but that the drones would turn off the lights and go dark if approached.

I went to multiple locations across Hunterdon county to get different vantage points. This is a more rural part of NJ. It’s uncertain why it’s one of the more active area for reported activity. We are seeing reports through other parts of the state.

Any images or video footage people get, the police urge them to submit to the FBI, but I haven’t gotten any follow up yet from the FBI on their investigation and what they’ve compiled.
Homeland Security Secretary briefed last week on new technology they were deploying but we need details on what those efforts have yielded and if more resources are needed. If they haven’t fully identified the devices yet we still should know what is being done.

This has gone on for weeks. It’s hard to understand how with the technology we have we aren’t able to track these devices to determine origin and this makes me much more concerned about our capabilities more broadly when it comes to drone detection and counter measures.

Kim vowed to keep tracking the developments and disclose as much information as possible, saying “the people of NJ  deserve more answers than they are getting.”

 

“It’s hard for people to feel secure when there are unexplained drones flying overhead and they’re not getting answers they need from the federal investigation,” Kim said in a press release issued Friday morning.

“This has been going on for weeks and I’m just as frustrated as everyone else in not getting more information and details. That’s why I came out to see for myself, and I’m grateful for local police for taking me around.”

One New Jersey resident described feeling of unease he feels every night while watching the unexplained drone displays.

“Bro, it’s like a friggin’ invasion,” he said in a video posted to X. “It’s quite literally like we’re being patrolled. This is literally like we’re being patrolled in our own homes here in New Jersey.”

There are also unverified videos appearing to show a drone firing something into the night sky, and one appearing to release an unknown substance into the air, although the latter could be an airplane contrail.

In a letter to Joe Biden, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D) requested more federal resources to get to the bottom of the drone mystery, saying that state and local officials are “hamstrung” by existing laws that bar them from to counteracting the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

“The proliferation of this technology has introduced additional risks to public safety, privacy, and homeland security, while state and local law enforcement entities remain hamstrung by existing laws and policies to successfully counteract them, leaving action around UAS squarely on the shoulders of the federal government,” Murphy wrote.

“New Jersey residents deserve more concrete information about these UAS sightings and what is causing them,” he added. “The continued reporting of UAS activity has raised more questions than answers and prompted an outcropping of conspiracy theories across social media and other platforms.”

White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby downplayed the drone sightings, claiming Thursday that none of the reported sightings—which can be seen in hundreds of videos posted online since the sightings started on Nov. 18—have been corroborated by state or federal law enforcement.  He also said that upon further review, none of the aircraft in question were seen in restricted air space and many had turned out to be “lawfully operated manned aircraft.”

Kirby also reiterated that there is no evidence that the reported drones pose a national security or public safety threat.

Kirby, it should be noted, does not have a reliable track record of an arbiter of the truth.

After the Biden regime allowed a Chinese spy balloon to enter United States airspace and traverse the entire country, Kirby falsely claimed that three spy balloons were allowed to enter US airspace without detection during President-Elect Trump’s first term.

The balloon hovered over a “number of sensitive sites” from Alaska past the Carolinas in early January, late February 2023,  collecting information on US communication systems and radars, before it was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean.

Kirby falsely claimed that the objects may have been “benign” and “tied to commercial or research entities.”

As the Pentagon’s press secretary from December 2013 to February 2015 and the Department of State’s spokesman from May 13, 2015 to January 20, 2017 under former President Barack Obama, Kirby perfected the art of dissembling, confidently helping the Obama regime weather multiple foreign policies blunders.  From his perches at the Pentagon, and State Dept., Kirby talked his way through the Bowe Bergdahl scandal, Benghazi scandal, and fake ISIS intel scandal, in which the Obama administration cooked the books to give the false impression that the U.S. was winning the battle against the Islamic State.

In December of 2015, Kirby also proudly touted the Obama White House’s appalling summit on “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE), which downplayed the Islamic terrorist activity that was menacing the world at the time, and focused instead on alleged Christian terrorism and so-called white supremacy, calling the CVE event one of the Obama regime’s “most pivotal foreign policy moments.”

Update:

President-Elect Trump weighed in on the drone phenomenon on Truth Social late Friday afternoon:

“Mystery Drone sightings all over the Country. Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge,  I don’t think so!” Trump said. “Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!! DJT.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas meanwhile told CNN Friday evening that the federal government hasn’t noticed anything unusual or identified any threats.

To explain the government’s inaction, he said the federal government only has limited authority to engage with rogue drones.

“It’s not as though anyone can just take down a drone in the sky,” he said.

Mayorkas suggested that people are just mistaking the UFOs for small planes or drones bought at “convenience stores.”

“There very, well, may be drones in the sky, of course, but those are commercially available. One can go into a convenience store and buy a small drone,” he said.