For a little over a month now, residents of several counties in New Jersey as well as people in New York and Pennsylvania have been reporting strange drone sightings, and authorities are saying that they are baffled and can’t determine who is responsible for them or what their purpose is.
However, on Dec. 11, New Jersey, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, tabled where he believed the drones were coming from, telling Fox News that the drones were coming from an Iranian “mothership” situated off the east coast.
“Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago that contains these drones. That mothership is off the east coast of the United States of America,” he said, adding that, “They’ve launched drones… I don’t say this lightly. Now, you know, we know there was a probability it could have been our own government… We know it’s not our own government.”
The bizarre statement caught the attention of the Pentagon who is insisting that Iran is not currently deploying drones from a mothership off the east coast of the country.
Deputy Pentagon press secretary, Sabrina Singh, told reporters on Wednesday that the flying objects were not coming from “a foreign entity or adversary” and that “there is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there’s no so-called mothership launching drones towards the United States.”
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“I’m going to tell you the real deal. Iran launched a mothership that contains these drones,” Van Drew said. “It’s off the East Coast of the United States of America. They’ve launched drones.”
“These drones should be shot down,” he said, adding that “the military is on full alert with this.”
Singh insisted that “there is not any truth to that,” however failed to offer any alternative theory about the drones’ origins or purpose.
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The key facts
The first report of the drones surfaced on Nov. 19, after New Jersey police said they had witnessed “drone activity” the previous night over Morris County.
They said they would investigate the matter, adding that rumors were quickly “spreading on social media” and that there was “no known threat to public safety.”
Since then, drone activity has been reported in eight New Jersey counties with some eyewitnesses saying the drones were “large and loud.”
Videos have surfaced on social media showing strange lights in the sky.
A New Jersey police chief has described the drones as about the size of a car, much larger than a standard amateur drone one would buy domestically, NBC reported.
The drones were then spotted over Staten Island, with one witness telling NBC that he had observed dozens of drones with lights.
Another sighting occurred in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Sightings have occurred every night, beginning just after sunset, for the past two weeks, with no daytime sightings.
Joseph Orlando, a police chief in Florham Park, New Jersey, said in a statement that the drones have been seen “above critical infrastructure such as water reservoirs, electric transmission lines, rail stations, police departments and military installations.”
In response, in early December, the Federal Aviation Administration implemented and later extended “temporary flight restrictions” on drone use over Picatinny Arsenal military base and Bedminister, the site of one of President-elect Trump’s golf clubs.
The FBI says it has received upwards of 3,000 reports to a tip line established for the drone sightings.
