Mysterious drone over New Jersey? Reactions in Congress

2024-12-14 10:03:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal has called for the mysterious drones that have been spotted flying at night over sensitive areas in New Jersey and other parts of the northeastern and southeastern states of the country to be "shot down and shot down, if necessary." ". But so far it remains unclear who owns the drones, or if they actually do.

" We need to do some very urgent intelligence analysis and get them out of the sky, especially if they fly over airports or military bases ," Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Thursday as concerns about drones spread across Congress.

Various people in the New York region are also concerned that drones are flying in the same airspace as commercial airlines, he said, calling for more transparency from the Biden administration.

The White House said Thursday that a review of the matter found that many of them are actually manned planes flying legally. White House Homeland Security spokesman John Kirby said there were no reports of the objects being seen in any no-fly airspace. He said the Coast Guard had not detected any involvement of any foreign country through the ships.

" We have no evidence at this time that the drone notifications pose a threat to national or public security, or have a connection to any foreign country ," Mr Kirby said.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said they were not US military drones.

In a joint statement released Thursday afternoon, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security said they and federal partner agencies, in close coordination with the New Jersey State Police, "have deployed personnel and technology to investigate the situation." and to confirm whether it is drones or manned aircraft, or simply a misrepresentation of what different people may have seen."

The agencies said they have not verified any of the reports, and that a review of available imagery appears to indicate that many of those reported to be drones are in fact manned aircraft.

The number of people reporting drone sightings has increased in recent days, but officials say many of the flying objects may have been aircraft rather than drones. There is also the possibility that a single drone has been reported more than once./ VOA