Joe Biden has spoken out about public concerns surrounding the large number of drones or other aerial objects moving in the skies over New Jersey and the northeastern US, saying there is nothing alarming about the increased reports.
“Nothing nefarious apparently, but they are looking into it all,” the president told reporters. “We are following this closely, but so far there is no danger.”
Biden’s comments come as White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said the drones posed no national security or public safety risk. The Biden administration was keen to remind nervous citizens in the tri-state area of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut that there were more than 1 million drones registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“There are a lot of drones authorized up there,” the president said. “I think one person started it and they all – everyone wanted in on the deal.”
To allay public fears, the federal government is sending three mobile radar systems to the area that are better equipped to track a large number of objects. Officials have said night sky watchers may be looking at commercial aircraft and star formations in addition to drones.
Biden’s comments came after a mayor of a small New Jersey town raised a circulating theory that the drones could be searching for radioactive material missing from a damaged shipping container at the Port of Newark. According to an alert from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, radioactive material went missing on December 2.
“We know we have drones flying in a grid-like pattern,” said Michael Melham, the mayor of Belleville. “I think they are looking for something. What might they be looking for? Maybe that’s radioactive material.”
Melham added: “No information has been made available, and it is this lack of transparency… that does nothing but fuel conspiracy theories online.”
But the mayor was also looking for calm nerves. “We know for a fact it’s not little green men… and more than likely it’s not a foreign adversary because they could figure out how to turn off the flashing lights.”
Yet the political fallout from the drone debate is beginning to mount, with the region’s Democrats both defending and expressing exasperation with the administration’s assurances that there is no threat to public safety, while in their view do not provide sufficient explanations for what people see.
“It’s all about information and briefings, and that’s my big frustration,” said Josh Gottheimer, a Democratic congressman. “I asked the FBI and DHS [department of homeland security] to actually do a good public briefing.”
Earlier this month, Jeff Van Drew, a Republican congressman from New Jersey, baselessly said that satellite confirmation of the departure of a militarized drone ship from its port in Iran could indicate that the night-flying drones could come from an Iranian drone mothership. He gave no evidence to support the theory.
At a press conference on Monday, Donald Trump also asked why officials had not been more candid.
“The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they left from — if it’s a garage, they can go into that garage,” Trump told reporters.
