NEW YORK– Mysterious drones hover over New York and New Jersey continue to baffle residents and lawmakers. Investigators are now looking into whether anyone landed in Somerset County, New Jersey on Thursday evening.
Chopper 2 flew over the scene near a parking lot along Route 206 in Hillsborough Township, where multiple law enforcement agencies were combing a wooded area Friday morning. The FBI said it was aware of the incident but could not provide any further information.
Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, whose office met with local officials earlier this weeksent a letter to President Joe Biden on Friday asking for more help from the federal government.
“While I am sincerely grateful for your administration’s leadership in addressing this troubling issue, it has become clear that more resources are needed to fully understand what is behind this activity,” Murphy wrote.
The governor also said the ongoing sightings raise more questions than answers, writing that residents “deserve more concrete information.”
“I respectfully request that you continue to direct the relevant federal agencies to work together until they find answers about what is behind the UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) sightings,” he wrote.
‘Let’s be honest with the American people’
Meanwhile, elected officials in Staten Island held a press conference about the sightings, calling on the NYPD to do more to investigate the drones seen overhead. military bases, major landmarks and residential areas.
“Millions of people here, in New Jersey and of course on Staten Island and beyond, are getting nothing but ‘don’t believe what you see,’” said Borough President Vito Fossella. “The people of Staten Island deserve answers, the people of this city, state and region deserve answers about what the hell is going on.”
The city president brought up recent sightings about the Verrazzano-Narrows and Goethals bridges, saying that despite not seeing the drones himself, a neighbor sent him a video of what appeared to be one hanging over his house.
“Let’s be honest with the American people, treat them like adults and tell them like it is,” he said.
Fossella was joined at the briefing by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton and other local officials.
“If we don’t give the people answers from the top, from the government officials who are much higher up than anyone here locally, that’s not right for us as we get hundreds and hundreds of requests and questions from our constituents asking what this is about. we don’t have an answer,” Scarcella-Spanton said. “So here we stand today demanding an answer. We need to be able to tell our voters what is going on.”
The NYPD says it is investigating the drone activity in conjunction with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Some of the most recent sightings were reported Thursday in the South Bronx and St. Albans, Queens.
The FBI pressed for details about drones
Leaders in Washington, DC are too pushing for a federal briefing on the situation. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Cory Booker and Andy Kim of New Jersey, sent a letter Thursday to the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the FAA, calling the sightings alarming and a potential security risk.
“We need to know what’s happening above our skies,” Booker said.
The White House is trying to reassure the public, saying many of the more than 3,000 reported sightings may have been aircraft mistaken for drones.
“We have no evidence at this time that reported drone sightings pose a threat to national security or public safety, or are foreign-related,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
Politicians continue to speak out frustration about what they think is doing nothing of the federal government. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut has called for the unmanned drones to be shot down, although it is still unclear who is operating them.
Christina Fan
