That was already a month ago and you’ve seen them in the sky, or you’ve seen them on the news: drones seem to be everywhere. By all accounts, alleged drone sightings are multiplying exponentially, with more than 5,000 reported in the past few weeks alone.
But of those 5,000, only a hundred or so have yielded actual leads for law enforcement.
Missy Cummings, an engineering professor at George Mason University who has been doing drone research for 25 years, says what most people actually see are probably airplanes, stars or reflections from objects such as towers. “Of all these options, drone is the least likely because it is actually quite difficult to take it out of the sky,” she said.
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We heard a similarly common explanation for these extraordinary lights in the sky when we visited Monmouth County Sherriff Shaun Golden in New Jersey last week. “The majority of these sightings likely involve some type of commercial or recreational manned aircraft,” he said.
In other words, there is no immediate threat. A joint statement from the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, FAA and FBI said Tuesday: “[We] do not assess the activity to date as a risk to national security or public safety.”
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Cummings said, “If you’re actually looking at the lights on a drone, it means you’re definitely not looking at a foreign adversary because they’re advanced enough to turn the lights off.”
And yet part of the American public is a little tense.
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According to Cummings, the best approach at this point is for all of us to try to stay grounded: “If I come on the news and say to you, ‘You have something to worry about,'” Than You have something to worry about,” she said. “But in this case, everything is actually going as usual.”
For more information:
Mrs. Cummings. professor, College of Engineers and Computing, George Mason University Sheriff Shaun Golden, Monmouth County, NJ
Story produced by Amiel Weisfogel. Editor: Joseph Frandino.
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