2024 New Jersey drone sightings

2024 New Jersey drone sightings

Type	Case (sighting wave)
Also known as	2024 United States drone sightings, New Jersey drone panic
Date	13 November 2024 – January 2025 (peak mid-December)
Place	New Jersey, then New York, Pennsylvania and other states
Reports reviewed	More than 5,000 (FBI-led investigation)
Official finding	Nothing anomalous; mostly authorised drones, manned aircraft and stars

The 2024 New Jersey drone sightings were a wave of reports of unidentified drones flying at night that began in New Jersey in mid-November 2024 and spread to New York, Pennsylvania and much of the north-eastern United States in December, with later reports across the country. Thousands of people described drones over homes, reservoirs, power plants, highways and military bases, some said to be as large as cars or to fly without lights.^[1]

An FBI-led federal investigation reviewed more than 5,000 reports and found nothing anomalous: most sightings were lawful commercial, hobbyist or police drones, manned aircraft, stars and planets. Several of the best-known reports — "drones" following a Coast Guard boat, blocking a medical helicopter and spraying "gray mist" — turned out to be airliners, light aircraft and an atmospheric effect, and a widely shared video was of the constellation Orion. Many experts described the wave as a mass panic comparable to earlier UFO flaps. Separately, military officials confirmed a real and continuing pattern of unauthorised drone flights over U.S. bases.^[1]

Background

A drone is an aircraft flown remotely, without a pilot on board, used by the military, businesses and hobbyists alike. Based on 2023 data, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) estimated that nearly 2.8 million commercial and recreational drones would be operating in the United States in 2024, and the White House said more than a million were registered with the FAA.^[1]

The wave came after a series of high-profile drone incidents. Drone reports near the runways at London's Gatwick Airport forced flight cancellations for several days in December 2018; unidentified drones were reported over Colorado and Nebraska in late 2019 and early 2020; a Chinese surveillance balloon crossed the United States, including military sites, in early 2023; and drone incursions over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia in December 2023 drew a response involving U.S. government aircraft. In August 2024 the Air Force confirmed sightings over Plant 42, a classified aircraft plant in California, leading to new airspace restrictions. In October 2024 U.S. Northern Command held a demonstration of counter-drone technology in Colorado, called "Falcon Peak", in response to the Langley incursions. In November and December 2024 unidentified drones were also reported over U.S. bases in the United Kingdom, and over Ramstein Air Base and arms factories in Germany.^[1]

The sightings

The first report came from Picatinny Arsenal, a U.S. Army research and manufacturing site in Morris County, New Jersey, on 13 November 2024, when a contractor — counted as the first confirmed sighting by a police or security officer — saw a light rising straight up from the tree line towards the arsenal. More reports followed in Morris County by 18 November and in neighbouring Somerset County soon afterwards. The early sightings clustered along the Raritan River corridor before spreading across New Jersey, then throughout the Northeast and eventually across the continental United States.^[1][2]

Witnesses reported drones over residential areas and near sensitive sites, including military installations, emergency communication centres, police facilities and Round Valley Reservoir in New Jersey, as well as highways, railways, power lines and nuclear power plants in New Jersey and New York. Some described drones that hummed loudly, were as large as cars or flew without navigation lights; others said they flew in groups or alongside fixed-wing aircraft. Experts who reviewed footage classed the objects as either quadcopters or fixed-wing aircraft.^[1]

Over military sites

Numerous sightings were reported over Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey, some by what officials described as highly trained security personnel. A month after the first Picatinny report, multiple drone incursions were reported over Earle. The Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed some of the sightings, saying that the Department of Defense did not know who was flying the drones but had no indication that adversary nations were involved. Officials could not locate the operators or where the drones came from, and noted that the military lacked authority to pursue drones beyond its base perimeters without help from law enforcement.^[1][2]

Other bases reported drones in the same weeks. On 9 December federal officials arrested a Chinese national for flying a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base in California; he was caught at San Francisco International Airport trying to board a flight to China. The next day Hill Air Force Base in Utah acknowledged recent "unidentified drone swarms" over several U.S. bases that had not affected operations. There were six incursions over Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California from 9 December into the following week; Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio closed its airspace in mid-December because of small drones; and police in White Settlement, Texas, confirmed an investigation with the FBI, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Air Force into drones at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth and a nearby National Guard armory.^[1]

The Coast Guard report

Congressman Chris Smith and Assemblyman Paul Kanitra said that multiple drones had followed a U.S. Coast Guard 47-foot motor lifeboat, and Coast Guard officer Luke Pinneo said that "multiple low-altitude aircraft" had been seen near one of its vessels. White House spokesman John Kirby said forensic analysis showed the aircraft were commercial flights approaching John F. Kennedy International Airport, not drones; Smith disputed this, stressing the officers' experience. Documents from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) later confirmed that the "drone swarms" were airliners lining up to land at JFK, whose S-shaped turns on approach made them seem to hover when seen from certain angles.^[1]

Civilian reports

Police reported seeing drone activity in New Jersey on 18 November. Late that month, reports of drones near Raritan Valley Community College stopped a medical evacuation helicopter from collecting a car-crash victim; the college's security supervisor said they never found out what the drones were. TSA documents later showed that three aircraft approaching nearby Solberg Airport had been taken for drones — flying straight towards the observers, they appeared to hover. On 12 December a drone was reported spraying "gray mist" over Clinton, New Jersey; TSA investigators identified it with high confidence as a Beechcraft Baron 58 propeller plane in turbulence, whose wingtip vortices formed clouds of condensation. The same day a drone that crashed in Pequannock Township, first described as "military-grade", proved to be a toy, which officials suggested was one of several copycat incidents.^[1]

U.S. Senator Andy Kim joined a Clinton Township police patrol near Round Valley Reservoir on 12 December and reported seeing drones, but later acknowledged that most of them were probably planes. On 13 December the former governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, posted a video on X of what he believed were many large drones over his home in Davidsonville, Maryland. The journalist Steven Greenstreet, the meteorologist Matthew Cappucci and Elizabeth Warner, director of the University of Maryland Observatory, identified the lights as the constellation Orion, and Greenstreet found flight data showing three aircraft nearby; a community note was added to Hogan's post.^[1]

A sighting near the Salem Nuclear Power Plant in New Jersey was matched by TSA investigators to the flight paths of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, a Cessna 150 and commercial flights from Philadelphia. On 13 December Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said drones had been seen over city facilities, and Stewart International Airport in Orange County, New York, closed for an hour because of drone activity, as Governor Kathy Hochul confirmed. In Massachusetts, Boston police identified three residents flying drones in restricted airspace near Logan International Airport; two were found on an island in Boston Harbor and arrested, while the third was not caught.^[1]

By late December reports from northern New Jersey had slowed sharply, and online interest followed: researchers found that search interest, which peaked in mid-December, had fallen to 2 out of 100 by 12 January 2025.^[1]

Investigations and findings

Federal investigation

The FBI opened its investigation on 3 December 2024 by asking the public to report suspected drones near the Raritan River. On 10 December a spokesman told Congress that more than 3,000 tips had come in but there was still no full explanation. At a briefing for New Jersey legislators on 11 December with officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the State Police and the state's Office of Homeland Security, according to notes shared by Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia, officials described drones up to six feet across flying for six to seven hours a night, sometimes without lights, which appeared to operate in a coordinated way, evaded normal detection and did not seem to be flown by hobbyists.^[1]

On 12 December Kirby said none of the visual reports could be verified, that many were lawfully flown manned aircraft, and that analysis of photos, videos and electronic detection data had found no unauthorised drones and no sign of a security threat or foreign involvement; New Jersey assemblymen Paul Kanitra and Greg Myhre said this seemed to contradict the previous day's briefing. The DHS issued a similar statement, while noting the general threat drones pose and its lack of "sufficient authorities" to counter them. On 15 December Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC News that some sightings were real drones, others misidentified aircraft, and that federal staff and technology had been sent to help the New Jersey State Police.^[1]

On 16 December the Department of Defense, DHS, FAA and FBI issued a joint statement. After reviewing more than 5,000 reported sightings they had found nothing anomalous: most had routine explanations — commercial, hobbyist or police drones, or conventional aircraft — and posed no risk to public safety or national security. The statement added that drone flights over restricted military airspace were "not new" and that the military took them seriously.^[1]

Documents later obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that by 17 December — the day before the FAA imposed flight restrictions — the TSA had already found several of the most prominent reports to be misidentifications, but had not made this public. Reason magazine argued that withholding the findings prolonged public worry while helping to justify calls for wider counter-drone powers.^[1]

State and local investigations

Bridgewater Police Chief John Mitzak said on 13 December that many sightings were manned aircraft, and Governor Phil Murphy later said drone-detection equipment had found little evidence of a threat. New York City police received about 120 drone calls over the weekend of 14–15 December, more than in the whole previous month; many proved to be aircraft, meteors or the planet Venus, and in some cases hobbyists flying drones in response to the rumours generated further reports. Governor Hochul announced on 15 December that the federal government would supply New York with a drone-detection system, and Senator Chuck Schumer asked for one for New Jersey.^[1]

Connecticut State Police deployed detection systems in Fairfield County on 13 December and said most sightings looked like manned aircraft or legal drones; Governor Ned Lamont noted that one "drone" carried the logo of Frontier Airlines. Governors Maura Healey of Massachusetts and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia confirmed state investigations on 14 December, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro ordered the State Police to investigate, using helicopters if needed.^[1]

Government responses

The White House said on 10 December that President Joe Biden was aware of the sightings, and on 18 December Biden said there was no sign of danger. Mayorkas briefed Governor Murphy and New Jersey's congressional delegation on 11 December.^[1]

The FAA restricted drone flights over Donald Trump's golf club at Bedminster from 22 November and, days later, over Picatinny Arsenal for a month. On 18 December it banned drone operations near 22 New Jersey communities, including Camden, Elizabeth and Jersey City, for a month, and the next day over parts of New York including Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island communities, citing "special security reasons" at the request of other federal agencies. Further restrictions in Gloucester, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth and Union counties followed on 30 December, lasting until 18 January 2025.^[1]

New Jersey State Senator Jon Bramnick suggested a "limited state of emergency" and a temporary ban on drones, and on 13 December Murphy wrote to Biden asking for better coordination and more power for state and local police to counter drones. Senators Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Andy Kim and Chuck Schumer requested briefings from the FBI, DHS and FAA; Senator Amy Klobuchar called for more transparency, and Senator Richard Blumenthal suggested jamming the drones. On 20 December the Senate extended existing counter-drone powers from the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 until 30 September 2025, when they expired. A broader bill backed by Schumer and Murphy to give the DHS and Justice Department new counter-drone authority was blocked by Senator Rand Paul over surveillance concerns, and other counter-drone bills did not pass before the end of the congressional term.^[1]

President-elect Donald Trump suggested on 13 December that the military should shoot the drones down, later said the government knew where they came from, and said he had cancelled a trip to his New Jersey golf club because of nearby sightings. A CBS News/YouGov poll of more than 2,000 Americans on 18–20 December found that 78% believed the government was withholding information, and more than half saw the drones as a threat. The sightings were satirised by Stephen Colbert and on Saturday Night Live.^[1]

Social media

Social media drove much of the interest and spread misinformation. Researchers at Montclair State University found that online posts about the drones surged in November and December, with fear the dominant emotion. Viral clips were found to be mislabelled, edited or AI-generated: a video on Threads of drones over a U.S. city was two-year-old footage from China of government drones spraying disinfectant during the COVID-19 pandemic; an Instagram video of gunfire at a drone had added sound and visual effects; a "crashed drone" posted by Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano was a replica of a Star Wars TIE fighter; and some "drone" videos were old recordings of drone light shows.^[1]

Proposed explanations

Misidentified aircraft and stars

Most experts attributed the sightings to ordinary aircraft and objects in the sky. The drone expert William Austin concluded after reviewing extensive video that the "large drones" were misidentified planes, cell-tower lights or small drones, whose use had grown because of the coverage, and suggested parallax as a cause of some errors. Missy Cummings, an engineering professor and drone researcher at George Mason University, said people were probably seeing stars, aircraft or reflections, and that drones were the least likely explanation because they are hard to pick out in the sky. The planetarium director Amie Gallagher suggested autokinesis, an illusion of movement when staring at a star, and the skeptic Mick West pointed to the limits of smartphone cameras. Former congressman Adam Kinzinger said every video he had reviewed showed an airplane, and the former FBI agent Tom Adams blamed "hysteria" for people mistaking aircraft, planets, satellites and the International Space Station for drones. The FBI and New Jersey State Police warned people not to shoot at or point lasers at suspected drones, since many were manned aircraft.^[1]

Ordinary drones

Others pointed to the huge number of ordinary drones. Kyle Mizokami of Popular Mechanics said people were simply noticing drones that had been around for years; Brandon Valeriano of Seton Hall University linked the reports to hobbyist flying; and Jamey Jacob of Oklahoma State University blamed careless operators for most sightings near military sites, and said social media largely drove the wave. In January 2025 the new White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the drones had been authorised by the FAA for research and other purposes, or were flown by hobbyists and private individuals, that public curiosity had increased the number of sightings, and that they posed no threat.^[1]

Mass panic and social contagion

Many academics and journalists described the wave as a social phenomenon. The neurologist William J. Bernstein suggested mass delusion, and Gary Small called it a shared delusion or mass panic. The sociologist Robert Bartholomew compared it to the First World War, when unexplained lights over New Jersey and Delaware were blamed on German spies: coverage made people watch the sky and notice air traffic they would normally ignore, and he saw the episode as the meeting of two modern American moral panics, the fear of new technology and the fear of foreigners. The historian Max Boot called mass hysteria a recurring feature of American life, and the journalist Tyler Rogoway pointed to mass hysteria and misidentified aircraft. The space photographer Andrew McCarthy said every video he reviewed showed planes or helicopters and called the wave a "social contagion"; an astronomy professor blamed confirmation bias; the science writer Michael Shermer called it a case of "patternicity", the tendency to find meaningful patterns in noise, helped by poor night-time images; and Greg Redfern compared it to the UFO flaps of American history.^[1]

On 1 January 2025 Matthew Livelsberger, a soldier and drone warfare specialist, killed himself in a car bombing in Las Vegas. A note he sent to a podcast claimed the drones were "gravitic propulsion systems" used by China and the United States; the FBI called the incident tragic and said he had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.^[1]

Foreign drones

Federal officials repeatedly rejected the idea that a foreign country was responsible. In early December Congressman Jeff Van Drew claimed an Iranian "mothership" was launching the drones; the Pentagon said the same day that there were no Iranian ships off the U.S. coast and no evidence of a foreign source, and Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder said that private drones regularly fly over bases without being threats. Congressman Michael McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he believed some were Chinese "spy drones", but the retired Air Force general James Poss doubted a foreign origin because the craft used FAA-compliant lights. The former Northern Command commander Glen VanHerck gave the idea more weight, arguing that the number, size and flight time of drones over bases ruled out hobbyists and might indicate foreign surveillance or a show of force. A Foreign Policy Research Institute report argued that the flood of false reports in December may have hidden a real rise in drone activity near military sites — a "hide in the noise" tactic — and the defence journalists of The War Zone likewise separated the civilian "mass hysteria" from the real problem of incursions over bases.^[1]

The lost radioactive source

One theory held that the drones were searching for radioactive material. In early December the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned that an object with trace radioactivity had been lost in the Northeast, and the mayor of Belleville, New Jersey, suggested the drones were government aircraft looking for it; Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis and Staten Island officials wrote to the DHS. The object was recovered by mid-December, New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection said no drones were used to find it, and the National Nuclear Security Administration said its emergency teams did not use drones for radiation detection and had none flying in the region.^[1]

Aftermath

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in February 2025, General Gregory Guillot, head of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, said the military had detected 350 drone incursions over 100 U.S. bases in 2024. He argued that the military's counter-drone authority under Title 10, section 130i, should cover all installations and their surroundings and allow data on drone activity to be shared smoothly with agencies such as the DHS. At the second Falcon Peak counter-drone evaluation in September 2025, Guillot announced a new rapid reaction force to respond to drones over bases, built on lessons from the 2024 incursions, which would be equipped with a system made by Anduril that included low-collateral interceptors.^[1]

New drone bills were introduced in the 119th Congress, including the DRONE Act of 2025, to let police use federal grants for drones, and the DEFENSE Act, to let state and local police counter aerial threats at large outdoor events; both remained in committee as of November 2025. Senator Tom Cotton, sponsor of the DEFENSE Act, added an amendment to the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act giving the military expanded authority against drones over its installations.^[1]

The episode has been compared to earlier waves of mysterious sightings in the United States, including the mystery airships of 1896–97, the 1947 flying disc craze, the Battle of Los Angeles and the 1952 sightings over Washington, D.C.^[1]

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “2024 United States drone sightings”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.