2024 New Jersey drone sightings
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🛸 Case
Contents 5
![States in which drone sightings were reported from November–December 2024. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2024_United_States_drone_sightings_map_(states).png)
| Type | Case |
|---|---|
| Also known as | New Jersey drone sightings, New Jersey drones, 2024 drone sightings |
The 2024 New Jersey drone sightings were a wave of reports of unidentified drones that began in New Jersey in November 2024 and spread across the north-eastern United States in December. Federal investigators reviewed more than 5,000 reports and concluded that most were authorised drones, manned aircraft, stars and planets. The episode was widely compared to past UFO waves.[1]
Sightings
The first report came from Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County on 13 November 2024, where a contractor saw a light rise from the tree line. Reports spread across New Jersey and then into New York, Pennsylvania and other states. Witnesses described large, loud or unlit drones, sometimes in groups, over homes, highways, reservoirs, power plants and military sites such as Naval Weapons Station Earle.[1][2]
Several high-profile reports were later explained. Coast Guard "drones" following a lifeboat proved to be airliners lining up for John F. Kennedy International Airport, and drones said to have blocked a medical helicopter near Raritan Valley Community College were aircraft approaching a nearby airfield. A video posted by former Maryland governor Larry Hogan was identified by astronomers as showing the constellation Orion.[1]
The official response
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The FBI began asking the public for reports on 3 December. On 16 December the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration and FBI issued a joint statement saying they had found nothing anomalous and no threat to public or national security, and that most sightings were lawful commercial, hobbyist or police drones, manned aircraft or stars.[1] Pentagon officials rejected a congressman's claim that an Iranian "mothership" was responsible.[1] The FAA nevertheless imposed temporary drone bans over parts of New Jersey and New York.[1]
In January 2025 White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the drones were mostly authorised research drones and hobbyist aircraft.[1] Documents released later under freedom of information laws showed that the Transportation Security Administration had already identified several high-profile reports as mistaken by mid-December.[1]
Military incursions
Separately, military officials confirmed that unauthorised drones regularly fly over US bases. In February 2025 General Gregory Guillot, head of NORAD and US Northern Command, told the Senate that the military had detected 350 drone incursions over 100 bases in 2024, and later that year he announced a counter-drone rapid reaction force.[1]
Analysis
Many experts described the wave as a mass panic or "social contagion", in which people began noticing ordinary aircraft and stars. Science writer Michael Shermer called it an example of "patternicity", the tendency to see meaningful patterns in random noise.[1]
References
🛸 Sightings & submissions about this 4
Trump just told his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on the fly to "immediately" find out for him what the drone scare was so he can tell the people.New Jersey
US Air Force Veteran Matthew Nelson: A clear sighting of what looks like a large golden orb hovering near New Jersey. This does not look like any drone. Fighters scrambled. "We noticed an extremely…Dec 18, 2024 · New Jersey
UAP ejecting something before exploding - Hammonton Lake, New JerseyNew Jersey
911 calls of a “drone down” in Morris, northern New JerseyNew JerseyThis page was last edited on 31 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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