Politicians have also joined in the frenzy over drone sightings. Although the wave of fear has passed, the details of what happened remain unclear.
There is no evidence that the New Jersey drone came from a foreign company, the Pentagon says.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said at a news conference that the drone spotted over New Jersey did not belong to the U.S. military.
In late 2024, Americans were gripped by the mystery of what at first appeared to be a drone invasion over New Jersey and other East Coast states. A year later, some of that mystery has been solved, but questions remain about what exactly happened.
It all started in November 2024 with reports of drones possibly flying near the Picatinny Arsenal Military Research Center in Morris County, New Jersey. Additional sightings were reported at the facility in the weeks that followed. Soon, Americans and even politicians in other East Coast states were claiming to have seen drones.
Drone sightings spiked in November and December, prompting government agencies to investigate and politicians demanding answers. Speculation swirled as to who or who might be behind the sightings. Were they sent there by a foreign enemy? Were they signs that the U.S. government was spying on civilians? Was it a drone to begin with, or were people seeing something that wasn’t there?
Little evidence has been found to support the most brilliant theories.
White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said in January 2025 that the sighting was a combination of events.
“Eventually, curiosity escalated. This was not an enemy,” she said at her first formal press conference of the second Trump administration. (The Trump transition team previously criticized former President Joe Biden for not sharing more information with the public about 2024).
Several main explanations have emerged.
- Some were likely research drones.: The Trump administration acknowledged that some of the sightings were actual drones that had been cleared for study by the Federal Aviation Administration. There were also hobbyist drones.
- Some were not drones at all. Many reports turned out to be planes or other light sources in the night sky. Even the star was believed to be a drone, authorities said.
- “Confirmation bias” makes this phenomenon difficult to study. As of December 16, 2024, the FBI and other agencies have received information about more than 5,000 possible drone sightings. “People are looking for this, but they have a confirmation bias that says, ‘Whatever I see, it’s probably one of those drones,'” said Matthew Sharps, a professor at California State University, Fresno, who is an expert in the psychological science of eyewitness cognition.
The FBI declined to comment in early December when asked for a final report on its findings. The FAA, which also conducted the investigation, did not respond to a request for comment. Federal authorities have not said much more about the case since early 2025.
What happened in the 2024 New Jersey drone scare?
The first recorded sighting of an unidentified object described as a drone took place on November 13, 2024 at the Picatinny Arsenal. The facility announced in mid-December that it had since confirmed 11 drone sightings and seven other sightings that turned out to be planes. The facility said the drone did not belong to them and the source was unknown.
Days later, Morris County, New Jersey, announced that officers on patrol also spotted the drone and were investigating the matter. More officials and law enforcement soon joined the investigation as more reports spread on social media and lawmakers began demanding answers.
“Are the public in danger?” Rep. August Pflueger (R-Texas) asked FBI official Robert W. Wheeler Jr. during a December 2024 Congressional hearing.
“There’s nothing known to say that,” Wheeler said. “But we don’t know that. And that’s the worrying part.”
Drone outbreaks have been reported in states such as New York and Pennsylvania. Some of the sightings have also been at military installations and then-President-elect Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Amid rumors, the FAA has implemented temporary drone flight restrictions near critical infrastructure in New York and New Jersey. President Trump has suggested that drones should be shot down. New Jersey Congressman Jeff Van Drew (R) speculated that the drones may have originated from an Iranian “mother ship,” but this suggestion was rejected by the Pentagon. Former Gov. Chris Christie also said he saw a drone near his home.
So-called drones were sometimes just planes or stars: FBI
Although the federal agency has not released a full report of the investigation, a document was released by the Department of Homeland Security in early 2025 as part of the investigation that summarized four different sightings that occurred in November and December 2024.
In one such incident, on November 26, 2024, a medical aid helicopter was diverted as it was about to land after what was described as a drone was spotted nearby. The so-called drones were actually three commercial aircraft lined up in a manner that appeared to be hovering like drones from the ground, the review documents said. Other incidents investigated were also explained by the aircraft.
The Biden administration initially took a similarly cautious approach.
“We assess that sightings to date have included a combination of legal commercial, hobbyist, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and even stellar aircraft that have been incorrectly reported as drones,” former President Biden Press Secretary John Kirby said on December 16, 2024.
Why have so many people seen drones?
Sharps, who wrote the book “Forensic Perspectives: Investigative Psychology, Law Enforcement, Aliens, Exploration, and the Nature of Madness,” said there are psychological phenomena that help explain some of the confusion. The study of eyewitness memory tells scientists that people’s preconceptions and beliefs can help shape what they see. People also tend to trust what authorities say. In this case, Sharps said, people were first told by an official source that there had been a concerning drone sighting.
“Once you have a pre-framework of, ‘There’s something strange in the sky, it’s got to be a drone,’ you start looking for it. You’re going to see more things in the sky,” Sharps said.
Using social media to share sightings also gives the feeling of being directly involved in the mayhem, making the appeal spread even faster, a kind of “psychological contagion,” he said.
This kind of thing has happened before. In 1942, shortly after the United States entered World War II, many believed that Los Angeles was being bombed by the Japanese, although no air raids occurred at all. During the so-called Battle of Los Angeles, after reports of enemy planes flying very close to the city and even planes crashing, the U.S. military fired debris into the air, some of which fell to the ground and caused real damage, Sharps wrote in Psychology Today. Panicked residents tried to flee. Five people died from car accidents and heart attacks.
But that night, there was not a single Japanese aircraft in the sky. Witnesses, including military observers, were wrong. What is the most likely cause of the confusion?Perhaps the weather balloon was mistaken for an enemy aircraft in a tense situation where people believed an attack was imminent.
“People’s prior beliefs affect how they interpret what they see,” Sharps says.
Contributor: Kyle Morel, NorthJersey.com
