For several nights, mysterious drones flying over New Jersey have baffled local authorities and residents.
On Wednesday, December 11, 2024, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) declared on Fox News the objects “are coming from an Iranian vessel off the East Coast,” which the Defense Department “flatly denied” (read story here).
Van Drew said he got his information from “high sources,” which he didn’t identify. “Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago that contains these drones,” he claimed, adding, “I don’t say this lightly.”
A Pentagon spokesperson replied, “There is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there’s no so-called mothership launching drones towards the United States.”
The drones are bigger than hobbyist drones — some reports say the size of small cars — which points to a commercial operator. If I had to pick a foreign adversary, I’d guess China, but I don’t know anything about this (and don’t want to start a baseless internet rumor).
You can find a lot of YouTube videos about these drones, mostly of people speculating what they are or bloviating about what should be done about them; I just picked this one at random because it has some good visuals.