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newsweek-fbi-drones-statement-2024-12

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Newsweek — “FBI Issues Statement as Mystery Drone Sightings Reach New York” (December 9-10, 2024)

Source: Newsweek Date: December 9-10, 2024 Primary URL: https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-issues-statement-mystery-drone-sightings-reach-new-york-1998614 Reddit propagation: https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1hb6nrl (4,481 score, Dec 10 2024) Sourced: 2026-05-19 via direct requests + readability extract

Newsweek coverage of the December 2024 East Coast drone-flap escalation into New York — FBI Newark Field Office on-record statement plus key named-witnesses + congressional reactions. Captures the federal-investigation-acknowledgment moment during the drone flap.

Load-bearing quotes (verbatim)

FBI Newark Field Office spokeswoman

“We understand the concern, and we are doing all we can to figure out what’s going on. We truly don’t have much information to provide at the moment.”

This is the canonical FBI on-record statement for the drone flap. Acknowledges concern, acknowledges investigation, explicitly disclaims information.

NJ Governor Phil Murphy press conference (December 9, 2024)

“This is something we’re taking deadly seriously.”

“These are apparently very, as I understand it, very sophisticated. The minute you get eyes on them, they go dark.”

The “minute you get eyes on them, they go dark” framing is the most-circulated single quote from the New Jersey drone flap. It became shorthand for the credibility-of-the-flap argument: not generic drone activity but specifically counter-observation-aware drone activity.

Per Murphy: 49 sightings reported on Sunday (December 8); state and federal agencies (including DHS) actively investigating.

Eyewitness Diane Atkins (Brooklyn, Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge)

“There had to be 10, maybe 12 total of these things. Definitely not planes, and there were too many of them.”

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY)

Sharing Atkins’s videos on X:

“The FAA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and NYPD should let the public know what’s going on here. Are these drones and why are they flying over sensitive facilities and infrastructure? After the Chinese Spy balloon, anyone can understand why community is concerned!”

Geographic + facility context

  • Bay Ridge, Brooklyn sightings (Dec 8, 2024)
  • Picatinny Arsenal (US military facility, NJ) — sightings reported nearby
  • Donald Trump’s Bedminster (NJ) golf course — sightings reported nearby
  • FAA temporarily restricted drone flights over these locations in response

Why this primary matters

  1. FBI Newark on-record statement is the federal-investigation-acknowledgment moment. Prior to this, the drone flap had been DHS-spokesperson-level + state-level commentary. The FBI Newark Field Office statement elevates it to federal-criminal-investigation register.

  2. Murphy’s “minute you get eyes on them, they go dark” is the canonical sophistication-claim quote. This is the citation-of-origin; subsequent UAP-discourse coverage refers to it.

  3. Malliotakis (R-NY) “after the Chinese Spy balloon” framing connects the December 2024 flap chronologically to the February 2023 Yukon-Alaska-Lake-Huron shootdown period (biden-balloon-statement-2023-02-16). The two events are now linked in mainstream coverage.

  4. FAA temporary flight restrictions over Bedminster + Picatinny are documented institutional response. Federal restriction of a specific airspace is a higher-tier response than mere statement.

Cross-references

External primary reference

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