NewsNation Special — “Drones over New Jersey: Mystery continues a month after first sightings” (22 Dec 2024)
Source: NewsNation Special report on the New Jersey / Northeast US “drone” incursions. Includes reporting/interviews; James Fowler (Skywatcher) appears on the airspace-breach question. URL: https://youtu.be/XK_pCRbIv5g (2024-12-22; ~41:59). Captured: 2026-07-01. OpenAI Whisper (whisper-1) via scripts/speech_to_text_remote.py; timestamped paragraphs, verbatim. Multiple speakers (anchors, officials, Fowler), not diarized. Provenance only. What this is: contemporaneous coverage of the December 2024 New Jersey drone flap — the event repeatedly referenced across the base’s incursions material. Notable content:
- The political split: the President and president-elect sending “different messages”; officials offering little from DoD/DHS.
- Rep. Michael McCaul’s view that a foreign adversary “may be at work”; other officials noting the objects’ evasiveness (“all of a sudden it goes dark”), sophistication, and stealthiness.
- Claimed anomalous characteristics: transmedium behavior (objects “coming out of the water and then zipping away”), “instantaneous acceleration,” and low observability.
- Fowler / Skywatcher on the ground: asked whether his Skywatcher team confirmed the airspace breaches, he says he had been “on Picatinny Arsenal this week” — the same Picatinny incursion later discussed in his Sol Foundation talk (fowler-vonrennenkampff-sol-foundation-dogwhistle-2025). He allows a mixture of real drones and UAP, and says he does not believe it is purely foreign-adversarial. Provenance/analysis anchors: this is the primary event behind the drone-incursions discussion in fowler-vonrennenkampff-sol-foundation-dogwhistle-2025 and coulthart-realitycheck-qa-2025-12-21; weight the on-air attributions and Fowler’s Skywatcher claims accordingly (contemporaneous, largely unresolved).
[0:00] The American public are at risk here. Right now, the night sky is buzzing with activity. There’s so many things in the sky right now. But what are they? The president and president-elect sending different messages. Nothing that’s fair is a fair one. But they’re checking it all out. The government knows what is happening. And for some reason they want to keep people in suspense. And your elected officials are fed up. Show us the data. Show us how it’s manned aircraft. That kind of sophistication clearly suggests this is not something that’s being done in somebody’s backyard. But are they saying, just don’t look up? You’re telling us that the state police shouldn’t believe their own eyes. It’s almost as if they’re attempting to dissuade the public from reporting what they are seeing.
[0:46] Tonight, we examine why we still don’t know what’s above our heads. NewsNation sitting down exclusively with people who are hunting these objects. What we’ve observed is these things just pop into place. Have you been able to track where these objects are coming from and going to? We have knowledge on where they’re going in terms of what the target they’re looking at. And we ask the questions others don’t dare to bring up. Could this be a rogue element of the state? That would be very problematic. Good evening and welcome to this NewsNation special report, Drones Over New Jersey. I’m Ross Coulthard, coming to you live from Australia. And as we go to air tonight, the sightings of these mystery objects,
[1:43] drones, as the government chooses to call them, are continuing. It is legitimate now to seriously question the official assertions that these objects, whatever they are, pose no threat. It’s emerged today in the British media that the British government has held two meetings of its COBRA National Security Committee to discuss the deepening drones crisis. This is because, as we’ll reveal to you in detail today, the sophisticated technology behind these craft means that we’ve not been able to track them, we can’t bring them down, nor do we know where they’re coming from. We can’t bring them down, nor do we know yet who is actually operating them. Someone or something is operating craft in our skies
[2:36] with apparent total impunity. We’ll get across now to the NewsNation DC correspondent, Elina Shirazi, for the latest. Elina. Ross, good evening. Good to be with you. There’s certainly a lot of questions about what these sightings are. As of yet, they’re saying more so what they’re not than what they are, from my experience. The White House saying there is nothing to be worried about, but the government is certainly taking some measures. The Federal Aviation Administration is now banning drone flights over large parts of New York and New Jersey until next month. The Pentagon is also stepping in, but the American public and lawmakers, they want answers.
[3:17] The bottom line is that our forces, our commanders, if they observe UAS activity that they believe represents a threat, they have the authority to conduct mitigation operations. The Defense Department authorizing shootdowns of drones and sending counter-drone technology to military bases. NewsNation pressing the Pentagon this week on how they will spot potential threats. What would constitute it as a threat? What is the benchmark? And have you been communicating with other military installations to be ready for more of these drones and how to spot if it could be a threat before it might be too late? This is not a new conversation for us within DOD. I mean, as I highlighted, drones flying,
[3:58] whether here or overseas, is not something new, right? And especially in the United States with a million registered drones. This announcement comes as President Biden says Americans have nothing to fear. There’s nothing nefarious, apparently. But they’re checking it all out. We’re following these posts. So far, no sense of danger. But President-elect Trump isn’t buying it, accusing the White House and Pentagon of a cover-up. They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason, they don’t want to comment. And I think they’d be better off saying what it is our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense. The House Intelligence Committee held a classified briefing with more than two dozen defense and intelligence officials this week. Some lawmakers telling NewsNation
[4:47] they feel confident nothing bad is happening. There’s no evidence that anybody is acting unlawfully here or that any of these drones, inasmuch as the authorities know anything about them, are associated with anybody with malign intent. I think the FBI, the intelligence community, is taking this very seriously. It’s looking at every report. And to date, there’s no evidence that there’s anything nefarious going on here. But a majority of lawmakers tell NewsNation they want more answers, including Secretary of State pick Marco Rubio. Can I ask you quickly about the drone situation? I’m not using more than what you’ve seen in the media. So are you satisfied with the response
[5:29] from DOD and from Homeland Security last night? I think we all wish we knew more. House Committee Chairman Michael McCaul sharing his view that a foreign adversary may be at work. My judgment, based on my experience, is that those that are over our military sites are adversarial and most likely are coming from the People’s Republic of China. In Washington, Alina Shirazi, NewsNation. I’d now like to welcome New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith and New Jersey Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia. Congressman, the FAA has announced that it’s imposing a TFR, a total flight restriction over large sections of New Jersey. By any measure, this is a significant back down to the previous position by the government which has stated that these objects are legal drones, legal aircraft, and you people in New Jersey
[6:27] are all suffering from mass hysteria. Anything but. And, you know, there’s 22 different sites that have been put as no-fly zones and they’re the beginning. There will be more. Partners have asked. Jersey Central Power and Light has asked, we believe, that this be done. If you look where they are, it’s where there’s electrical grids infrastructure and it just begs the question, if there’s nothing to see here, if there’s no protection to protect because that’s where these sightings are and there’s more that need to be added, frankly, many more, including in the nuclear station down in Salem County which has experienced a number of drones and Earl. Earl is a naval weapons station. It’s in my district. I’ve talked to the commanding officer and they’ve had drones hovering over the rail line where the munitions are brought from their depot to unload them onto ships and just so you know, we just had a meeting online with a number of people from Homeland Security, DOD and I was shocked when the Homeland Security in answer to my question about what Kirby had said that what I had revealed that a Coast Guard person, a commanding officer had said one of his 47 footers
[7:54] had many drones following it right off the coast of Ocean County and they were 100 feet behind the cutter. It wasn’t a cutter but it was a rescue boat and they saw it, the sailors saw it and then when they turned they followed. Kirby has said oh, we’ve looked into this there are jets on their way into John F. Kennedy and it was repeated today doubling down that somehow our men and women of the Coast Guard who are very well trained and situationally aware and very observant somehow didn’t see what they saw. I find that appalling and it’s just par for the course of what we’ve seen over the last month. Assemblywoman Fantasia some sources of mine are telling me from within the police the defense force and also Homeland Security and the FBI, they’re actually saying they feel that the White House is gaslighting the people of New Jersey by suggesting they’re not seeing what they’re seeing. What’s your view? That’s a very accurate assessment from
[8:59] a state level. Not only are federal authorities diminishing what civilian reports may be and of course when you open up a tip line to report what you see in the sky, you are going to get a mix of different things civilians may misidentify at times but it’s very difficult to misidentify an SUV sized drone hovering near the tree line that is not following any normal flight pattern that we typically see with aircraft and to double down as the congressman said and refute direct information we were given. I was part of a briefing a week ago at the New Jersey State Police ROC and Patrick Callahan, the colonel of the New Jersey State Police clearly stated that he sent his men up in a helicopter and they landed above the drone and when they got to that point the drone turned their legs out and
[9:53] became undetectable. So you tell me now you are saying that hundreds if not thousands of New Jerseyans shouldn’t believe their own eyes. You’re telling us that the state police shouldn’t believe their own eyes. You’re telling us personnel at Picatinny Arsenal who reports 11 credible sightings shouldn’t believe their own eyes and then you have New York guests go on TV over the past couple days and say perhaps it’s stars or convenience store drones. Convenience store drones. Congressman are people in New Jersey getting alarmed or even frightened by the mixed messaging that they’re getting from government? I think alarmed would be the best term. New Jerseys are not easily frightened and I mean that and I talk to many constantly. I talk to law enforcement I talk to people on the street, mayors assemblymen and thank you for your great work assemblywoman. You really
[10:51] have been a great voice. My two sheriffs, Sean Golden and Mike Mastronardi have done an amazing job of trying to track and to report in a way that is actionable and they’re calm but they are like I am, very disturbed by Homeland Security. When you have the secretary of Homeland Security saying there’s nothing unusual about all of this of course it’s unusual. Speak truth to power talk to your president and tell him he needs to brief the nation and DOD needs to step up and Homeland Security unfortunately has done far too little. The state police wants to do more. They need the tools and local law enforcement needs the tools too. But why can’t they bring one of these down and determine whether or not they are foreign. Are they Chinese? I chair the China Commission Xi Jinping is a monster committing human rights abuse every single day. Genocide against
[11:51] the Uyghurs. I can’t even go there. I’m on the hit list not to be allowed into China. They are very malevolent and to think that they don’t have the capability to do just what they’re doing or Putin and maybe even Iran we need to know if this is some foreign adversary. I have been told that the highest levels of the U.S. government they’re not U.S. in any way shape or form. They’re not subcontractees they’re not CIA. They’re not DOD which they’ve said publicly a number of times. Well who are they? Congressman the government has also made it very clear that there’s no evidence that this is a foreign adversary Russia, China, Iran or North Korea. Do you believe that? No. I don’t think they know but part of it is they have not, why can’t we bring one of these down? Is our airspace so susceptible and so easily violated that we can’t go and say okay here they are, let’s get at least one and find out where, you know, what’s the origin. I asked Secretary Mayorkas on one of these visual things
[12:57] I asked him very point blank follow one. Can’t we follow them? And he suggested no as the Assemblywoman said the state police said all of a sudden it goes dark well that kind of sophistication that kind of stealthiness clearly suggests this is not something that’s being done in somebody’s backyard. These are not hobbyists this is probably one of these nation state terrorist kind of countries like Putin’s. Are you confident that we’ve got enough protections in place is enough being done to ensure that the people of New Jersey and indeed every part of the continent is protected? No, in a word. It’s been bewildering why the group think that we keep seeing from the intel services where everybody is on the same page with the same talking points nothing unusual here nothing to worry about, not a threat they don’t know that, they don’t know that at all I’m asking questions I don’t know if it’s a threat from China, Russia or Iran or North Korea but it certainly
[14:05] begs the question, why are we not aggressively looking to determine the source and they’re not doing that. If they are doing it they are failing in a colossal way. Final question to both of you, Congressman are you seeing any diminution, any reduction in the sightings or is it actually ramping up? I would say they’re ramping up, I think the sightings, you know the idea to say these are lawful and we keep hearing, yeah there are lawful drones that are up there, it’s the unlawful ones and the ones that pose a threat that we’re worried about don’t confuse and try to you know, the art of misdirection which is now being used very very effectively but we are pushing back, no I think there’s many more And Assemblywoman on the ground, people are alarmed as the Congressman has said What’s the feeling and are
[14:57] you seeing from the reports that you’re getting, are you seeing any change at all in the sightings reports, is there any sign of it going away or do you think whoever this is they appear to be demonstrating that they can operate over our airspace with seeming apparent impunity, aren’t they? Definitely, what I do see is the only time there is any reduction in action of these is when there is severe weather, which New Jersey has not experienced a lot of, as I was discussing prior, we’ve been in a drought situation for quite a period of time, we have limited rain, very limited snow and what not for this time of year, so when the conditions are right and the skies are clear no we are not seeing a reduction, what we may be seeing a reduction of is your average Joe calling these in because that’s another issue
[15:47] there’s a bit of a run around that’s happening you know, we’re told don’t call in stars, don’t call in ABCD that you’re seeing in the sky, and it’s almost as if they’re attempting to dissuade the public from reporting what they are seeing, and that’s frustrating as well, we’re in a very dangerous place when the government is telling us do not believe what you are seeing with your eyes, and we’re in an even more dangerous place when our professionals, when our military personnel, when our law enforcement officers are reporting the same and the federal government is telling them do not believe what you see with your eyes and I appreciate the work of Congressman Smith and some of his colleagues there trying to get us answers at the state level because honestly, we’re perplexed. Well, Congressman Smith and Assemblywoman Fantasia, thank you
[16:35] very much for giving us your views. Thank you, thank you so much. Coming up I sit down with one of the biggest whistleblowers in US history. I have never seen an administration handle a topic as poorly as this. What Lou Elizondo thinks is happening in our skies. That’s next. Hello and welcome back. It is non-stop right now. I cannot believe the pace of how things are moving so quickly and to help me in this we’re bringing in a great friend of the show and one of the leaders of this whole issue, Lou Elizondo. Lou, welcome back. Tell us sir, what on earth is going on? Well, thank you, Ross and it’s always a privilege to be with you and your audience. Thank you so much for doing what you’re doing and highlighting this
[17:39] important topic. You know, the bottom line, we’ve been saying for years now that we do not have complete awareness of what’s in our skies. In fact, it was part of my resignation memo to then Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and despite the, if you will, the counter remarks of the Pentagon saying no, we do, what happens, let me remind you and your audience just what happened last year when we started looking for these UAP and recalibrating our radar systems, we start finding Chinese spy balloons wafting over unchallenged over Northern Continental United States and step back even four years before that, there was an eerily similar situation in Colorado and Nebraska where drones were being recorded, photographed and even videoed by local law enforcement. FBI was called out and they have no idea to this day the origins or where the things were going to or who was behind operating these quote unquote drones. Now, what I would say, it was very interesting with some of these drones, Ross, is that some of them are being reported without the normal
[18:47] techno signatures, if you will, of what a drone should be and should sound like. So there’s two types of drones we have, fixed wing and rotary wing and some of these don’t seem to be following any of those patterns. So can I just pin you down on that for a moment, Lou? Yeah. There’s a thing that you’ve termed the five observables. Are any of these objects, and I’m going to use that neutral term, are any of these objects that are being reported over military bases, over crowded civilian areas, not only on the East Coast, but across the entire US and the UK and other countries, are these objects showing signs of what you would call the five observables? Yeah, Ross, in some cases, yeah. Some people reporting these things have the ability, moving silently in some cases, over major urban area and populated areas. Two, there seems to be
[19:43] some perhaps transmedium characteristics. Some reports have these things coming out of the water and then zipping away very, very fast. What we refer to as instantaneous acceleration and low observability. Can’t see them on radars. In fact, when somebody, an investigator, sent up a drone to chase one of these things, it lost power and his own drone fell to the ground and the other thing disappeared into what was described as thin air. Now, I wasn’t there myself to see those drones, but I can tell you I have video of these things actually over Andrews Air Force Base. They were over Langley Air Force Base, over some really sensitive facilities that we have here in the United States and overseas. You’re right. This is not just New
[20:29] Jersey. It’s California. It’s Florida. It’s Virginia. It’s Maryland. It’s Washington, D.C. These things are becoming, whatever they are, are very brash and they’re not really afraid to be seen at night. Let’s look at the White House’s response, Lou. I’m going to say it. By any measure, it is a messaging public relations disaster. Do you agree? It is a catastrophe. I have never seen an administration handle a topic as poorly as this. You mentioned John Kirby. I hate to say it’s shame on him. He comes out and tells people all these are manned aircraft on normal flight patterns. Meanwhile, you have literally members of Congress taking pictures and videos with their cell phones
[21:17] of these things over their house. What is going on in the White House, Lou? Why would they say these things when they’re so transparently false? Ross, it’s only one of two things. That’s all it can be. Either A, they do know and they’re lying. They’re not telling the American people. Or B, they don’t know and they’re incompetent. That’s it. Either they’re lying or they’re incompetent, but there is no other solution. Either one of those is really a bad place for this administration to be in. There’s a long history of debacles to include the Afghanistan withdrawal and a bunch of other things that we just continue to drop the ball on. We’re not informing the American people of the truth. This is yet another example of why, for whatever reason, this administration doesn’t seem
[21:59] to have a handle on things. Now, I will say this, Ross. Fortunately, fortunately, and this is politics aside, whether you’re liberal or conservative or anywhere in the middle, it doesn’t matter. This new administration, independent of how someone may feel about the new administration, they’ve got a lot of key people that are going to be on those cabinets, cabinet positions, that are extremely proactive and dedicated to getting to the bottom of what’s actually going on. And I think people, once people really know the truth, the whole truth about this topic, and particularly the UAP topic, you know, I think there’s going to be a lot of reconciliation. I think there’s going to be a lot of people having to do some serious thought about what this topic actually means
[22:39] and what’s actually going on, potentially. Still ahead, more from my conversation with Lou Elizondo. Could this be a rogue element of the state? That would be very problematic. That’s straight ahead. So Lou, let me pin you down. David Grush and you have both said categorically that you know there is a secret retrieval program of non-human technology being operated by the US government. Now we don’t know if the drones that are operating over New Jersey and other parts of America are non-human technology. But let me ask you this in this way, hypothetically. Whatever those objects are, do you believe that the reluctance of the White House to tell what it fully knows about this subject matter has to do with the secrecy surrounding the retrieval program? It’s quite
[23:47] possible. Let me, I see two scenarios. I see either A, these are all US-made drones, meaning there are technology and we have a significant threat issue on our hands, meaning there’s somewhere, somehow, weapons of mass destruction may be loose here in continental United States and they’re flying these drones at night with sniffer drones trying to figure out if we can detect this threat, if it exists. Can I have a comment on that one though? We’ll talk about the alternative in a minute. We have the nest teams. I’m told the DOE has very effective nuclear emergency and safety teams which go in and do this kind of radiological training and search detection. Why would we need to put up multi-lit colored drones pretending to be aircraft if we’ve
[24:35] got the nest teams? That’s a really good point. Also, why are they breaking protocol by operating only at night and why are they breaking protocol by not coordinating with state and local tribal authorities as they should be and other federal agencies like FAA? Why are they not using a transponder? Why are they not listed on flight aware apps that you can have on your mobile phone to track everything in the sky? Why aren’t they listing their flight paths with the FAA if they’re commercial type drones or military drones? There’s a whole litany of reasons why that doesn’t make sense. You’re right, but I have to put it out there as a form of alternative hypothesis because the other potential alternative is that we’re dealing with two things. We’re dealing with
[25:15] and I don’t believe it’s foreign adversarial. I believe you could have both a mixture of UAP incidents with real drone incidents as a response to the UAP incidents or it could be something even potentially more nefarious if you really wanted to confuse Americans what you could do is every time there was a major UAP incident, set up a whole bunch of drones in the area and then people will start recording drones and pictures and say, oh, that was a drone that you saw. You could do that, right? Part of denial and deception campaign and it’s very much like seeding, right? You start throwing a bunch of stuff of trash in the sky and people start saying, oh, that wasn’t a UAP. That was a quadcopter or something to that effect. That is also another possibility. I think that one’s a little bit that’s a bit of a stretch because that would take a huge, huge coordinated effort and I think too many people in the know would probably come out and probably blow the whistle
[26:07] on that if I had to guess. I’ve bled my saucers dry the last few days, Lou. I bet you have, Ross. I’m pretty sure, I mean, I know the FBI say it’s not theirs, Homeland Security say it’s not theirs and more importantly the Department of Energy say it’s not theirs. We’re running out of available agencies. I mean, there’s another implication that lies behind this that worries me. Could this be a rogue element of the state? That would be very problematic. That is so I shudder at the thought of that because you’re now on very dangerous territory regarding organizations taking unilateral and autonomous control of things in our government which from my perspective that equates to coup d’etat, right? So this is really, this would be, if this happened, if this is actually what’s happening and there is elements of the rogue state doing this then, my friend, we’ve got bigger problems on our hands than drones. You know, I would encourage you
[27:19] and your colleagues in the media to continue to pursue this topic because I think you’re going to find that whatever this winds up being could wind up being something truly paradigm changing in the way we look at things from a national security perspective. Now you’ve got me excited. Lou Elizondo, thanks for joining Reality Check. We’ll speak to you again soon. My honor and privilege. Thank you as always. Coming up, Skywatcher. It’s a new organization specializing in aerospace defense intelligence. They’ve been on the ground in New Jersey working with the FBI, the Defense Department and Homeland Security. An exclusive interview with two folk from Skywatcher up next.
[28:11] Okay, so one of the big problems for everyone in the last few weeks has been knowing what’s going on on the ground behind the scenes in places like Picatinny Arsenal. What do the Defense Department, what do the FAA, Homeland Security, FBI and local enforcement really know on the ground? Well, we’ve now got an exclusive interview with a new company that’s been working with the Defense Department on this investigation. It’s called Skywatcher Technologies Corporation and the two principal co-founders, Jake Barber and James Fowler are with me now. Jake Barber, what can you tell me about the work that Skywatcher’s been doing on location in New Jersey? Yeah, so Skywatcher, we provide services broadly speaking in aerial intelligence, aerial observation and taking, trying to compile sensor data in a comprehensive fashion to allow people like the law enforcement agencies working in combination in New Jersey to begin to form a picture that can translate into what we call actionable intelligence to be able to identify
[29:23] what’s going on. The why and who are where we’re focused right now. Who is operating the activity and we’ll add another one, what, because what is in question as well. What is operating in the skies over New Jersey? Who is in command of the craft or etc. that’s operating in the skies over New Jersey? Ultimately, the biggest question that everyone is having fun speculating on right now is why? Why are they doing it? James Fowler, what are you seeing? I mean, we don’t even know for sure, do we, that these objects are drones, do we? What are they? I would offer that we do know that they’re drones. They are probably a military power lance group three drones that would be three to five meter wingspan
[30:11] craft. Are we able to speculate? Have you in the work that you’ve been doing been able to track where these objects are coming from and going to? So in terms of where they’re coming and going from, that’s still being investigated. We have knowledge on where they’re going in terms of what their target area might be. We have knowledge on where they are loitering, but in terms of where they come from or where they go to, that’s being investigated currently now. There’s a lot of speculation out there looking at the ocean. There’s a lot of speculation looking at places on land. Wherever the drone base is, it won’t remain a mystery long for the public, but
[30:53] it is discovered. So by any definition, this is a national security threat. What we’re talking about here is potentially a nation state. Are you able to speculate who is deploying military sized drones over some of our most sensitive military facilities? So I would offer this is more Korea warfare than it is black and white. This isn’t traditional World War II style. Hey, there’s a German airplane, there’s an American airplane. It’s more disguised than that. I believe that right now we’re looking at a conflict in our government of, is this an act of war or is this a criminal action? Now, Jake Barber, the commander of the Picatinny Arsenal put out a press release about a week ago stating that there had been 11 reported confirmed incursions by apparent drones over the Picatinny Arsenal
[31:45] restricted airspace. Have you and your Skywatcher team confirmed those ongoing breaches of the airspace by drones? I’ve been on Picatinny Arsenal this week. It’s a pretty calm place. I’ll tell you that it’s clear to me that the Picatinny Arsenal is not involved. This isn’t some exercise that they’re complicit in. They’re concerned just as much as everyone else is. Mr. Barber, have you actually confirmed I think you’ve got vision, haven’t you, which you shot through night vision. It actually shows these objects disappearing or apparently turning their lights off over the Picatinny Arsenal. Correct. Correct. Or in the vicinity at least. They’re in and around
[32:31] the airspace over Picatinny Arsenal. So let me explore what I think are the quite dramatic implications behind what you two gentlemen are conveying to us today. Essentially what you’re describing is a well resourced possible nation state that is deploying what sound like highly advanced drones, multi hundreds of thousands of dollars drones, each one of them. In some cases, clusters of 50 of them in operations against the east coast of the United States. But by any measure, that is a national security crisis, isn’t it? So yes, and I would offer if you recall the harassment of our fleet in the Pacific off the west coast, that was widely believed to have been conducted by the Chinese off of a cargo vessel in the vicinity. If you look at Langley Air Force Base, the incursions there last year, a Chinese national was detained at the perimeter in the vicinity of Langley Air Force
[33:35] Base recovering a drone from a tree. So if we look at the past performance and even add to that the incursion of the Chinese balloon over U.S. airspace, it pretty much points a finger to the only entity that has a past performance of conducting incursions U.S. mainland airspace and that’s China. So are these Chinese drones I would say based on the past performance of China operating in the United States? Very likely. The addition of a SATCOM technology, that’s not really that bespoke. That’s available in kits. You can do that with homemade items, but I would offer flying a three to five meter drone in a formation over tens or hundreds of miles
[34:17] standoff from the launch point and recovery. Okay, that’s a nation state activity, especially when you consider more than one drone. Well gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. I guess we’d love to check in with Sky Watcher as your investigations go on. I presume you’re going back and redeploying over the New Jersey area and we look forward to hearing more from you on what you find. Wonderful. Thanks for asking. Coming up, we’ll be answering some of your viewer questions. And by crikey, you’ve got a lot of them. Okay, so I want to answer now some of the questions that our viewers are asking. You’ve been barraging with questions in the last few days,
[35:07] so here’s a few of them. Firstly, why is it invariably assumed that these objects do not contain living crew? Some of them are being reported as the size of a large bus. Even the smaller ones could contain beings smaller than humans if they are indeed alien. Just because they look superficially somewhat like drones, it doesn’t mean they are completely automated nor externally controlled. Okay, well, Dagnia-N71, there is an assumption in your question that this is alien. We don’t know that. We just don’t know that for sure. The government is suggesting otherwise. It’s pushing the line that these are simply drones. What’s implausible about the government’s position, I believe, is that they have no explanation about who is responsible for these drones, nor can they explain where they are coming from or where they’re going to. They know, I think, absolutely nothing about them. And it does entitle
[36:07] us to ask the question that I think has been posed by at least one congressional representative. Could this possibly be NHI, non-human intelligence? Certainly, if it is NHI, we have no knowledge what’s inside the craft if it is. It might be occupied by some alien being. We simply don’t know. At the moment, it’s idle to speculate. But the government’s increasing vacuum on information is the issue. All it’s doing is feeding growing public speculation that it’s hiding something. Add to that the fact that there’s increasing evidence that these objects, whatever they are, are displaying anomalous performance characteristics. They are capable of stealth management. They can go
[36:53] dark. They can literally disappear. They are also able to manage their signature, their visual and audio signature. They appear capable of presenting themselves as looking like aircraft, like helicopters or planes, when in fact they’re not helicopters and planes. They’re displaying what look like navigation lights, which don’t appear to be proper FAA-approved navigation lights. They are also able to not display any kind of RF signature that allows them to be interfered with, with standard RF jamming equipment. Whatever they are, they’re highly advanced, and they’re not known conventional drones. At Powerflower69 Powerflower69 asks, To be clear, are these things coming from the sea or were they underwater and emerging from the sea? There is a small
[37:45] difference, and you’re absolutely right. There is a significant difference. We don’t know. There’s no images of these objects operating what you would call transmedium. There have been suggestions that these objects are coming from underwater, but as yet I’ve seen no evidence that they are moving transmedium. At the moment, we have politicians and law enforcement saying that these objects have been videoed coming from the direction of the ocean, and I think that’s what they’re referring to. But I think there’s a lot of speculation that these objects, whatever they are, do appear to be coming from the ocean, i.e. underwater. We just don’t know yet because we don’t
[38:29] have the evidence. At LH-minis says, it’s not just the US. These drones are in the UK, Russia, Australia, New Zealand. Shouldn’t all nations be speaking about this? Oh, yes, we should. Now, in fact, it’s not being spoken about in my country, Australia, but I’ve got reports that they’ve been seen over Sydney Airport. This morning, I’ve received reports that they’ve been seen over Croatia, Iran, Albania, and different parts of Eastern Europe, including, by the way, Russia. So, whatever these objects are, they’re worldwide. And a lot of people are reporting to me that they’re seeing very similar objects to the objects being seen over New Jersey. They present
[39:11] superficially as drones. They have an audio signature of a conventional drone, but at times, they’re also operating silently, absolutely silently, with no visible propulsion system. They’re displaying lights that appear to make them look like aircraft, but they’re not aircraft. We just don’t know what they are. And the one thing we know for sure is neither does the government. Coming up, what does this all mean? My take, my analysis, on what’s been unfolding in what I can only call the great drone debacle. So, as we go out tonight, the biggest takeaway I’m getting from you, the viewers, is you want answers. And you’re not getting them from government, Congress, or anyone who’s responsible for protecting the national security
[40:15] or the safety of our skies. There’s a genuine concern out there in the public domain that we’re not getting straight answers on these objects, these mystery objects in our skies. A lot of you aren’t buying the official government explanation that you’re simply suffering from mass hysteria, that this is a mass misidentification of what are legal aircraft of some kind operating in our skies. It’s quite clear from the people we’re talking to on the ground that at least some of the characteristics of these objects are indeed anomalous. They’re stealthy. They’re hiding themselves. They’re manipulating the batteries of drones that come near them. They’re not
[40:59] showing a thermal signature. They’re not able to be interfered with with what are the normal RF jammers used to bring down drones. The public wants answers, and you’re not getting them. We’ve done our level best tonight on NewsNation to bring you up to date with what’s happening on the ground in New Jersey, and we’ll be continuing to follow this subject on my show Reality Check that you can find on YouTube. I’m Ross Coulthart. Thank you for joining us. I hope we’ve helped you tonight understand at least a little bit more about what’s going on in our skies over New Jersey. Hey, thanks for watching. Go to JoinNN.com to find NewsNation on your screen. And don’t forget, click the red subscribe button below to get more of NewsNation’s fact-driven, unbiased coverage.