For the past four weeks, car-sized objects have been reported flying over critical infrastructure and military assets in New Jersey. They come from the ocean, appearing around sunset, and sometimes turn off their lights. Residents demand answers, but despite scrambling for information, state and local authorities say they remain largely in the dark.
But on Wednesday, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) offered what he said was “the real deal” explanation of the mysterious drones. “Iran launched a mothership that contains these drones. It’s off the East Coast of the United States of America,” he told Fox News.
Van Drew’s account, which he said came from “very high, very qualified, very responsible” sources, was startling.
Yet in a matter of hours, the Pentagon dismissed his claims out of hand. “There is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States and there’s no so-called ‘mothership’ launching drones toward the United States,” said Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon spokeswoman. “We’re going to continue to monitor what is happening, but at no point were our installations threatened.”
But if the government doesn’t know the drones’ origin or purpose, how can it be so sure the reported drones aren’t a threat? And if they do know, why aren’t they being more forthright?
To find out more, The Free Press reached out to legislators, members of Congress, and national security officials.
In a letter to the president dated December 11, Van Drew said he’s received intelligence that an Iranian drone “mothership” is missing from its port, and its “embarkation timeline would align with the appearances of the New Jersey drones.”
Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R-NJ) says that Van Drew’s “plausible” theory has “heightened a lot of tensions” in the state.
She says the Iran theory “in no way conflicts with what we are witnessing presently.” Law enforcement has reported that the drones are coming from offshore. Over the weekend, one officer reported seeing as many as 50 drones appear from the Atlantic Ocean.
“I have to be concerned, because the size of these drones have been reported as big as an SUV,” said state senator Jon Bramnick (R-NJ), who has called for a limited state of emergency. “This is not some hobbyist playing a joke.”
Bramnick says that given these are sophisticated drones “and the state government has no answers, and Homeland Security for the federal government today had no answers,” he would “not be surprised” if a foreign adversary were behind them.
But Iran isn’t the only possibility.
“I don’t know what Van Drew is talking about. Nobody does,” a former Trump administration national security official tells The Free Press. “It’s China.”
“They didn’t pay a price for the spy balloon, and so now they’ve stepped it up with what I would argue is more provocative behavior.”
In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that unidentified 20-foot-long drones traveling more than 100 mph breached the Langley Air Force Base airspace in December 2023. Two months prior, in October 2023, five were spotted over the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site near Las Vegas.
More recently, similar sightings have been reported at U.S. military bases across the UK. While U.S. Air Forces in Europe–Air Forces Africa (USAFE–AFAFRICA) has been deploying capabilities to track the drones, they have not yet identified the source.
“It was China over Langley. It’s probably China in Europe, and I guarantee it’s China over New Jersey,” said the official.
On Monday, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy said, “We don’t see any concern for public safety.”
But minimizing the risks, when they’re really unknown, is “beyond foolish,” says Fantasia. “You cannot say that something poses no threat when you don’t know its origin and you don’t know its intent and you don’t know its owner.”
The FBI’s Robert Wheeler was more upfront at Wednesday’s congressional hearing. When asked if the New Jersey drones are a threat to public safety and national security, he said “there is nothing that is known that would lead me to say that, but we just don’t know. And that’s the concerning part of it.”
“These drones are not within the FAA Airspace System,” said the former Trump administration national security official. “So it’s not inconceivable, and maybe not even a trivial risk, that one of these drones is going to wind up hitting a helicopter or a small passenger plane.”
That’s nearly happened already. When the New Jersey state police colonel, Patrick Callahan, ordered a helicopter to fly over one of the drones, it suddenly switched off its lights. “In his professional opinion, he feared that it posed a danger to the helicopter and the two pilots, so he pulled them down and said he will no longer be pursuing any drones of that nature,” says Fantasia.
“For our local airports, like our Sussex County airport, it is very dangerous,” says Fantasia. The drones are “turning their lights off at night, so they are violating every law. They’re flying over restricted airspaces. They’re flying over military institutions.”
All of this is causing a “frenzy” with the public. Her office has been inundated with calls, emails, and messages on social media. She’s concerned that, if the national military and the Coast Guard don’t step in, someone will take matters into their own hands with a firearm.
“And if that’s the case, that can be extraordinarily dangerous, because we don’t know what is contained in these drones,” she says. “We don’t know if they’re armed, we don’t know if they carry any type of biological or chemical agents.”
“This is intelligence collection for reasons that we don’t entirely understand, which is why it’s so risky, and I would say escalatory,” said the former national security official who believes China is responsible.
“The longer they’re allowed to do this, a) the more emboldened they are, and b) the more they learn about us,” the official said.
“It shouldn’t be a surprise,” he added, that there has been unidentified drone activity over important bases in New Jersey, given that “we haven’t done anything to stop the earlier drone attacks.”
On Thursday, ABC News reported that Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said “We should be doing some very urgent intelligence analysis and take them out of the skies, especially if they’re flying over airports or military bases.” New Jersey is home to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst as well as other armories, installations, and airfields.
You don’t see the U.S. military “flying drones over Hainan island right now—we’re deterred.” But “the Chinese are not deterred.”
To give the Biden administration the “benefit of the doubt,” the official suggested they might be trying to collect information from the drones’ signals. Still, at a certain point the United States has the power to say, “That’s enough. We’re going to shoot these sons of bitches down. . . so that the Chinese know you’re not allowed to do this on our territory. This is a line you’re not allowed to cross,” the official said.
The official speculates that the drones are collecting intelligence, either about American military technology, such as F-35s and F-22s “that China worries a lot about,” or patterns of life. For instance, “which hangars seem to have what level of security around them so they can identify, ‘Okay, when we’re ready to go into Taiwan, where do we need to target to really distract and confound the Americans.’ ”
“The state police pretty much have no clue. Homeland Security has no clue, and that’s why I said you have to bring in the Department of Defense,” says Bramnick. Only the Department of Defense has the technology and authority to follow these drones and shut down the airspace.
“They have to land sometime, even if it’s six or seven hours, they have to land. They need to be followed and see where they are returning to,” says Fantasia.
Meanwhile, in his letter to President Biden, Van Drew said that “While I remain open to alternate explanations, I have not been presented a single credible, cohesive narrative except for that Iran is controlling these drones.”
Bramnick says he takes Van Drew “at his word” that his sources for his Iran theory check out. Still, if it turns out the drones are actually controlled by Martians, he says New Jersey Democrats have already worked out an effective repellent: “Raise the taxes and they’ll all leave.”
Madeleine Kearns is an associate editor at The Free Press. Read her piece “Should a Government Help People Die?” and follow her on X @MadeleineKearns.