'Underprepared even to understand what's happening' - Experts weigh in on drone sightings

Record ID: 1890179

  • Title: 'Underprepared even to understand what's happening' - Experts weigh in on drone sightings
  • Date: 16th December 2024
  • Summary: BETHESDA, MARYLAND, UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 16, 2024) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, SENIOR FELLOW, MICHAEL O'HANLON, SAYING: "What I would say about drones is, it's fascinating that we are seeing such a proliferation of drones. The technologies of flying unmanned aircraft, of course, are decades old. But the 21st century is when they've really come into their own in many ways. First, with big attacks against al Qaeda leaders in parts of South Asia by the United States, and other such uses, and then now in the Ukraine war, but of course, other places as well. And now we're seeing these mysterious drone sightings in the United States, usually near the coast, as I understand what's been happening, and usually near military bases or the homes of public officials. But again, a wide range of potential explanations - and we don't really know what's going on." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, SENIOR FELLOW, MICHAEL O'HANLON, SAYING: "And so the fact that these are often near coasts suggests that maybe sometimes they're ship-borne drones, you would expect that we would have better reconnaissance capabilities. But the United States, of course, has had a history of its homeland largely being a sanctuary, except on December 7th, 1941 (Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), and September 11th, 2001 (terrorist attacks), and a couple other times in history. So we've usually not been too forward looking, about defending our own territory. And when we have talked about it in the last 25 years, it's been more about missile defense against long-range, high-speed ballistic missiles, as opposed to unmanned aircraft." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, SENIOR FELLOW, MICHAEL O'HANLON, SAYING: "We don't really know what's going on. My guess is there are a lot of pranksters and, you know, individual operators who are Americans, who are just doing this to see what they can do with their little technology they bought down at some RadioShack. But we can't rule out the possibility of substantially more concerning kinds of foreign action. And we're going to have to learn more. We really are finding ourselves underprepared even to understand what's happening." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, SENIOR FELLOW, MICHAEL O'HANLON, SAYING: "I don't think people should be too worried, but I think people should keep a little pressure on the government to do a little better here. And I don't know, I'm not that interested in blaming people for what they haven't done up until now. But I think we need to keep prodding the government to do better in the future, figuring out a better sensor network, figuring out, you know, with some more decisive action if necessary, where these things came from, getting our hands on some of them, and not just baby-talking the population into telling people they shouldn't worry when we actually don't know the origin or purpose of many of these drones. That's not a very appropriate way for government to act. I mean, I'm trying to say that I know of no reason why people should be overly worried, but I'm not trying to trivialize the situation, and I don't think the government should try to do that either. So it's time to really push for some clearer understandings, some better situational awareness and surveillance, and some answers." WHITE FLASH TAYLOR, TEXAS, UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 16, 2024) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) AUVSI (Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International), ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND COUNSEL, SCOTT SHTOFMAN, SAYING: "In our view, we don't think there's anything concrete to worry about right now, but that it would be helpful for us to have a better understanding of what's going on in the airspace. You know, we've been pushing for rules that expand the current authorities about what we call detection and mitigation, sort of having sensors set up around the country that would help us understand what's in the airspace beyond what we already know about traditional aircraft, whether that's airplanes or helicopters or drones that are operating." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) AUVSI (Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International), ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND COUNSEL, SCOTT SHTOFMAN, SAYING: "Right now there's what's called remote identification for drones that are required. If you're flying your your drone should be sending out a signal over Bluetooth or Wifi so that people on the ground could use a phone or other device to say, 'Hey, I know what that drone is.' It has essentially a license plate so that if local law enforcement wants to reach out to federal law enforcement or the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), they have a record of who's operating and that's somebody who's operating lawfully. Then there are also technologies that do things like detection, for either using radio or radar or specialized cameras like thermal, or they can basically see things that the human eye can't see, as well as flight tracking software that you've seen across the news around the country where someone's flying a flight plan or sending out a signal from an airplane. There are systems that integrate sort of all of these different layers, that help us understand who's operating out there. And if we can't figure out who it is or we don't see them on that tracker, then maybe it's somebody who might be doing something nefarious." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) AUVSI (Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International), ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND COUNSEL, SCOTT SHTOFMAN, SAYING: "Yeah. Personally, from what I've seen from the videos and pictures and things that have been posted online, I think a lot of the the the aircraft you're seeing are traditional planes and helicopters and normal air traffic or, you know, satellites or stars. I think that having flown drones at night, you have to understand that the eyes that you have can play tricks on you. And, you know, so something may look like it's slow-moving or hovering just because it's really so far away or it's at an angle that that's how it presents. There's something called a parallax effect. We have to go through training if you want to fly your drone at night to help understand some of those ideas and some of those complications on how to correctly scan the sky, how to correctly identify what is operating there, and whether or not it's really close or far away." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) AUVSI (Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International), ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND COUNSEL, SCOTT SHTOFMAN, SAYING: "Drones are a great capability that we have both in the commercial space as well as in the defense space, and we don't want to see op-, operations in situations like this shut down all the progress that we've been making in recent years." WHITE FLASH PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 16, 2024) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) R.W. MANN & COMPANY, INC., AIRLINE INDUSTRY ANALYST, FORMER AIRLINE EXECUTIVE, ROBERT W. MANN, JR., SAYING: "I won't say it's much ado about nothing because it is clearly something. But I would say that, you know, the vast majority, 99% sort of majority are the sorts of, you know, objects you would see in the nightly sky every night. And they are perhaps being supplemented by people who are deciding that it's a great time to go play with their hobby drone, because who knows what notoriety might result." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) R.W. MANN & COMPANY, INC., AIRLINE INDUSTRY ANALYST, FORMER AIRLINE EXECUTIVE, ROBERT W. MANN, JR., SAYING: "The other issue I think is some some very, very poor advice that's being handed out by influential individuals, including the idea of either illuminating these objects with lasers, for example, which is a felony. So it's a felony to interfere with the operation of a, of an airline flight, of an aircraft in flight. And then even worse, people who actually suggest that someone should go try and shoot these objects down." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) R.W. MANN & COMPANY, INC., AIRLINE INDUSTRY ANALYST, FORMER AIRLINE EXECUTIVE, ROBERT W. MANN, JR., SAYING: "You know, while there are drones, there really are, and they vary from a small, less than a quarter pound, to the very large, you know, tens of pounds. But they are they're used by professionals typically, or the military, also very professional. And they are not what's being referred to as, you know, aliens or other sorts of nefarious devices. I think that's really the bottom line here." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) R.W. MANN & COMPANY, INC., AIRLINE INDUSTRY ANALYST, FORMER AIRLINE EXECUTIVE, ROBERT W. MANN, JR., SAYING: "It was funny when it started. It's not funny now because you've got people suggesting or urging in some cases, individuals in their own capacity take very, very dangerous - potentially very, very dangerous activities against these whatever they... whatever they believe them to be. And it really needs to be... it really needs to be stopped at a high level."
  • Embargoed: 30th December 2024 21:43
  • Keywords: Federal Aviation Administration drone activity drone sightings investigation manned aircraft national security threat weapons
  • Location: VARIOUS
  • City: VARIOUS
  • Country: US
  • Topics: North America,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA002756416122024RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: For weeks, residents of New Jersey and other U.S. states have reported seeing thousands of unidentified lighted drones flying overhead, a phenomenon that has sparked conspiracy theories and prompted lawmakers to demand the Biden administration explain what was behind the mysterious sightings.
    An official told reporters on Saturday (December 14) that there had been more than 5,000 reported sightings, but that fewer than 100 merited further investigation.
    Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan posted a video of purported drones above his home in Davidsonville, Maryland, though some social media users responded that at least some of the lights in his video appeared to be stars in the constellation Orion.
    The sightings have created a social media frenzy. A Facebook group entitled "New Jersey Mystery Drones - let's solve it" had nearly 75,000 members as of Monday (December 16), with people posting theories ranging from extraterrestrials to foreign actors.
    Officials from the White House, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have all asserted that the objects pose no threat.
    Some state officials, including New York Governor Kathy Hochul, have called on Congress to enact stricter rules for drones while giving states wider authority to combat drone activity.
    New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy wrote a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday asking for more federal resources to investigate the phenomenon.
    President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday that the U.S. military should tell the American public about the nature of the drone sightings.
    Officials have said most of the sightings were of manned aircraft, but local, state, and federal authorities are still investigating.
    Some lawmakers have suggested that foreign countries could be dispatching the drones.
    (Production: Aleksandra Michalska)
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