‘Crashed drone’ sparks huge emergency response in New Jersey as police scour bushes for downed craft: Live updates

‘Swarms’ of drones how now been reported in Essex County, New Jersey, home to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR).

The airport will be shut down if a drone is spotted in its airspace, authorities said.

Officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey say the Federal Aviation Administration, which controls the airspace over airports, would likely issue an immediate order to stop planes from taking off and landing.

‘If we’ve got a drone, we’d have to assess and shut the whole airport down,’ Greg Ehrie, the chief security officer of the bi-state authority, told the New Jersey Globe.

EWR is one of the busiest airports in the US, especially during the holiday season. In 2023, the airport handled around 49.1 million passengers.

Memes about the unfolding mystery are being shared widely on social media sites like X.

As drone sightings have surfaced in Orange County, New York and parts of New York City, state Governor Kathy Hochul said Friday that she was investigating the matter with federal law enforcement agencies.

‘We know New Yorkers have spotted drones in the air this week & we are investigating. At this time, there’s no evidence that these drones pose a public safety or national security threat,’ Hochul said in a statement posted on X.

While some have suggested the mysterious drone sightings may be connected to a classified program of the US government, drone experts are skeptical of that explanation.

‘I find it hard to believe,’ Brett Velicovich, Fox News contributor and CEO of Expert Drones, told the news site.

‘Maybe it started that way, and now people think everything they see is a drone… I’ve seen a lot of images that look like planes.’

But, ‘Until something is found, it’s really difficult to say,’ he said. ‘We haven’t seen any clear images.’

He added that when he worked on classified drone projects, the protocol was always to inform local police, and drone testing is rarely done in densely populated areas.

‘There’s a reason why we test stuff in Area 51 or all these remote locations, so that you don’t have to cause public hysteria,’ he said.

‘And then when we would test stuff in cities, we would always, whenever we do secret exercises in cities, we would always inform the local police.’

Stacie Pettyjohn, drone expert with the Center for New American Security, agreed.

They would be doing it on a military base or a testing facility. And you know, they’re not overflying sort of sensitive industrial locations, like they have been in New Jersey,’ she said.

The Iranian ‘mothership’ Republicans have suggested may be linked to the New Jersey drone sightings is mysteriously missing from its port in the Persian Gulf, sattelite images show.

The Shahid Bagheri drone carrier was last seen at its berth in the Iran Shipbuilding & Offshore Industries Complex on November 12, but an image taken 18 days later showed its docking station empty.

That is around the same time New Jersey police started to be inundated with sightings of drones in the skies, flying in clusters and acting strangely.

New Jersey Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew claimed this week there was ‘circumstantial evidence’ that Iran’s ship was releasing the drones from America’s East Coast.

Van Drew said that Iran made a deal with China ‘to purchase drones, a mothership and other technologies’ for the drone attack on the US, a theory the Pentagon has dismissed.

Drew doubled down on his claims Thursday, saying ‘credible individuals that have security clearance… believe there’s a real possibility it could be Iran.’

He also argued that the US is not being told the truth and the American public are being treated as ‘stupid.’

Police officers conducted an overnight search for a reported drone crash in Hillsborough.

An unnamed resident called authorities at 8:34pm ET, saying a craft went down in a nearby field outside of a Lowe’s.

The search began at 7:30am Friday, with police, firefighters and other emergency personnel piling into a nearby parking lot.

Somerset County Hazmat conducted a foot search of the area, which came up empty.

Police Aviation Unit searched the area from the air and on foot, finding nothing.

At 12:10pm, the search was abandoned.

A British intelligence chief has warned Russian spies could soon launch a fresh wave of drones at military HQs across the UK in a bid to cause mayhem – amid alarm over sightings worldwide.

Last month saw a mysterious swarm of drones targeting three air bases used by the US Air Force in the UK, triggering a scramble by British troops and police.

The unmanned aerial vehicles – or UAVs – were seen hovering over RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, and RAF Feltwell in Norfolk, over several days, in a what defence sources described as a ‘coordinated’ operation.

Philip Ingram, a former British military intelligence Colonel, said the sightings had ‘all the hallmarks’ of an operation by Russia’s secretive GRU spy agency.

‘It’s a distinct possibility if not a certain probability this is all down to Russian intelligence,’ he said. ‘They and the GRU are just a bunch of petulant little boys. They’re trying to suggest they have the ability to disrupt and influence through a level of nuisance action.’

He added: ‘I would say we will see another flurry of activity in the next few months for sure. Whether drones or something else, I suspect something else.’

At this time, there is no evidence to suggest the UK drone activity is related to those in US states.

Mayor Michael Melham of Belleville, New Jersey, told Fox News that his fire department ‘has been instructed to make sure they wear hazmat suits’ if an unidentified drone falls to Earth.

Speaking to Fox News’ Harris Falkner on Friday, Melham said he and his Office of Emergency Management (OEM) team had just received a briefing from state officials.

‘On the way here I was on the phone with my OEM team, and we now have guidance coming from the state,’ Melham said.

‘And that guidance does say two different things: First of all, if there is a downed drone in our vicinity, we are immediately to call the bomb squad of our county.

‘And second, our fire department has been instructed to make sure they wear hazmat suits.’

Faulkner asked Melham: ‘If something falls out of the sky that people have seen and some of these things are as big as an SUV, If that happens, you’re to treat this more than a plane crash? You’re to treat this like an attack on the homeland?’

‘That is correct,’ Melham replied, ‘because they are not sure if there’s a payload or not. And, that’s what we were told during our briefing on Wednesday.’

Senior Congressional Correspondent for Fox News Chad Pergram stated in an X post that Rep. Mike Johnson ‘received a classified briefing on the drone incursions in the Northeast’ Friday.

‘We reported yesterday that Johnson said he expected to be briefed,’ he added.

The Louisiana Republican referred to the situation as a ‘quandary’ when speaking to Pergram on Thursday.

New Jersey Senator Andy Kim took to X to share video he captured of multiple drones flying over Round Valley Reservoir Hunterdon County, New Jersey on Thursday evening.

‘Multiple’ drones have entered the airspace at Naval Weapons Station Earle, a Navy weapons station located in Colts Neck, New Jersey, officials confirmed Friday.

Representatives for the station said it was ‘aware’ of the sightings in the region and ‘continues to closely coordinate with federal and state agencies to ensure the safety of our personnel and operations.’

‘While no direct threats to the installation have been identified, we can confirm multiple instances of unidentified drones entering the airspace above Naval Weapons Station Earle,’ Bill Addison, public affairs officer for the naval station, said in a statement to ABC News.

‘The base remains prepared to respond to any potential risks, leveraging robust security measures and advanced detection capabilities.’

But officials did not confirm exactly when these incedents occurred.

Drones were spotted flying over the U.S. air base at Ramstein in Germany in early December, a spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force said on Friday.

There were ‘no impacts to base residents, facilities, or assets,’ the spokesperson said. ‘In concert with host nation authorities, we continue to monitor the airspace to ensure safety and security of the community.

A security source told Reuters that German authorities had not traced the operators of the drones, but had ruled out the possibility that the drones were operated by amateurs.

The drone sightings over Ramstein were first reported by German news magazine Spiegel, which said a report by German security authorities had flagged a number of unexplained drone sightings over the base in the evening hours of Dec. 3 and 4.

Spiegel said drones were also sighted over locations belonging to German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall and chemicals group BASF.

New Jersians are threatening to take matters into their own hands if the deferal government does not do something about the mysterious drone activity plaguing their state.

James Ward, a Jersey Shore realtor, shared a video on Facebook that he said showed ‘SUV-size drones’ above Island Beach State Park taken Sunday.

The clip showed multiple other lights hovering in the sky.

‘A good shotgun will fix that problem,’ one commenter replied.

‘Why hasn’t anyone shot one down to look for a serial number to trace it back to the operator?’ another wrote. ‘I would think that could provide a clue.’

‘Semi auto 3 inch magnum 00 buck full choke!’ yet another replied.

According to the FAA, shooting down a drone is illegal under the same federal law prohibiting the sabotage of any other aircraft.

Former Governor of Maralynd Larry Hogan took to X to share video of what he called ‘dozens of large drones’ flying above his home Thursday evening.

‘Last night, beginning at around 9:45 pm, I personally witnessed (and videoed) what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence in Davidsonville, Maryland (25 miles from our nation’s capital),’ he wrote.

‘I observed the activity for approximately 45 minutes.’

A video posted on Facebook around 12am Friday claims to show a drone burning up as it falls out of the sky over an unnamed location in New Jersey.

On social media, people reported 911 calls related to a ‘drone down’ incident that occurred around 9pm Friday evening in a backyard in Penquannock, New Jersey.

It is unclear whether the video is related to the Penquannock incident.

On Wednesday, right-wing influencer and member of President-elect Trump’s inner circle posted a cheeky reaction to the Pentagon’s statements about the unexplained drone activity.

Georgia State Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) slammed the Pentagon’s statements that the drones are not operated by a foreign entity and pose no threat to the public in an X post on Thursday.

‘Well, number one, I’m gonna call it total bull**** that no one knows what these are,’ she said in a video included in the post.

‘I think it’s a slap in the face to the American people to say that they don’t know what this is.’

New Jersey residents are threatening to take matters into their own hands by shooting the drones down.

Police scanner reports in Morris County, New Jersey, stated that one of the mysterious drones crashed landed in the area Friday morning.

In the scanner report released on social media, one officer described a 911 response in which someone called in a drone crash near their house, adding that 10 additional drones appeared near the scene of the crash.

‘It was a crash, a crash. A drone fell out of the sky by the powerlines behind their house, and then 10 more showed up,’ the officer said.

The Pequannock Township Police Department, Morris County Sheriff’s Office, and Morris County Prosecutor’s Office investigated and determined the device was a hobby or toy drone, not a commercial or military-grade model, according to a statement from police.

X user Jayroo shared a timelapse video of drones flying over New Jersey on a recent night.

The White House provided an odd response to a string of reported drone sightings over New Jersey.

White House National Security spokesman John Kirby was pressed about a lawmaker’s claim the drones could be from an ‘Iranian mothership.’

But Kirby said they’re not foreign, and they may not even be drones.

‘We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat or have a foreign nexus,’ Kirby told reporters Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI reiterated Kirby’s statements in a joint release Thursday saying that there is no national security risk.

‘We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus,’ the statement reads.

But New Jersey State Representative Paul Kanitra (R) questioned this.

‘That goes directly against what the federal Department of Homeland Security told us in the briefing Wednesday,’ said Kanitra. I couldn’t possibly understand what their motivation is to try and diminish this.’

New Jersey Assemblymember Brian Bergen (R) also hit back at Kirby’s claims.

‘That guy is an idiot. That I can tell you right now,’ Bergen, a former US Army helicopter pilot, said Thursday evening in an interview on Fox News.

Retired police lieutenant and intelligence analyst Tim McMillan told DailyMail.com that the descriptions of the drones in New Jersey ‘sound exactly like Russian Orlan-10 drones’ — secretive craft that fly in packs of three to five.

What’s more, he said the recent sightings greatly resemble troubling drone flights above industrial parks surrounding Germany’s Brunsbüttel harbor from this past August.

Lt McMillan and other experts have noted that the New Jersey sightings circled around Picatinny Arsenal, home of the US Army’s CCDC Armaments Center, which is responsible for manufacturing and supplying Ukraine with artillery ammunition.

These experts suggest Russia could be carrying out an intelligence-gathering mission known as ‘ferreting’, meant to intentionally trigger and test their foreign rival’s airspace defense procedures and response time.

Or Russia could simply be spying on allies of Ukraine who are aiding the fight against Russia’s occupation of its southeastern regions, including Donetsk and Mariupol.

A Chinese man has been arrested for allegedly flying a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base, as the FBI investigates mysterious drones in New Jersey.

Yinpiao Zhou, 39, a Chinese National now living in Brentwood, California, was charged with failure to register an aircraft not providing transportation and violation of national defense airspace.

Zhou was arrested Monday at San Francisco International Airport prior to boarding a China-bound flight and made his initial appearance Tuesday in United States District Court in San Francisco.

‘This defendant allegedly flew a drone over a military base and took photos of the base’s layout, which is against the law,’ said United States Attorney Martin Estrada.

At this time, there is no evidence to suggest that Zhou is connected to the drone activity in New Jersey and other northeastern states.

But his arrest adds to growing concerns over the ability of foreign entities to infiltrate US airspace and conduct surveillance.

During a Tuesday coongressional hearing, Robert Wheeler, assistant FBI director, said that more than 3,000 sightings had been provided to the agency’s tip line set up last week.

When asked if these drones posed a threat to public safety, he said: ‘There is nothing known that would lead me to say that, but we just don’t know and that’s the concerning part.’

The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement Thursday, saying that many of the reports are legally operated manned aircraft.

The Biden administration and the Pentagon have also pushed back against claims by Republican lawmakers that the drones are being operated by any one of America’s foreign adversaries — including claims that the flights originate from an Iranian ‘mothership’ offshore.

Republican Rep Jeff Van Drew said Wednesday that Iran launched the vessel ‘probably about a month ago’ after making a deal with China ‘to purchase drones, a mothership and other technologies.’

Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Sing said in a briefing: ‘At this time we have no evidence that these activities are coming from a foreign entity or the work of an adversary.’

DailyMail.com has recieved unverified reports from New Jersey residents stating that since the drones began flying over their communities, they have developed rhinitis and swollen runny eyes.’

Over the last several weeks, New Jersey residents have reported seeing numerous, ‘car-sized’ drones hovering throughout the state, sometimes appearing in groups and often remaining in the same place for hours at a time.

Now the sightings have spread to two more states: Pennsylvania and New York.

On Thursday evening, Pennsylvania residents took to social media to share reports of lights in the sky from the Easton area to the Slate Belt and beyond.

Multiple sightings were also reported in the Poconos. The Monroe County Office of Emergency Management said it was aware of reports throughout the county in a Facebook post.

That same night, emergency officials in Orange County, New York, stated that they were ‘aware of several reported incidents of drone sightings throughout Orange County this evening,’ in a Facebook post.

Residents of Texas, Oklahoma and California have also reported potential drone sightings, but at this time, there is no evidence to suggest they are linked to the sightings in northeastern states.

Multiple reports claiming that drones were seen ‘spraying’ an unknown substance over New Jersey have surfaced on social media.

Photos and videos show lights in the night sky that appear to be followed by long trails of vapor or a beam of light.

‘Clear footage captured by NJ resident of drone ejecting large amount of liquid. Resident noted a chemical smell in the air after drones repeated spraying at night,’ one person posted on X.

But these images – and the reports – are unverified.

Lawmakers from New York and New Jersey are demanding a federal briefing as sightings have now been reported in the Bronx and Queens.

The New York Police Department said it’s investigating the drone activity in partnership with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.