The affordability and modification capabilities of common drones have ‘democratized terrorism,’ one security expert said.
Ground observers across an increasing number of U.S. states are reporting aircraft in the sky that appear to be unmanned aerial systems (UAS), or drones, leaving the public on edge.
With no definitive answers available, aviation experts—perplexed by the federal government’s limited response—suggest multiple origins for the unidentified aircraft.
During weeks of sightings pooling out of states such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, California, Ohio, and Utah, some observers reported seeing aircraft as large as SUVs.
Now, state and local officials are demanding answers from Washington.
A Dec. 17 joint statement released by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Department of Defense confirmed more than 5,000 reported drone sightings in the past few weeks, “with approximately 100 leads generated.”
These reports consist of a “combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones” with nothing yet identified as anomalous, the government wrote, denying any national security or public safety risk.
The Epoch Times reached out to commercial pilots, aviation safety experts, and a leading counter-UAS company, who said that not only do these purported drones present a serious public safety and national security risk, but also, they may be privately owned, U.S. military assets, or weapons of foreign adversaries.
Shawn Pruchnicki, an aviation safety expert and assistant professor at Ohio State University’s Center for Aviation Studies, told The Epoch Times that until one of the aerial objects is brought down and further analyzed, no one can be sure whether all sightings are of actual drones or UAS and not other unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
“I think one of the problems is that individuals, the government … the way the media is talking, is they’re already being labeled as drones. The term drones is a specific description of a certain type of vehicle, and that already is an explanation,” Pruchnicki said.
By Jacob Burg
