If you go back a month, you’ve probably seen drones in the sky or seen them on the news. Drones seem to be everywhere. By all accounts, drone sightings are increasing exponentially, with more than 5,000 reported in the past few weeks alone.
But of those 5,000 cases, only about 100 actually yielded leads for law enforcement.
Missy Cummings, an engineering professor at George Mason University who has researched drones for 25 years, said what most people are actually seeing are probably reflections from objects such as aircraft, stars or towers. are. “Of all these options, drones are the least likely because it’s actually quite difficult to spot them from the air,” she says.
When we visited Monmouth County, New Jersey, Sheriff Sean Golden last week, we heard an equally mundane explanation for these unusual sky lights. “The majority of these sightings are probably some type of commercial or recreational manned aircraft,” he said.
In other words, there is no immediate threat. “(We) have not assessed that the activities to date pose a national security or public safety risk,” the Department of Homeland Security, Defense Department, FAA and FBI said in a joint statement Tuesday.
“When you’re actually seeing light from a drone, it means you’re not looking at a foreign enemy, because the drones are sophisticated enough to turn off the lights,” Cummings said. ”.
Still, some Americans are a little nervous.
Cummings said the best approach for now is for us all to try to stay grounded. “If I go on the news and say, ‘You have something to worry about,’ that means you have something to worry about,” she said. “But in this case, at this point, things are actually operating as usual.”
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Story produced by Amiel Weisfogel. Editor: Joseph Flandino.
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