Atlanta Added To List Of Odd East Coast Drone Sightings
Atlanta residents are frightened after mysterious drones were seen flying over the city, adding to the list of sightings in areas along the East Coast.
While federal officials claim no threat to public safety, ATLiens are concerned. Cobb County resident Britain Lockhart said some were flying over his neighborhood, looking like nothing he’d ever seen. “A lot of people are scared and don’t know what’s going on,” Lockhart said.
“What was really weird about them was that they were over 10- to 15-feet wide with flashing lights underneath them, different colors from green to red to blue. It almost looked like it was like a scanning light.”
In addition to Atlanta, reports of drone sightings have accumulated in states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Connecticut, and Ohio. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that additional resources, such as personnel and technology, have been sent to Jersey State Police to assist with the sightings.
“There’s no question that people are seeing drones,” Mayorkas said, according to NPR. “It is critical, as we all have said for a number of years, that we need from Congress additional authorities to address the drone situation.”
He claims that the Biden administration remains “vigilant” in its investigations. However, the secretary is calling on Congress to move quickly on expanding the current drone-countering authorities embedded in the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2018. The legislation, which expires on Dec. 20, enables Homeland Security and the Justice Department to use advanced detection technologies to identify and track drones.
The sightings started on Nov. 18 in New Jersey near Morris County, and Republican Assemblyman Paul Kanitra said there have been sightings every night since. Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said drones have lingered over some of New York’s most crucial infrastructure, including Port Liberty, New York, close to the Goethals Bridge, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and Fort Wadsworth, labeled as one of the oldest military installations in the United States.
A drone that came “dangerously close” to Boston’s Logan International Airport resulted in two men being arrested on Dec. 14.
Former FBI supervisory special agent Tom Adams alleged that some of the most recent sightings resulted from copycats flying their drones, since they are getting more national attention. He said some sightings are innocent as the gadgets are popular. “I can tell you from my firsthand experience conducting operations for the FBI, as well as investigations into the suspected sighting of drones at critical infrastructure, it was fairly common for planets, crewed aircraft and even low Earth orbit satellites to be misidentified as drones at night,” Adams said.
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