Newly Released Documents Show What the Feds Knew About the New Jersey Drone Scare
The government sent out a lot of mixed messages the week of December 16, 2024. In response to various apparent drone sightings in New Jersey, then-President Joe Biden said on December 17 that there was “nothing nefarious” in the sky. That same day, members of Congress came out of a classified briefing saying that the alleged drone sightings posed no threat to the public. Then, on December 18, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed large flight restrictions backed by “deadly force” over New Jersey, and authorities announced they were investigating drone sightings over military bases across the country.
New Jerseyans would just have to take it on faith from the authorities that there was nothing to worry about, while the authorities themselves acted worried. But the day before the FAA no-fly zones were imposed, the federal government had already internally debunked some of the most alarming reports. The explanation was neither nefarious nor too sensitive to share with the public.
On December 17, 2024, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) presented an internal slideshow demonstrating that three alleged drone incidents—one during a medevac flight, one over the ocean, and another near a nuclear plant—were simply normal air traffic. Another report of a “drone” spraying mysterious mist could be explained by wing-tip condensation on a small airplane. The presentation included maps matching flight logs to specific sightings.
The Department of Homeland Security released the slideshow this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Originally, Reason had requested materials from the department’s closed-door briefing to local authorities on December 11, 2024, which had left New Jersey state Rep. Dawn Fantasia (R–Sussex) calling for a “military intervention.” Although the department didn’t provide that briefing to Reason, it did release TSA briefing materials from the following week.
Asked by Reason, the TSA didn’t specify who exactly the slideshow was meant for. “This presentation was part of collaborative law enforcement research in late 2024 to support transportation security,” TSA spokesperson Jason Goff wrote in an email.
One of the earliest—and most dangerous—drone sightings took place on November 26, 2024, near Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey. A medical helicopter was coming to evacuate victims from a car crash when firefighters told it to stay away due to three mysterious drones in the area. “We never found out what the actual drones were,” Brian Serge, security supervisor at the college, told NJ.com on December 4. “It’s kind of a mystery. We were asking around about that, but nobody knew anything.”
The feds found a likely explanation from flight logs and aeronautical charts. At the time of the incident, three commercial aircraft were approaching the nearby Solberg Airport, a small local airfield. “The alignment of the aircraft gave the appearance to observers on the ground of them hovering in formation while they were actually moving directly at the observers,” the slideshow notes.
Those findings do not appear to have been reported on in the media. Reason reached out to the security office at Raritan Valley Community College by email to ask whether they were ever told the results of the investigation. The office has not responded as of
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