Why It’s a Bad Idea to Shoot at New Jersey ‘Mystery Drones’

Surging reports of strange drones in the skies over New Jersey and other parts of the northeast U.S. have spurred calls to shoot down the unidentified objects. But that’s a very bad idea

Many of these “drones” aren’t drones at all

While some number of the sightings are almost certainly real drones being operated by unknown parties for unclear reasons, according to the FBI, most of the thousands of New Jersey drone reports are consistent with witnesses misidentifying crewed aircraft. “In overlaying the visual sightings reported to the FBI with approach patterns for Newark-Liberty, JFK, and LaGuardia airports, the density of reported sightings matches the approach patterns of these very busy airports, with flights coming in throughout the night,” FBI officials noted in a White House media briefing Saturday. “This modeling is indicative of manned aviation being quite often mistaken for unmanned aviation or UAS [uncrewed aerial systems].”