CINCINNATI — Numerous reports of possible drone sightings in recent weeks are resulting in a growing number of questions, including: What are people seeing? Is it a threat? And what is the government doing about it?

What You Need To Know

  • Speculation on drone sightings has included foreign adversaries testing the U.S. defenses, the U.S.’ own government searching for radiological signals from weapons of mass destruction and even extra terrestrials

  • “Our assessment is that these drones represent lawful legal commercial hobbyist drones, even law enforcement drones," said the White House National Security spokesperson

  •  The Mutual UFO Network said, “We’ve got 30% mystery, 30% misidentification, and 30% mass hysteria"

  • MUFON is the largest and oldest UFO organization in the world with more than 7,000 members and more than 155,000 UFO reports

The sightings, which started in New Jersey, have now been reported in at least six states.

Speculation has included foreign adversaries testing the U.S. defenses, the U.S.’ own government searching for radiological signals from weapons of mass destruction, and even extra terrestrials.

John Kirby, White House National Security Spokesperson said on CNN, “Our assessment is that these drones represent lawful legal commercial hobbyist drones, even law enforcement drones. That said, as we also said today, it’s an ongoing investigation. Tips are continuing to come in, and we’re gonna keep looking at this and evaluate it. But as we speak right now, there’s no indication again, as I said, that there’s a threat to the public. And again, we’ll keep everybody informed. I briefed on this last week. We did a briefing over the weekend. I briefed again this afternoon. We’re doing everything we can to be as open and transparent with the information coming in,” Kirby said.

He added, “I can’t rule out the fact that we might find some sort of illegal or criminal activity, some nefarious activity. All I can do is tell you that right now we see none of that. In fact, quite the contrary, our assessment is that these represent lawful activity in drones and drones.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., spoke on the Senate floor to express his opposition to expanding federal surveillance on drone activities.

“No one disputes that drones flying in air space can be a danger, that drones flying over the Super Bowl could be a danger, that drones flying over our military bases could be a danger. That’s why it’s illegal. It’s currently illegal, and the federal government has a capacity to investigate and stop drones that are in air space, over our military bases, following our ships. We have that capacity. But what is disputed and what the Biden administration is currently telling us is, they don’t see a problem. So if there is a problem, let the Biden administration be forthcoming, let us know the extent of the problem, let us know who’s flying the drones, and let us know what’s going on,” Paul said.

Paul said the proposal raises concerns for privacy, civil liberties and Fourth Amendment protection. 

“We are being told this legislation is urgent, that it is needed to address an imminent drone threat, yet the government itself admits no such threat exists,” he said. “The bill before us would grant law enforcement significant authority to intercept private electronic communications without consent.”

Ron James, the Director of Media Relations for the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, which is based in Cincinnati, shared some of his thoughts.

“We’ve got 30% mystery, 30% misidentification, and 30% mass hysteria,” James said.

Of note, there is a designated drone corridor in New Jersey area set aside for testing drones of all types

“We’re seeing pictures and videos that to me and to us at MUFON definitely appear to be fixed-wing or manned aircraft, and we are also seeing things that we can’t explain,” James said.

MUFON is the largest and oldest UFO organization in the world, with more than 7,000 members and more than 155,000 UFO reports.

“Ninety-seven percent of them are explainable. We’re seeing a lot of things here we can explain. We’re seeing a few things we can’t explain. And we’re seeing a few things that we know the government probably is not explaining,” he said.

Some of those things, he said regarding the recent sightings, are what appear to be orbs.

“We’re seeing these weird orbs that are not obviously drones or anything of ours that seem to correspond with some of these sightings,” James said. “The prevalence of orbs in a lot of modern phenomena is growing. And it’s still unresolved.”

Whether these reported drone sightings are from another world or not, they are, by definition, unidentified. And while they’re giving a lot of people a lot of anxiety, James said it’s an exciting time.

“It could just expand the mystery and be the beginning of something that’s going to continue to unfold in greater and greater occurrences and different types of occurrences,” he said. “There’s some need for humanity to obtain the knowledge that we’re not alone, that we are being engaged by one or more nonhuman intelligent races or species. And that is going to become more and more obvious, just in things appearing in our skies, things that commercial space is able to discover. So keeping it a complete secret is no longer an option.”

The FBI and New Jersey state police urged the public in a joint statement Monday not to shoot at suspected drones. According to CNN, the U.S. is sending drone detection and tracking systems to two military facilities in New Jersey.

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