December is a month of twinkling lights and heavy air traffic, which seem to have collided in the most curious phenomenon of this holiday season: a sudden, unfounded panic that remotely controlled drones are patrolling the night skies up and down the eastern coast of the U.S.
A month ago, law enforcement officials in northern New Jersey revealed that they were investigating reports of drones flying overhead at night, stressing in a statement that there was “no known threat to public safety.” They also cautioned against believing or spreading rumors about the supposed sightings on the internet. “We encourage the public to be mindful that what they read online may not be accurate,” they wrote.
The public did the opposite — and so have a number of politicians and pundits. As more videos purporting to show mysterious drone activity circulated on TikTok, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter), thanks in part to dubious “breaking news” accounts, Rep. Tom Kean of New Jersey posted on X last week to express his “deep frustration regarding the growing concerns over drones operating in our skies” and called for federal agencies to investigate the issue. Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey on Friday ventured out with police to observe aerial lights above a reservoir in a rural area of the state, claiming in a thread of videos on X that some of them were executing “maneuvers that planes can’t do.” The next day, however, he walked this back, saying further analysis demonstrated that most of the potential drones seen in available footage “were almost certainly planes.”
Not everyone was so willing to accept such a plausible explanation for the blurry, flashing lights they’d documented with their smartphone cameras. Incoming conspiracist-in-chief Donald Trump, for example, posted to Truth Social on Friday: “Mystery Drone sightings all over the Country. Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge. I don’t think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!” That heightened rhetoric was picked up by pundit Joe Concha of Fox News, a New Jersey resident, shared his own footage of blinking lights that same evening, writing on X, “The drones — in the spirit of the holiday season — are flashing red and white while flying by some white thing that emerged about an hour ago. Trump is right: Shoot. These. Things. Down.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has falsely claimed that this year’s Hurricane Helene was artificially created by Democrats and that a space laser controlled by a Jewish banking family has been used to start wildfires, shared Trump’s post on X and echoed, “Shoot the drones down!!!”
Other reports of alleged drones have emerged from regions of New York, Maryland, and Virginia. But the FBI, which established a tip line to deal with these concerns, said on Saturday that just a tiny fraction of the thousands of calls they’ve received have warranted further investigation. The bureau added that most sightings in the NJ/NY metro area match flight paths of planes in and out of the busy airports of Newark-Liberty, JFK, and LaGuardia. Besides commercial airliners, objects identified as drones have turned out to be military cargo aircraft, the Goodyear Blimp, and the planet Venus, which is very prominent at this time of year. Among those to mistake the stars of the constellation Orion for drones were sports business analyst Darren Rovell and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who shared video of the evening sky near his residence in the state, writing that the “American people deserve answers and action now.”
While there have been no reports of downed “drones” or shots fired at aircraft just yet, it appears individuals on the ground have taken to shining laser pointers — which can damage and disable drones — at ordinary planes. The X account @TakeThatClouds, which is dedicated to debunking misinformation about aerial phenomena like so-called “chemtrails,” shared a Facebook comment from a pilot who said he had been flying a light aircraft near Alexandria Field in northern New Jersey when the plane was suddenly illuminated with a green laser pointer. “You rattled me a little bit but I’m okay, if you’re wondering,” the pilot wrote. “I understand people are concerned but maybe think before you decide to act on those concerns.” Also on Facebook, a woman elsewhere in the state on Saturday claimed that her husband shined a “sniper laser” at what they thought was a drone; flight records show that it was a FedEx plane from Boston to Newark. And last Thursday, a Tennessee teen was arrested for allegedly flashing a green laser at a Metro Nashville Police Department helicopter. Aviation officials have reiterated the dangers of pointing lasers at aircraft. The FBI’s Newark office issued a similar memo on Monday afternoon, also warning the public against shooting at suspected Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or UAS.
From late Friday into early Saturday morning, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, outside Dayton, Ohio, closed its airspace due to alleged drone sightings. On Saturday night, Boston police arrested two men they accused of operating a drone too close to Logan Airport.
But such incidents haven’t stopped Trump and others from continuing to whip up unfounded hysteria about some peculiar and presumably sinister drone fleet that the government refuses to explain. At a press conference on Monday, the president-elect claimed that “our military knows, and our president knows” what’s going on with the drone sightings, “and for some reason they want to keep people in suspense,” adding, “something strange is going on.”
While Trump also expressed skepticism that “the enemy” has invaded U.S. airspace, some quickly leapt to the conclusion that “foreign drones” are surveilling American neighborhoods. Bill Spadea, a morning radio host and Republican candidate in New Jersey’s 2025 gubernatorial race, wrote as much in a pinned X post advertising new campaign merch: “Grab your ‘Defend Our Skies’ drone target and make you’re ready for TARGET PRACTICE!” he wrote. Spadea’s website encourages supporters to plant the “bold” yard sign, which shows the silhouette of a drone in the center of gun sights, “and make your message clear: We will NOT let foreign threats go unanswered. We will NOT allow our skies to be exploited.” Spadea is a Trump loyalist who has used his radio platform to spread conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines and the 2020 election results.
Sheriff Shaun Golden of Monmouth County, New Jersey, went as far as appearing on Fox & Friends on Sunday to announce that he had sent his congressman a letter arguing “we need some changes to the federal law” that would allow police officers to “de-drone, if necessary — meaning, take down a drone.” Golden clarified that he didn’t want civilians shooting at drones but nonetheless warned, “If this was a national security drill, we miserably failed.”
With no real evidence and a lot of muddled speculation, it seems likely the drone craze will fade away as people are distracted by the end-of-year holidays. Even shifting weather could blow it out of the news. “Far fewer drone/UFO sightings over the eastern U.S. overnight,” wrote atmospheric scientist and meteorologist Matthew Cappucci in an X post Monday morning. “That’s because clouds blocked airplanes, stars and planets from being visible from below.”