Thomas L. Knapp is a director and senior news analyst at The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism, where this was first published. He lives in north central Florida.
On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an alert banning drone flights over parts of New Jersey through Jan. 17, 2025, for unspecified “Special Security Reasons.”
The unspecified actual reason is lots of people getting creeped out because they believe they’re seeing lots of drones hovering over the state at night.
There’s an element of panic here, and panic tends to spread and get silly.
Former Gov. Larry Hogan took his panic public, only to get told that the “drones” he thought he saw over his house were probably, you know, stars — the constellation Orion.
New Jersey Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew babbled about “circumstantial evidence that there’s an Iranian mothership off the East Coast of the United States, and that’s launching these drone incursions,” a claim Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh denied, probably right after spewing coffee all over her desk and rolling around on the floor unable to speak without laughing for a while.
Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, so well-known for her calm demeanor and sharp analytical skills, announced that she’s ready to “shoot the drones down myself, along with every other red-blooded, freedom-loving American.”
Some otherwise nonpolitician, normal (but I repeat myself) New Jerseyans apparently made it their whole lives without noticing that airplanes use the sky before seeing 737s on approach to Newark Liberty International Airport and thinking “drones.”
But, yeah, there are probably quite a few real drones involved at this point. Some of them may even be up to no good. But every drone hobbyist in the state is probably having a few good laughs at the panicked public every night over a few beers.
In a rare moment of calm and lucidity, President-elect Donald Trump tried to shut down the idea that the drones — real and imagined — are some kind of attack on the U.S. The government may not want to issue a clear statement on what’s happening, for some reason, he says, but “I can’t imagine it’s the enemy because, if it was the enemy, they’d blast it.”
Maybe it’s just a bunch of civilian drones and a bunch of things being mistaken for drones.
Maybe the aliens are finally here in force, hoping to find and rescue their lost explorer, the Jersey Devil.
Maybe the Iranians or al-Qaida. Or the Judean People’s Front managed to build a “mothership,” park it off the Eastern Seaboard and launch multiple large drone incursions, all without attracting the notice of the world’s leading surveillance state.
Maybe it’s a U.S. government operation of some kind — dangerous or harmless, necessary or pure money waster — that’s “classified” because (reasons).
Who knows?
The only thing we can be sure of is that a Federal Aviation Administration notice won’t put a stop to it.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
