New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy warned Thursday that the staggering influx of drone sightings over the Garden State the past few weeks — though harmless — is a “wake-up call” to the country’s vulnerability to potential foreign drone attacks.
“Now we can say this based on the most sophisticated drone detection systems on the planet that started to arrive in New Jersey last Friday and Saturday, there is no public threat here, period. I could say that unequivocally,” Murphy said on News 12 New Jersey’s “Ask Gov. Murphy” program.
But that doesn’t mean Jersey or the country as a whole is not at risk, he added.
“The part that should worry really out there is the vulnerability that we as a nation have to drone incursions,” Murphy said. “It’s a big issue.”
The Democrat said the drone activity is “a benign wake-up call” to the US’s vulnerability to foreign forces — unlike, by comparison, the 9/11 terror attacks’ “tragic wake-up call.”
“Thank God nobody’s gotten hurt here, nobody’s gotten injured. Nobody’s — thank God — passed,” Murphy said.
“But we as a nation are vulnerable. We must address that,” he implored. “We must address it sooner than later, and New Jersey’s not immune.”
As far as the current drones swirling above the skies of the Garden State, Murphy pointed to “the thousands, if not tens of thousands of drones that are up in the air every day.”
The devices are a combination of commercial, law enforcement, military and hobbyist aircraft, he said.
But some of the flying devices objects are still a mystery.
“A month ago, there may have been suspicious activity,” Murphy said during the broadcast. “We did not have those sophisticated [detection] systems that we now have had for the past week … We probably will never know.”
In the meantime, the Federal Aviation Administration has banned drone operations from now through Jan. 17 over specific parts of New Jersey.
Since drones first popped up in Jersey skies on Nov. 18, the FBI has received over 5,000 tips about sightings in the tri-state area, according to a statement released on Monday by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the FAA and the Department of Defense.
