Top New York political leaders are urging the federal government to deploy high-tech drone hunters to crack the mystery of who is behind the numerous sightings of what are believed to be unmanned flying objects that have been buzzing over communities in New York and New Jersey, and even prompting authorities to shut down an airport over the weekend.
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday that he’s asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to immediately deploy special drone-detecting technology, which has been unclassified, to get to the bottom of what has been alarming and baffling residents in the region.
“If the technology exists for a drone to make it up into the sky, there certainly is the technology that can track the craft with precision and determine what the heck is going on,” Schumer said during a news conference. “And that’s what the Robin [radar system] does today.”
“We’re asking the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, to deploy special detection systems like the Robin, which use not a linear line of sight, but 360-degree technology that has a much better chance of detecting these drones. And we’re asking DHS to bring them to the New York, New Jersey area,” he said.
He said the technology was initially used to detect birds and prevent them from flying into airplane engines.
“Drone radar is based on the use of radio waves. The radio waves are sent out for the pulses, and that means it’s detectable,” Schumer said. “The question is, why haven’t the federal authorities detected them yet?”
Earlier Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” the federal government is taking action to address the spate of drone sightings that have rattled the nerves of residents in New Jersey and New York.
“There’s no question that people are seeing drones,” Mayorkas told “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “I want to assure the American public that we in the federal government have deployed additional resources, personnel, technology to assist the New Jersey State Police in addressing the drone sightings.”
Mayorkas said some of the sightings are drones while others have been manned aircraft commonly mistaken for drones.
“I want to assure the American public that we are on it,” Mayorkas said, adding that he’s calling on Congress to expand local and state authority to help address the issue.
Numerous sightings of alleged dones have been reported along the East Coast since mid-November, most of them in New Jersey.
Witnesses have described seeing drones the size of compact cars lighting up the night sky and hovering over homes. There have also been sightings of what appeared to be several large drones clustered together flying near military installations and President-elect Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The Federal Aviation Administration has imposed drone flight restrictions while authorities investigate.
Officials from several agencies on Saturday emphasized that the federal government’s investigation into the drone sightings is ongoing. During a call with reporters, an FBI official said that of the nearly 5,000 tips the agency has received, less than 100 have generated credible leads for further investigation. A DHS official said they’re “confident that many of the reported drone sightings are, in fact, manned aircraft being misidentified as drones.”
The FBI official also talked about how investigators overlayed the locations of the reported drone sightings and found that “the density of reported sightings matches the approach pattern” of the New York area’s busy airports including Newark Liberty International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport.
An FAA official said there have “without a doubt” been drones flying over New Jersey, pointing to the fact that there are nearly 1 million drones registered in the United States.
Officials at Stewart International Airport in New Windsor, New York, about 60 miles north of New York City, said they were forced to close their runways for an hour on Friday night after the FAA alerted them of a drone spotted in the area.
The Boston Police Department said Sunday that two men were arrested Saturday night after they allegedly flew a drone “dangerously close to Logan International Airport.” A third suspect fled the scene in a boat and is being sought by police.
The incident, according to police, began earlier Saturday afternoon when a Boston police officer specializing in real-time crime surveillance detected the drone operating near Logan International Airport. Using monitoring technology, the officer was able to locate the drone’s altitude, flight history and the operator’s position on Long Island in Boston Harbor, where police found the suspects in a decommissioned health campus, authorities said. The suspects ran, but police managed to chase down two of them and continued to search for the third suspect on Sunday.
The suspects, identified by the Boston Police Department as 42-year-old Robert Duffy and 32-year-old Jeremy Folcik, both of Massachusetts, were arrested on trespassing charges.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Sunday that the federal government has agreed to deploy state-of-the-art drone detection systems to New York, but it was not immediately clear if she and Schumer were speaking about the same technology.
“In response to my calls for additional resources, our federal partners are deploying a state-of-the-art drone detection system to New York state,” Hochul said. “This system will support state and federal law enforcement in their investigations. We are grateful to the Biden administration for their support, but ultimately we need further assistance from Congress.”
Hochul said she is pressing Congress to pass the Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act, which will give “New York and our peers the authority and resources required to respond to circumstances like we face today.”
During a House Homeland Security joint subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, officials from the Department of Justice, the FBI and Customs and Border Protection told lawmakers that the current legal authorities are insufficient to deal with drones.
Schumer said he would co-sponsor federal legislation to give the FAA and local agencies more oversight of drones and expand their methods of detection.
Last week, Schumer, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim sent a letter to the heads of the FBI, FAA and DHS requesting a briefing on the drone sightings.
“We write with urgent concern regarding the unmanned aerial system (UAS) activity that has affected communities across New York and New Jersey in recent days,” the letter stated.
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
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