The New Jersey drone hysteria began one year ago this week with 11 sightings over a Morris County military base, and the mystery has only deepened — with one eyewitness now revealing that the school bus-sized craft had the ability to take control of smaller, recreational drones around them.
The earliest confirmed sighting of an unauthorized drone in the Picatinny Arsenal airspace occurred on Nov. 13, 2024 followed by 10 more sightings through Dec. 6, according to the military.
The sightings were confirmed by law enforcement officials at the base, which serves as an US Army research facility. “The suspected drones were not the result of any military-related activity on the installation and were not approved to fly over the installation,” a Picatinny spokesperson told The Post this week.
Hysteria soon gripped the state, as thousands called in dramatic drone sightings and reports — many of which had conventional explanations.
But some details remained hidden until now.
Montvale Mayor Mike Ghassali relayed a close encounter between a “trusted” town drone hobbyist who said one of the giant drones took control of his own device as they flew in the sky. The man declined to come forward for fear of professional fallout, the mayor said.
“His drone was up while the drones were up also and they took control of his drone and they landed his drone,” Ghassali told The Post.
The mayor said many townspeople witnessed the drones, which were the size of a “small school bus . . . maybe 15 or 20 feet” — much larger than any commercially available drone.
The sightings of two or three drones at a time lasted for weeks, the mayor said. “They would go in tandem, pattern-like, back and forth. They were flying over the reservoir, over the downtown, over the shopping centers.
“It was so normal after a while. ‘Oh look, there’s more drones.’”
Federal and state officials have yet to provide any explanation for the rash of drones that lit up the Montvale skies, according to Ghassali.
While Montvale became drone-sighting central, other credible reports emerged in other parts of the state around that time — and remain unexplained.
A swarm of 12 to 30 drones was spotted Dec. 8, 2024, over the Atlantic by patrolling members of the U.S. Coast Guard. A sailor who spoke to The Post said they were sent out to look for drones when “they found us.”
“They appeared out of nowhere” at about 9 p.m., and followed the boat for approximately 15 minutes, he said. When the vessel shifted course, so too did the drones.
“They had four propellers. Seven feet across. The flashing lights, like you’ve seen. The festive green, red, and white lights.”
Other sightings were discounted by the feds. The diversion of a medevac helicopter, the report from a National Guard facility of seven large drones, and sightings over Salem Nuclear Power Facility were all deemed to be misidentified commercial and non-commercial planes, according to an internal TSA assessment.
“No one had any answers. Even when the state police and the FBI brought all the mayors in to talk about what these are, they said, “We don’t know. We don’t know anything,’” Ghassali said. “To this day.”
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