Tom Rogan writes for the Washington Examiner about the recent controversy surrounding unexplained drone sightings.
The government seems either unwilling or incapable of resolving rapidly growing public concern over the wave of aerial drone sightings that have afflicted New Jersey in recent weeks. But New Jersey is only a fraction of the full story. From Virginia to Colorado to Maryland to Oregon, credible reports of unexplained aerial drone activity keep coming in. Drone incursions have also complicated operations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, home to the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, and the Marine Corps Camp Pendleton facility in recent days. This risks making a mockery of the government and military’s power.
What’s going on?
For one, massive public attention and media interest are fueling some false reporting. People seek participation in seemingly extraordinary events. They want to be part of the fun. That means stars are reported as drones so folks can tell their friends, “I saw one!” Flight tracking evidence and analysis by aeronautical experts also suggest that a majority of these reports pertain to hobbyist drones, aircraft misidentified as drones, or misidentified meteorological and astronomical phenomena.
Still, there remains the problem that the federal government appears both incompetent and deceptive about the origin, intent, and possible threat of drones that continue to fly without identification of their type, intent, or operator. This is leading to conspiracy theories such as that the government is using drones to search for a hidden nuclear or radiological weapon. This is highly unlikely, not so much because it is infeasible but because of the absence of certain other government efforts we would see in the situation of a nuclear-radiological weapon scare.
Government incompetence is an undeniable complicating factor. Consider that the Pentagon’s UFO research arm, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, recently referred to a drone that crashed near a Michigan nuclear power plant. AARO added that it had “no further information” about the drone. This kind of language risks public concern that perhaps the government is hiding something.