The federal government are being urged to deploy high-tech drone hunters to solve the ongoing mystery as to who is responsible for the sudden sightings of unmanned flying objects in New York and New Jersey.
According to a number of reports, the authorities were forced to shut down an airport at the weekend, while there has been growing concern among residents of the communities that have been closest to the drones in question.
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer revealed yesterday (Sunday, December 15) that he was asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to deploy drone-detecting technology in a bid to pull back the veil of mystery and get a better understanding as to what’s actually going on.
“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 at a news conference, according to ABC News.
“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.”
On Saturday meanwhile, Rep. Chris Smith, (R-N.J.) confirmed that he was working on legislation to give state and local authorities the power to track and potentially bring down aerial drones, going as far as to label them a “very considerable danger”.
The sheer number of sightings has brought the apparent phenomenon to widespread public attention, though federal officials have repeatedly impressed upon the fact that there is no evidence – at the time of writing – that any of the drones pose a national security or public safety threat. Neither do they have any foreign affiliations.
“There’s no question that people are seeing drones,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC’s “This Week”.
“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.”
