In late 2024, Americans were gripped with the mystery of what seemed at first like an invasion of drones over New Jersey and other East Coast states. One year later,some of that mystery has been explained, but questions linger about exactly what happened.
It all started in November 2024 with reports of possible drones flying near thePicatinny Arsenal military research centerin Morris County, New Jersey. More sightings at the facility were reported in the following weeks. Soon, Americans in other East Coast states and even politicians claimed to have seen drones.
Reports of drone sightings surged in November and December, prompting government agencies to investigate and politicians to demand answers.Speculation swirled about what or who could be behind the sightings. Were they sent by a foreign enemy? Were they a sign of the U.S. government spying on civilians? Were they even drones at all, or were people seeing things that weren't there?
Little evidence has emerged to support the most fantastic theories.
The sightings were a combination of things, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in January 2025.
"In time, it got worse because of curiosity. This was not the enemy,"she said during her first formal press briefingof the second Trump administration. (Trump's transition team previously excoriated former PresidentJoe Bidenfor not sharing more information with the public in 2024).
A few major explanations have emerged:
Some were likely research drones: The Trump administration has confirmed that some of the sightings were actual drones, authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct research. Others were hobbyist drones.
Some weren't drones at all: Many reports turned out to be airplanes or other sources of light in the night sky. Even stars were thought to be drones, authorities said.
'Confirmation bias' makes studying the phenomenon challenging. By Dec. 16, 2024, the FBI and other agencies had received tips about over 5,000 possible drone sightings. That rash of sightings may have been fueled by the interest: "People are looking for this thing, they have a confirmation bias: 'Whatever I'm seeing, I bet it's one of those drones,'" said professor Matthew Sharps of California State University, Fresno, an expert on the psychological science of eyewitness cognition.
The FBI declined to comment in early December when asked for a final report on its investigative findings. The FAA, which also investigated, did not respond to a request for comment. Since early 2025, federal officials haven't said much more on the saga.
What happened in the New Jersey drone scare of 2024?
The first documented sighting of an unidentified object purported to be a drone was on Nov. 13, 2024, at Picatinny Arsenal. The facility said in mid-December that it had confirmed 11 sightings of drones since then, and seven other sightings that turned out to be airplanes. The facility said the drones weren't theirs and the source was unknown.
A few days later, Morris County in New Jersey said officers on patrol also spotted drones and were investigating the issue. More officials and law enforcement agencies soon joined in on investigating, as more reports circulated on social media and lawmakers began demanding answers.
"Is the public at risk?" Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, asked FBI official Robert W. Wheeler Jr. during a congressional hearing in December 2024. "Are we concerned there are nefarious intentions that could cause either an actual security or public safety incident?"
"There's nothing that is known that would lead me to say that," Wheeler said. "But we just don't know. And that's the concerning part of it."
Clusters of drones were reported in states including New York and Pennsylvania. Some of the sightings were at military installations, and then-President-electDonald Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
As the rumor swirled, the FAA implemented temporary drone flight restrictions near critical infrastructure in New York and New Jersey.Trump suggested the drones should be shot down. New Jersey Rep.Jeff Van Drew, a Republican, speculated the drones could be coming from an Iranian "mothership,"a suggestion that was rejected by the Pentagon. Former Gov. Chris Christie said he, too, saw a drone near his house.
So-called drones were sometimes just planes, stars: FBI
Though federal agencies haven't released a full report of their investigations, a document as part of a review was made public by the Department of Homeland Security earlier in 2025 that summarized four different sightings in November and December 2024.
In one of the incidents, on Nov. 26, 2024, a medevac helicopter attempting to land was diverted due to purported drones spotted close to it. The so-called drones were actually three commercial aircraft aligned in a way that they appeared from the ground to be hovering like drones, the review document said. The other incidents reviewed were also explained by aircraft.
The Biden administration initially struck a similarly cautious tone.
"We assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones," former Biden White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Dec. 16, 2024.
Why were so many people seeing drones?
There's a psychological phenomenon that can help explain some of the chaos, said Sharps, who wrote the book "The Forensic View: Investigative Psychology, Law Enforcement, Space Aliens, Exploration, and the Nature of Madness." The study of eyewitness memory tells scientists that people's preconceived notions and beliefs can help shape what they see. People are also primed to trust what authority figures say. In this case, Sharps said, people were first told there was a concerning sighting of drones by official sources.
"Once we've got a prior framework – 'there's something weird in the sky and I bet it's a drone' – we're going to start looking for it. We're going to see more stuff in the sky," Sharps said.
The use of social media to share about sightings also gives the feeling of being directly involved in the mayhem, and the further and faster spread of fascination – a kind of "psychological contagion," he said.
This type of thing has happened before. In 1942 soon after the United States entered World War II, many people believed that Los Angeles was under an air attack by Japan when no air raid happened at all. During the so-called Battle of Los Angeles, reports of enemy aircraft flying in close proximity of the city and even of aircraft crashing prompted American forces to fire shrapnel into the air, some of which caused real damage when it fell back to the ground, Sharps wrote inPsychology Today. Residents in a panic tried to flee. Five people died in car crashes and from heart attacks.
But no Japanese aircraft were in the sky that night at all. The eyewitnesses, including military observers, were wrong. The most likely culprit for the chaos? Possibly, weather balloons were mistaken for enemy aircraft amid a tense time where people believed an attack was imminent.
"People's prior beliefs change the way they interpret what they see," Sharps said.
Contributing: Kyle Morel, NorthJersey.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Mysterious drone sightings in 2024 prompt lingering questions
