[j_timberlake]

This was literally my first thought for the anomalous drones like 2 weeks ago, and it was immediately obvious that the entire NJ police department should not be incompetent enough to fall for something so obvious. The mayors and governor should not be dumb enough to stake their reputations on this when the null hypothesis of "mass hysteria" is easier and safer. Even back then, we knew the sightings do not appear on flight radar apps that show every commercial flight and which any civilian can access.

But since then we've also had airport shutdowns, incursions over airforce bases, drones in no-fly zones. These are easy to Google:

https://www.recordonline.com/story/news/2024/12/16/stewart-a...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/16/us/us-air-force-base-closes-a...

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/article297295919.ht...

Also NJ police report the anomalous drones give off no heat signature like normal drones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K98A4CLMwf4&t=209s

There's a lot more I could post about, but most importantly Chuck Schumer is trying to get Robin drone radar detectors deployed, and I'm predicting that he's the smart guy in the room who will get us answers.

[ceejayoz]

> Also NJ police report the anomalous drones give off no heat signature like normal drones...

These are the same people who have panic attacks when they think they've been exposed to fentanyl (which usually involves them describing symptoms not consistent with opiate exposure, and mysteriously the officers never seem to test positive for it in the hospital). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8810663/

In reality, someone exposed to a large volume of pure, liquid, lab-grade fentanyl... just washes their hands. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35722948/

(See also: “poisoned” milkshakes: https://ny.eater.com/2020/6/23/21299721/nypd-officers-report...)

[robocat]

> pure, liquid, lab-grade fentanyl ... just washes their hands.

Your description is a little hyperbolic! That pubmed paper referenced "10 microgram fentanyl citrate base per ml" approx 0.00001% fentanyl "over a large skin surface area".

Pharmaceutical form for injection is fentanyl 50µg/mL (as citrate). https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/profs/Datasheet/f/Fentanylinj.pd...

[ceejayoz]

American cops pass out when they see a salt crystal thinking it’s fentanyl. Even the ones who didn’t touch it. Pouring a bunch of it in liquid form onto unprotected skin in a lab does nothing. Draw conclusions accordingly.

[lxgr]

> The mayors and governor should not be dumb enough to stake their reputations on this when the null hypothesis of "mass hysteria" is easier and safer.

I think they played this exactly right: Most people will never accept a null result (or something close to it, like "there were a couple of weird drones, but mostly it was people newly looking up at the night sky") or even follow this news story long enough for the actual resolution to matter. The only thing they'll remember was their mayor or governor staying silent when they were scared/angry vs. shouting at the feds to let them shoot down some drones.

> Also NJ police report the anomalous drones give off no heat signature like normal drones:

The only thing we can conclude from this is that the NJ police wasn't able to detect a heat signature, but not whether there really wasn't one.

[whimsicalism]

i think the government giving credence to this is what made it spiral out of control

[bagels]

Governor of Maryland posted a video of Orion's Belt claiming they were drones. A local news station posted a video of Venus claiming drones. There's a lot of baloney mixed in to this event.

[Cthulhu_]

It sounds like the kind of thing that happens to people that don't look up often enough. Damn kids with their smartphones!

[crystalmeph]

Chuck Schumer is trying to mollify his constituents. The one thing a politician can never tell his constituents is that they are being morons, even when it's true.

Your last link has the officer claiming it doesn't give off heat like regular drones, but just like the OP story where a police officer claimed the "mystery residue" reacted "violently" to a lead pencil, what does that even mean? Can we get an A/B test of what this officer calls a "regular" drone on heat vision versus one of these mystery drones?

And oh yeah, at about 4:30 into that link, the reporter puts up his own "authentic drone footage" that I am absolutely certain is a perfectly normal airplane.

The airport shutdown was real, sure, but that was dumb wannabe sleuths who were going to "solve the problem" using their own drones, thereby becoming the problem, or smart trolls who knew exactly how best to get a laugh out of the gullible public.

[flutas]

There was also a call in to a 911 department on the 13th of a drone crashing in someones backyard and then being swarmed by 10 others.

https://www.newsweek.com/drone-new-jersey-911-sighting-20002...

But I haven't seen a follow up from anyone on it yet.

[salynchnew]

Again, with no proof and likely not real. If there was a crashed drone, you'd imagine that they'd release a photo or something. The reality is that law enforcement officers are just as susceptible to mass hysteria as everyone else.

[op00to]

A drone crashes in my backyard most days. My drone.

The case referenced by Newsweek was a commercially available drone of the DJI variety.

[jjwiseman]

"it can't be hysteria, look at these extreme ways people are reacting!"

Physical evidence or GTFO (the video with the NJ police is physical evidence that they have a drone with thermal imagery and of nothing else).

Here's a gift link to yesterday's New York Times story: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/video/new-jersey-drones-p...

  The vast majority of the videos appeared to show planes or helicopters,
  moving across a part of the state that brims with airports. None of the
  videos analyzed by The Times conclusively showed drones, though in some
  cases that remains a plausible explanation.

None.

[Eisenstein]

It is happening almost exactly the same way, but this time it has to be different...

[vasco]

You can buy satellite pictures of almost anywhere on earth with pretty good definition and so I deduce that the US government with almost 100 StarShield satellites plus who knows how many ones with huge cameras probably can almost livestream any place on earth GTA top view style. So shouldn't be hard to see what it is and where it came from unless cloud cover is bad.

[bagels]

It'd take a lot more than 100 for that.

[vasco]

The 100 would only be for the streaming in the example.

[wat10000]

The Governor of Maryland posted a video of drones he saw hovering for 45 minutes, and he decried the lack of action and info from the feds. Something must be done!

It was the constellation Orion and some other stars. He literally saw some stars and thought they were drones hovering near his house.

Why shouldn’t I believe that they’re really this dumb?

[j_timberlake]

Are you talking about Larry Hogan, who hasn't been governor for 23 months and has nothing at stake?

You could have fact-checked that in less time than it took to write your post.

[jbd28]

Everything else in his post is correct though. I saw his video, it’s a constellation he’s just never noticed before. And he’s supposed to be one of the smarter than average citizens out there

[wat10000]

Yeah well, former governor Hogan could have fact-checked his video before posting it and didn’t, and only one of us is a public figure feeding idiotic hysteria.

My point stands. If this guy is that dumb then why should we think any of the rest are better?

[jklinger410]

Lots of smart guys in this comment thread who already know what this stuff is. No need to panic folks, the armchair critics say everything is ok.

[j_timberlake]

The funny thing is, in this thread they're all certain the drones are just mass hysteria. In the thread a week ago, there were tons of people certain these drones were just secret USA drones, nothing to worry about. "Almost no chance these are not US military.", "I guarantee it's some local police agency that got them donated by the military.", etc.

Completely incompatible hand-wave theories living side by side, rarely bothering to debate each other or provide anything beyond opinions.