The Great Drone Hysteria of 2024

Unpacking the mini-national freakout over drones in New Jersey ...

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If there is a basic problem-solving principle that guides much of what I think about life, it is Occam’s Razor.

“The simplest explanation is usually the best one.”

(If I could create my own personal corollary to this notion, it would be “the simplest and stupidest explanation is usually the best one.”)

This brings me to the Great Drone Freak Out of 2024.

Over the past six weeks, residents of northern New Jersey have been reporting a near-epidemic of nighttime drone sightings. Drones are now being reported in six states: Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Federal officials have repeatedly stated that the drones do not pose any safety threat, though they have been unable to say what or who is behind them.

Still, the presence of unexplained aircraft has led to speculation that these are secret military aircraft, Iranian spycraft, and, inevitably, extra-terrestrials. A virtual panic has set in as politicians have made outlandish claims about what’s going on … like our next president.

Not to be outdone, Sen. Chuck Schumer called for the deployment of “drone detection technology.”

Over the weekend, New Jersey Senator Andy Kim (he was sworn in last month) did a ride-along with local cops and made a startling and predictable discovery. According to Kim:

“After going out with police to observe reports of possible drones, I was with help of civilian pilots and others able to do deeper analysis and concluded that most of the possible drone sightings that were pointed out to me were almost certainly planes.”

This tracks with a recent statement from the Department of Homeland Security and FBI, “Upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are manned aircraft, operating lawfully. There are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted air space.”

Occam’s Razor wins again … the simplest explanation is the best one!

Meanwhile, in Maryland, former governor Larry Hogan posted a video allegedly showing “dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence in Davidsonville, Maryland.”

It turns out that Hogan had made a video of the constellation Orion.

As someone joked to me over the weekend, people have spent the last 15 years staring at their phones; they forgot what the sky looks like.

The thing is, drones are largely unregulated; unless they fly in active flight paths or restricted air space, their users are not breaking the law.

The calls for federal enforcement or even the military to get involved in this issue elide the point that there’s really not much the federal government can (or should) do. Unless you believe, as Trump does, that these drones should be shot down over residential areas and in the vicinity of flight paths (which seems like a terrifically bad idea), I’m not exactly sure what the solution is here — or to be honest, why one is even necessary.

It’s worth noting that people are panicking over these drones because they can see their lights. I’m not an expert in aerial surveillance, but it seems to me that the first rule of aerial surveillance is to remain inconspicuous. If these drones were up to no good, they surely wouldn’t be drawing attention to themselves. Instead, these drones are actively seeking attention — as if the goal is to start a panic and get people riled up.

Honestly, it wouldn’t shock me if there’s a subreddit message board where a bunch of drone hobbyists are coordinating all this — and other drone users in New York, Ohio, and elsewhere are picking up the mantle.

But here’s a bigger and more interesting question: who cares?

If a handful of drones fly in the night sky over New Jersey, why is this a reason to panic? Why people seem to think the drones are a threat, or out of the tens of thousands of people who live in this community, the drones would personally bother them is a mystery to me.

None of these drones have done anything remotely malicious, aside from flying over an airport in New York State and an airbase in Ohio — but that’s necessarily a new phenomenon. As former Rep. Adam Kinzinger recently pointed out, “You're allowed to fly over military bases and sensitive national security areas. In fact, small planes and pilots do this all the time, and there's no restriction on it.”

Kinzinger is no longer in Congress, which is perhaps why he is taking a more sober view of this. Meanwhile, both Democrats and Republicans in Washington are demanding more “transparency” from the federal government, even though it’s pretty obvious that no one in a position of power knows what’s going on or is even all that concerned about it. What they really should be doing is telling their constituents that these drones are not a threat; people are confusing aircraft with drones (as Senator Kim did) and perhaps, above all, “calm the f**k down, touch grass, and spend time with your families.”

What is perhaps most interesting about this drone phenomenon is not the flying aircraft but the hysteria it’s created. How is this different from crop circles in the 1980s, the Clown Panic of 2016, the Boston-based Mooninite scare of 2017, or the Great Chinese Spy Balloon Freakout of 2023? A steady drumbeat of coverage, uncurated and non-fact-checked social media posts, and irresponsible speculation by politicians have created a true social panic — one that I’m quite confident has a simple explanation and will largely be forgotten in a couple of weeks.

The clearest and best explanation for all the drone hysteria is that people are freaking out over nothing … but soon enough, they’ll move on to something new to fixate on.

There is, however, a simple solution for all this … which the Simpsons produced nearly three decades ago.

Musical Interlude