The state of New Jersey is apparently facing an invasion by unstoppable drones. This development is creating demands for investigation on the part of federal, state, and local governments. Citizens are concerned and media curiosity is at fever pitch.
Contacts with foreign sources were not very informative. The Chinese Ministry of Defense denied any use of drones over American or other territory, and their spokesperson added, “We get all the information we need from hacking into US government and industry sources.” They referred Americans to the Russians.
The Russian Security Council denied any involvement in flying drones over the East Coast. “Iran provides most of our drones, go talk to them,” was the only response we could get from officials. They added that President Putin has his own personal drone for use when he is hunting while riding bare chested in the Far East.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry was no more helpful on the issue saying, “Any drones we have will be used for surveillance of Israel or sent to the Russians for the Ukrainians to shoot down.”
Having exhausted foreign sources, Americans turned to domestic agencies. The Department of Homeland Security had no information about drones. “We are fully challenged to cope with unprecedented illegal border crossings, a meltdown of the Secret Service, and a FEMA fiasco in North Carolina to worry about drones,” said one agency official, on background.
The Department of Defense was not any more helpful. They denied having any information about drones, other than to say that there was no evidence of aliens being connected to drone activity in the United States. On the other hand, there was no evidence that the drones were not connected to aliens. They referred Americans to past episodes of The X Files.
The State Department reported that they had no contact with drones other than some foreign ambassadors who were posted to the United States and predictably uninformed about their activities.
The intelligence community said they did not necessarily know anything about drones, but even if they did, it would be classified and could not be shared with the media. This was an understandable reply.
A Republican member of Congress from New Jersey claimed that Iran had launched drones from a “mother ship” somewhere off the coast of the United States and that this information came from highly classified sources. This was corroborated by some boardwalk vendors of pizza in Ocean City and Wildwood, New Jersey. Their credibility was not challenged.
Some residents of New Jersey thought that tourists from Pennsylvania who visit New Jersey beaches during the summer are retaliating for exorbitant rental charges paid in previous years. Given prices, this is certainly an option worth exploring.
Others claimed that the drones were the work of environmentalists angered by shore communities’ wars against sea gulls, including the importation of hawks to chase gulls away from their natural habitats. Recent destruction of irreplicable works of art by environmentalists makes the illicit flying of drones over New Jersey easily conceivable.
Residents of New York suggested that New Jersey was seeking publicity to compensate for its comparative insignificance in national and regional affairs. “New Jersey is simply a suburb of New York and otherwise has no reason to attract news coverage,” was the explanation provided by one New Yorker.
But a New Jersey native came to her state’s defense. New Jersey residents, she said, were mentally exhausted from driving around in their infamous traffic circles until their brains boiled over; aliens or foreign enemies would be a welcome distraction.
An expert in artificial intelligence (AI) suggested that the drone swarms might be the result of an AI experiment gone awry, given the widespread use of “deepfakes” pervasive in social media and other sources. “The Jersey drone swarm could be the opening scene in the next Hollywood spectacular mixing fictitious events (alien invasions) with real events (military drone attacks) in order to smash box office records,” he noted.
Whatever the case may be is still undetermined. Needless to say, the longer it takes to find an answer, the more numerous the conspiracy theories will become. They will also grow increasingly more interesting for sure.
Professor Steve Cimbala, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies and Professor of Political Science at Penn State-Brandywine.
About the Author
Stephen Cimbala
Dr. Stephen Cimbala is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State university, Brandywine. He is currently a senior fellow with the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.
