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A private contractor has claimed responsibility for the mysterious spate of drone sightings over New Jersey and New York that had citizens and politicians clamoring for answers last year. Unfortunately, what the company reportedly admitted has led to yet more unanswered questions.
“You remember that big UFO scare in New Jersey last year? Well, that was us,” an employee of the unnamed contractor claimed at the Army’s UAS and Launched Effects Summit at Fort Rucker this August, a source who was in attendance told the New York Post.
The unexplained, SUV-sized drones were spotted numerous times flying over the Northeast in November and December of 2024, and then returned in January 2025, after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a ban over parts of New Jersey and New York.
Enigma Labs, a research company studying unidentified phenomena, reported more than 650 drone-related sightings in the northeastern United States during that three-month time period. Despite the proliferation of sightings, no explanation was ever provided by anyone as to what was happening. The closest anyone came to explaining the drone sightings was a joint statement issued by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, and Department of Defense, which claimed that after analysis, they determined they were nothing more than “a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.”
Mystery of New Jersey/New York drone scare may be solved, but new questions have arisen
That statement has now been brought into question as video provided to the New York Post shows a roughly 20-foot across four-winged drone zipping through the sky just above a tree-line, and drawing the attention of dozens of soldiers on the ground.
“I thought it was the military testing something out on the other side of the base,” the source, a military veteran and drone expert, said of their first impression of the flying object on Aug. 12 at Fort Rucker.
“It feels like it’s a UFO because it defies what you’re expecting to see,” they said, adding there was an “uncanny valley feeling” when watching it quietly motor through the sky.
“When it turned you almost completely lose sight of it,” the source said, of the roughly 30-minute demonstration in the controlled airspace of Fort Rucker.
“Which is why I think people were seeing this up in the sky and why there were reports of people seeing it and saying it disappeared.”
The source who spoke to the Post also stated that in order for that to happen, it “would definitely have to be cleared” and that “somebody was 100% in charge of coordinating” the events.
If all of this is true, it certainly leads one to wonder why the U.S. government and/or military did not respond immediately when local officials in the Staten Island area in New York and New Jersey to raise such a stink about them, a State Senator called for a state of emergency, and a Congressman stated that “very high sources, very qualified sources, very responsible sources” told him the drones were launched by an Iranian “mothership.”