Unexplained ‘drones’ spotted above multiple US states should be treated as a serious issue, a former Ministry of Defence investigator has told Metro.
Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs for the Ministry of Defence, said though some of these sightings are likely hobbyist drones, others could be more complicated in origin, including from malicious foreign actors.
Hundreds of sightings have concentrated on the east coast, but unidentified aircraft have also been seen in Los Angeles, Germany, and even the UK in the past weeks.
New Jersey assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia said they appeared to be able to avoid detection by helicopter and radio, and ‘operate in a coordinated manner’.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorka said some of the sightings were of people mistaking ordinary aircraft for drones, with witnesses urged to check Flightradar24 if they see one, to see if it is actually a scheduled flight.
Mr Pope told Metro: ‘Such systems can be larger and more sophisticated than ordinary drones, not least because they need to be able to stay airborne for longer periods.
‘Because many details of US counter-espionage activities are classified, it may be that the authorities are being tight-lipped about this, to keep the opposition in the dark about how much they know.
‘China and Russia have both the capability and intent to conduct surveillance on the US, and the Chinese spy balloon incident last year is one example of this. This is no doubt why President-elect Trump has called for these objects to be shot down.’
The Republican said that he believes the US government knows more than it is saying.
Trump wrote on Truth Social: ‘‘Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!’
‘Russia is a more likely suspect than China concerning the recent incursions at military bases in the UK because this started at almost the same time that the government approved Ukraine’s use of UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles against Russian territory,’ Mr Pope said.
‘That’s why – both in the UK and the US – this should be treated as a serious defence and national security issue.’
Mr Pope said: ‘I have no doubt that some sightings are attributable to ordinary commercial or hobbyist drones. Such activity over New Jersey has been going on for some time and has been increasing, as drones become easier to operate and less expensive.
‘There’s a state of virtual mass hysteria over these sightings, and this is leading to people misidentifying the ordinary, and misperceiving it as something extraordinary.’
Mr Pope did point out that the government has downplayed the possibility that some of these ‘drones’ could actually involve foreign enemies using them to monitor key military bases and national infrastructure.
It is not clear whether the unmanned drones over RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, and RAF Feltwell, in Norfolk, were operated by a hostile actor.
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The sightings were shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to launch strikes on military targets in the UK after Ukraine fired British and American long-range missiles into Russian territory for the first time.
Another suggestion for why so many drones have been spotted near the east coast of the US is a small radioactive missing part of a medical scanner.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an alert for the ‘pin source’, a part of a medical scanner which calibrates its accuracy. If handled without the necessary equipment, it could cause radiation poisoning.
Luckily, the missing pin source is so small that it likely won’t cause extreme damage or harm.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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