CHATHAM, New Jersey: That buzzing coming out of New Jersey? It’s unclear if it’s drones or something else, but for sure the nighttime sightings are producing tons of talk, a raft of conspiracy theories and craned necks looking skyward.
Cropping up on local news and social media sites around Thanksgiving, the saga of the drones reported over New Jersey has reached incredible heights.
This week seems to have begun a new, higher-profile chapter: Lawmakers are demanding (but so far not getting) explanations from federal and state authorities about what’s behind them. Gov. Phil Murphy wrote to President Joe Biden asking for answers. New Jersey’s new senator, Andy Kim, spent Thursday night on a drone hunt in rural northern New Jersey, and posted about it on X.
More drone sightings have been reported in New York City, and Mayor Eric Adams says the city is investigating and collaborating with New Jersey and federal officials. And then President-elect Donald Trump posted that he believes the government knows more than it’s saying. “Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!” he posted on his social media site.
But perhaps the most fantastic development is the dizzying proliferation of conspiracies, none of which has been confirmed or suggested by federal and state officials who say they’re looking into what’s happening. It has become shorthand to refer to the flying machines as drones, but there are questions about whether what people are seeing are unmanned aircraft or something else.
Some theorize the drones came from an Iranian mothership. Others think they are the Secret Service making sure President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster property is secure. Others worry about China. The deep state. And on.
In the face of uncertainty, people have done what they do in 2024: Create a social media group.
The Facebook page, New Jersey Mystery Drones — let’s solve it, has nearly 44,000 members, up from 39,000 late Thursday. People are posting their photo and video sightings, and the online commenters take it from there.
One video shows a whitish light flying in a darkened sky, and one commenter concludes it’s otherworldly. “Straight up orbs,” the person says. Others weigh in to say it’s a plane or maybe a satellite. Another group called for hunting the drones literally, shooting them down like turkeys. (Do not shoot at anything in the sky, experts warn.)
Trisha Bushey, 48, of Lebanon Township, New Jersey, lives near Round Valley Reservoir where there have been numerous sightings. She said she first posted photos online last month wondering what the objects were and became convinced they were drones when she saw how they moved and when her son showed her on a flight tracking site that no planes were around. Now she’s glued to the Mystery Drones page, she said.
“I find myself — instead of Christmas shopping or cleaning my house — checking it,” she said.
She doesn’t buy what the governor said, that the drones aren’t a risk to public safety. Murphy told Biden on Friday that residents need answers. The federal Homeland Security Department and FBI also said in a joint statement they have no evidence that the sightings pose “a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”
“How can you say it’s not posing a threat if you don’t know what it is?” she said. “I think that’s why so many people are uneasy.”
Then there’s the notion that people could misunderstand what they’re seeing. William Austin is the president of Warren County Community College, which has a drone technology degree program, and is coincidentally located in one of the sighting hotspots.
Austin says he has looked at videos of purported drones and that airplanes are being misidentified as drones. He cited an optical effect called parallax, which is the apparent shift of an object when viewed from different perspectives. Austin encouraged people to download flight and drone tracker apps so they can better understand what they’re looking at.
Nonetheless, people continue to come up with their own theories.
“It represents the United States of America in 2024,” Austin said. “We’ve lost trust in our institutions, and we need it.”
Federal officials echo Austin’s view that many of the sightings are piloted aircraft such as planes and helicopters being mistaken for drones, according to lawmakers and Murphy.
That’s not really convincing for many, though, who are homing in on the sightings beyond just New Jersey and the East Coast, where others have reported seeing the objects.
For Seph Divine, 34, another member of the drone hunting group who lives in Eugene, Oregon, it feels as if it’s up to citizen sleuths to solve the mystery. He said he tries to be a voice of reason, encouraging people to fact check their information, while also asking probing questions.
“My main goal is I don’t want people to be caught up in the hysteria and I also want people to not just ignore it at the same time,” he said.
“Whether or not it’s foreign military or some secret access program or something otherworldly, whatever it is, all I’m saying is it’s alarming that this is happening so suddenly and so consistently for hours at a time,” he added.
Drones, planes or UFOs? Americans abuzz over mysterious New Jersey sightings
https://arab.news/pg27m
Drones, planes or UFOs? Americans abuzz over mysterious New Jersey sightings
- The saga of the drones reported over New Jersey has reached incredible heights
- ‘How can you say it’s not posing a threat if you don’t know what it is?’
As an uncertain 2026 begins, virtual journeys back to 2016 become a trend
- Over the past few weeks, millions have been sharing throwback photos to that time on social media, kicking off one of the first viral trends of the year
LONDON: The year is 2016. Somehow it feels carefree, driven by Internet culture. Everyone is wearing over-the-top makeup.
At least, that’s how Maren Nævdal, 27, remembers it — and has seen it on her social feeds in recent days.
For Njeri Allen, also 27, the year was defined by the artists topping the charts that year, from Beyonce to Drake to Rihanna’s last music releases. She also remembers the Snapchat stories and an unforgettable summer with her loved ones. “Everything felt new, different, interesting and fun,” Allen says.
Many people, particularly those in their 20s and 30s, are thinking about 2016 these days. Over the past few weeks, millions have been sharing throwback photos to that time on social media, kicking off one of the first viral trends of the year — the year 2026, that is.
With it have come the memes about how various factors — the sepia hues over Instagram photos, the dog filters on Snapchat and the music — made even 2016’s worst day feel like the best of times.
Part of the look-back trend’s popularity has come from the realization that 2016 was already a decade ago – a time when Nævdal says she felt like people were doing “fun, unserious things” before having to grow up.
But experts point to 2016 as a year when the world was on the edge of the social, political and technological developments that make up our lives today. Those same advances — such as developments under US President Donald Trump and the rise of AI — have increased a yearning for even the recent past, and made it easier to get there.
2016 marked a year of transition
Nostalgia is often driven by a generation coming of age — and its members realizing they miss what childhood and adolescence felt like. That’s certainly true here. But some of those indulging in the online journeys through time say something more is at play as well.
It has to do with the state of the world — then and now.
By the end of 2016, people would be looking ahead to moments like Trump’s first presidential term and repercussions of the United Kingdom leaving the EU after the Brexit referendum. A few years after that, the COVID-19 pandemic would send most of the world into lockdown and upend life for nearly two years.
Janelle Wilson, a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, says the world was “on the cusp of things, but not fully thrown into the dark days that were to come.”
“The nostalgia being expressed now, for 2016, is due in large part to what has transpired since then,” she says, also referencing the rise of populism and increased polarization. “For there to be nostalgia for 2016 in the present,” she added, “I still think those kinds of transitions are significant.”
For Nævdal, 2016 “was before a lot of the things we’re dealing with now.” She loved seeing “how embarrassing everyone was, not just me,” in the photos people have shared.
“It felt more authentic in some ways,” she says. Today, Nævdal says, “the world is going downhill.”
Nina van Volkinburg, a professor of strategic fashion marketing at University of the Arts, London, says 2016 marked the beginning of “a new world order” and of “fractured trust in institutions and the establishment.” She says it also represented a time of possibility — and, on social media, “the maximalism of it all.”
This was represented in the bohemian fashion popularized in Coachella that year, the “cut crease” makeup Nævdal loved and the dance music Allen remembers.
“People were new to platforms and online trends, so were having fun with their identity,” van Volkinburg says. “There was authenticity around that.”
And 2016 was also the year of the “boss babe” and the popularity of millennial pink, van Volkinburg says, indications of young people coming into adulthood in a year that felt hopeful.
Allen remembers that as the summer she and her friends came of age as high school graduates. She says they all knew then that they would remember 2016 forever.
Ten years on, having moved again to Taiwan, she said “unprecedented things are happening” in the world. “Both of my homes are not safe,” she said of the US and Taiwan, “it’s easier to go back to a time that’s more comfortable and that you felt safe in.”
Feelings of nostalgia are speeding up
In the last few days, Nævdal decided to hide the social media apps on her phone. AI was a big part of that decision. “It freaks me out that you can’t tell what’s real anymore,” she said.
“When I’ve come off of social media, I feel that at least now I know the things I’m seeing are real,” she added, “which is quite terrifying.”
The revival of vinyl record collections, letter writing and a fresh focus on the aesthetics of yesterday point to nostalgia continuing to dominate trends and culture. Wilson says the feeling has increased as technology makes nostalgia more accessible.
“We can so readily access the past or, at least, versions of it,” she said. “We’re to the point where we can say, ‘Remember last week when we were doing XYZ? That was such a good time!’”
Both Nævdal and Allen described themselves as nostalgic people. Nævdal said she enjoys looking back to old photos – especially when they show up as “On This Day” updates on her phone, She sends them to friends and family when their photos come up.
Allen wished that she documented more of her 2016 and younger years overall, to reflect on how much she has evolved and experienced since.
“I didn’t know what life could be,” she said of that time. “I would love to be able to capture my thought process and my feelings, just to know how much I have grown.”
