Top House Armed Services Dem: We Got Briefed There Were Drone Sightings Over Arsenal in New Jersey

On Friday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) stated that, “there is absolutely no question, no dispute that there are drones flying over and close to military installations” and according to an unclassified briefing he got on Thursday, “there were a number of drone sightings, and specifically over Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, that there have been visual sightings they have acknowledged.”

Smith said, “I haven’t heard the Pentagon or anyone say that they can’t corroborate any of it. The reports that I received, we got an unclassified brief, actually yesterday, said that there were a number of drone sightings, and specifically over Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, that there have been visual sightings they have acknowledged. They’ve also said that they’ve gotten a lot of reports that turned out not to be drones, that were, in fact, manned aircraft or mistakes. But, yes, there is absolutely no question, no dispute that there are drones flying over and close to military installations, New Jersey has been the latest reports. … There’s no evidence that they’re coming from a specific foreign threat. But since we don’t know, we don’t know. So, we can say that definitively and shouldn’t say that definitively.”

Smith further stated that it’s not possible to follow the drones by radar, and so pursuing them is difficult, but there are systems that are better at drone detection and deploying them might need to be considered.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.