Drone mystery solved - maybe

Just days after President Trump took office last month, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed a controversy about an apparent uptick in drove activity in New Jersey in November and December.

“After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons,” she said.

“Many of these drones were also hobbyists, recreational and private individuals that enjoy flying drones. In time, it got worse due to curiosity. This was not the enemy.”

On Jan. 12, eight days before Trump took office for his second term, Sebastian Gorka declared the mystery solved on “The Sean Spicer Show” podcast, citing an article written in June 2023 by Jack Daleo in Flying magazine.

“Go to the summer of 2023 and there is this long article on flyingmag.com about how the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), the DOD (Department of Defense), and the governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York have approved a special drone testing corridor above their three states,” said Gorka, who is now deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism.

The article, “DOD Officials Approve East Coast UAS and AAM Test Corridor,” says in part:

“On Thursday, the National Aerospace Research and Technology Park (NARTP), a collection of research and development facilities located just outside Atlantic City, New Jersey, announced an agreement to develop a UAS (unmanned aerial systems) and AAM (advanced air mobility) testing corridor backed by two Department of Defense entities. Once complete, the corridor could foster emerging aviation technologies such as drones and air taxis.

The project is being supported by the U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), a unit of the DOD that provides the agency with air, land and sea transportation, and the Air Mobility Command (AMC), the air component of USTRANSCOM and a major command of the U.S. Air Force.

The Atlantic County Economic Alliance (ACEA) will provide a portion of the corridor’s funding through a U.S. Economic Development Administration grant.

The cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) between NARTP, USTRANSCOM and AMC calls for the entities to build a prototype UAS and AAM corridor connecting New Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JBMDL) to Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base, a distance of about 78 miles.”

When asked about Gorka’s declaration that his article was the answer to the drone question, Daleo said he wasn’t sure everything Gorka said was accurate.

“I reported on the 78-mile drone testing corridor that would be active between McGuire in New Jersey and Dover Air Force Base in Delaware,” he said. “A lot of the drone sightings were taking place further north, especially in Morris County.”

Daleo’s article did not mention any agreement between the governors of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

An email to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s press secretary Natalie Hamilton seeking comment on the matter was not immediately returned.