Drone sightings in New Jersey show a lot of similarities to mystery drones seen in eastern Colorado in 2020
We never really got an answer as to who or what was behind the drones in Colorado.
Author: Marc Sallinger (9 News)
Published: 8:11 PM MST December 13, 2024
Updated: 8:11 PM MST December 13, 2024COLORADO, USA — All the people panicked about mysterious swarms of drones in the skies above New Jersey shouldn't turn to Colorado for help solving the mystery because there are still no answers for the
drones that showed up over the state's Eastern Plains four years ago.
The reported
drones in New Jersey are strange. Residents and officials have expressed concerns after reports of
dozens of unknown "nighttime flights" started last month. The story also feels strangely familiar to what we saw in eastern Colorado in 2020.
The Colorado Department of Public Safety (CDPS) tallied more than 110 reports of drones between November 2019 and January 2020. Some were determined to be small hobby drones; others were planes. The department only said there were no instances of illegal drone activity. No official final report was ever released on whether there was a large swarm of drones flying over northeastern Colorado.
RELATED: Mysterious drones reported over 2 eastern Colorado counties
There are many similarities between the drone sightings in both states, starting with reports from eyewitnesses. Four years ago, eastern Colorado resident Haley Harms described the drone's sound as a high pitch.
"Like an engine that wants to blow up," Harms told 9NEWS in 2020.
Recent reports out of New Jersey are similar.
"I look to my left and see two big drones. They were propeller-driven going very slowly," a witness in New Jersey told NBC News.
In addition to the drones' reports, the questions lawmakers are asking on the East Coast today are like the ones previously asked in Colorado.
In 2020, a drone task force led by the Morgan County sheriff that included the Federal Aviation Administration was formed to try and track down the mysterious drone sightings in northeastern Colorado. Colorado Governor Jared Polis demanded answers, though few were ever released to the public.
"To me, this is no longer a novelty. I think we need to figure out what’s going on before any accident occurs," Polis said in January 2020.
RELATED: What happened to the mysterious Colorado drones?
Similarly, roughly 100 mayors and state representatives met in New Jersey this week to try and get answers to questions about the drones posed by their constituents.
NBC News reports that, on Wednesday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy hosted a
virtual meeting in which state officials and a Homeland Security representative briefed local officials on the issue.