The Latest on the Mystery Drones

Title: The Latest on the Mystery Drones

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Okay, it's our turn, which we haven't done yet on the show, to talk about the drones. Hundreds of reported sightings over New York and New Jersey and a few other places in recent weeks, I don't have to tell you. Drones as big as SUVs, we're told, in some cases. Everyone's talking about them. It's been open season for legit fears and conspiracy theories alike. We'll invite your calls if you think you have seen a drone, or just questions on the topic. We'll see what we can learn with a reporter who actually covers aviation safety for The Wall Street Journal.

First, for all the heat that local officials of both parties have been putting on Washington over allegedly withholding information, here are two officials who have spoken in the last two days - one national, one local - both saying that this appears to be normal activity of various kinds, we're all just noticing it more. First, here's Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on CNN last night asked by the host, John Berman, whether the drones might pose a risk.

John Kirby: "The answer to that is no. We don't propose to see any national security or public safety risk by these drones and these aircraft that are flying. And I would remind people that there are millions of drones that fly over the skies of the United States routinely. Thousands and thousands that have registered with the FAA, and a lot of them do really good work for public safety and for the public good, such as law enforcement drones, commercial drones. To date, no sense and no indication that there's a national security or public safety risk posed by any of this activity."

Brian Lehrer: Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on CNN last night. Kirby also said in that interview, "After days and days now of forensics work analysis, detection work, and looking at the tips that came in, our assessment is that these drones represent lawful, legal, commercial, hobbyist drones, even law enforcement drones." That's John Kirby from the Pentagon. Locally, here's what Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD's deputy commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism, said yesterday.

Rebecca Weiner: "All people are seeing on the news is drone sightings everywhere, so we're getting a lot of misattributed activity, right? So planes, helicopters, in some cases, planets--"

Brian Lehrer: Some cases planets. Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD's deputy commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism. With us now, Andrew Tangle, who covers aviation safety for The Wall Street Journal. Andrew, thanks for coming on with us. Welcome to WNYC today. Andrew, are you there? All right. I guess he's not there. We'll get Andrew up in a minute.

Listeners, call us up with questions, comments, or citing stories of your own about these drones or alleged drones that everyone is talking about over New York or New Jersey. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

What did you see and what did you hear? Some people say some of these drones are loud. That's an Andrew story. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Maybe you operate a drone the size of an SUV for your work in some capacity - law enforcement, commercial activity. Maybe you're a spy for Iran, kidding, or whatever. Help explain the story if you're involved, or anyone else, for Andrew Tangle, who covers aviation safety for The Wall Street Journal. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Andrew, you're there now, right?

Andrew: Yes. I apologize. Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Hi. Has the story changed significantly in the last day, to your reporter's eye? If you heard the clips in the intro with the Pentagon and the NYPD coming out with those statements, that these appear to be business as usual and misattributed sightings.

Andrew: I think, yes, so far, until we find more evidence or find some evidence that there's something unlawful or something from a foreign adversary or something more mysterious. The federal government and various agencies say that they've put a lot of resources into trying to figure this out, and this is their best guess and their assessment at this point. It seems like there's been a lot of attention to what may be just simply commercial aircraft or general aviation, private pilots. Also, a lot of drones that many people may not realize are increasingly flying overhead for a lot of lawful, basic, commercial, or hobbyist reasons.

Brian Lehrer: In your article on the drones last week, you described the federal government's response, as of last week, as cryptic, saying "The drones were not coming from some enemy nation, they said, but they're not offering anything on what their origin or purpose might actually be." Does the Pentagon spokesman appearance on CNN change your take on whether they're telling us the whole story that they know? The clip we played, those are still very general categories.

Andrew: Right. They haven't also said that they've found out where each of these drones are from and the story behind each drone. I mean, earlier over the weekend there was a call with senior administration officials, and they talked about how they've mapped a lot of the sightings, and a lot of them corresponded with known aircraft approach paths to JFK and Newark Airports. I think they're trying to figure out as best they can what these drones are, but they've got, to some degree, limited visibility.

There's a blind spot in the nation's airspace. They've got to try to figure out where these drones are flying and try to correlate that to what they know and what they can see with actual FAA radar, which doesn't pick up drones, and any other means that they've got to try to track down the particular drones and any operators. They've issued their assessment, which is not a definitive, detailed finding at this point. There still is sort of a mystery about where these drones were coming from, of the drones that were actually flying and not mistaken for aircraft, or not stars mistaken for drones and aircraft.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Let's take a phone call. Here's Casey in Ditmus Park, Brooklyn. You're on WNYC, Casey. Hi there.

Casey: Hi, Brian. I'm here to speak to your listeners about the tinfoil hat side of what's been going on. If you want to go into your kitchen, open the drawer, take out some tinfoil, and gently wrap it around your head, you'll be ready. I sort of dabble in the--

Brian Lehrer: Which for people who don't know, that's kind of a euphemism, tinfoil hat, for wacko conspiracy theorists. Go ahead.

Casey: That's right. I'll wear that label somewhat proudly. I think one of the first things I'd say is that you can be saying, "What the heck's going on? This is really weird," and still be a totally skeptical, rational person because what's going on is weird. In fact, the fact that it took the government three weeks to say, "Oh, it's all good. it's all good. It's business as usual," I think that's pretty weird. If you want to know what the kooky tinfoil hat people like myself are thinking, well, for one thing, there have been three different types of drone sightings reported, and I have seen videos of all three of these distinct types.

The most common is what seems to be a military drone, the ones that look a lot like airplanes that seem to have conventional FAA-compliant lighting. Those are everywhere. I'm sure your listeners have heard the theories about what they might be looking for or that they might be testing new military tech, but that's not the only type of drone that people are seeing out there. There's also these orbs that are really interesting. Most of them are like orange bright dots of light that fly in ways that seem to not match what you would expect from a drone. Those, some people are attributing to non-human intelligence or aliens.

In fact, I have seen one of these orbs firsthand, not in this most recent New York, New Jersey drone flap, but on a commercial airplane 10 years ago. I stood up on the airplane and said, "Look. Look out the window. Do you see that?" and no one was interested in looking, or if they did, they didn't find me after the flight. That's the second type of drone. Then the third is a crescent-shaped drone that some people have even said appears to be cloaked. Take that as you will, but we're not just talking about those conventional-looking military drones in this conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Andrew from The Wall Street Journal, have you heard of those three different categories that Casey is describing there have been sightings or believed sightings of?

Andrew: Not personally, but I've seen some media reports about drones like that and sightings of objects like that. I guess there also is the possibility that these could be drones lawfully flying around the airspace. Generally speaking, right now a drone operator has to keep a drone within their line of sight and under I think about 400ft, so below commercial aviation. There are ways to get exemptions for certain drone operators to fly their drones beyond the visual line of sight. Those could be law enforcement or delivery drones or hobbyist drones. Someone who's created a giant drone just to fly around for whatever reason, they've got to operate it lawfully and within FAA regulations.

The fact of the matter is, is that there's a lot of room for drones to be flying around our airspace right now. Starting potentially next year, the FAA is going to be paving the way for more drones to be flying.

Brian Lehrer: What about cloaking devices, if I've got Casey's reference right, on some of these, allegedly? Was part of your answer just now saying, yes, maybe the military or some other user does have cloaking devices, so they're not necessarily apparent to everybody who sees them and then doesn't see them?

Andrew: I can't comment on cloaking devices, and don't know anything in particular about what there may or may not be in terms of trying to reduce visibility. There are generally ways to turn off a transponder and all that so it's not visible on commercial apps that people can download or on the conventional ways to track aircraft, but--

Brian Lehrer: Not sure. So, Casey, one quick follow-up, and I really appreciate you engaging as earnestly as you did and self-deprecatingly calling yourself part of the tinfoil hat brigade with a good sense of humor and all of that. How much do you, for yourself, believe that there may be alien life here or that somebody unknown is in fact cloaking drones so they're not visible to the average user or the Pentagon or anybody else? What do you actually believe or suspect?

Casey: I think I just try to keep a really open mind. Anytime the answer to a question is, well, that couldn't be because humanity knows everything about this, or the military would fill us in, or the military would shoot these down, or there's no way to avoid knowing that aliens are here. When the answer is dependent on human hubris, that's where my imagination kicks in. I would just say to your listeners, stay curious.

Brian Lehrer: Stay curious is always good advice. Casey, thank you very much. For you as a curious reporter, Andrew, and on this aviation safety beat for The Journal, she called these incidents weird. You do also call the incidents bizarre. In your story from last week you used that word, which of course goes against the Pentagon and NYPD clips saying they're not bizarre, they're normal. Is there still something after yesterday's statement that you would characterize as bizarre if you were writing that article today rather than last week? Maybe it's in the government's slow response, as Casey also pointed out, to identifying anything one way or another.

How about that word in your article? What were you referring to and how would you characterize today? Anything as bizarre or not?

Andrew: We don't have a full accounting of what it was people were seeing. Last week the sightings mirrored the bizarre sightings that were spotted at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia about a year ago, where we don't have a full accounting of what it was, who was sending apparently drones to buzz that highly sensitive Air Force base. There's nothing necessarily bizarre about a slow government response, as most reporters might understand, but given the--

Brian Lehrer: Right. That was over Joint Base McGuire-Dix in New Jersey, where, by the way, my father proudly served once upon a time. The government's response is what it is.

Here's a text from a listener who writes, "As a remote pilot who flies drones, American companies that make drones are constantly testing drones for the Department of Defense. Drones are commonly tested by new companies for R&D, research and development. If they are flying under 400ft they are likely following FAA guidance. Hobbyists build drones every day, so it could be gas-powered UAS." I'm not sure what UAS stands for. "For electronics, they have to have RFID or an electronic license plate. It's likely that it's testing."

Any comment on that texter?

Andrew: UAS stands for, I believe, Unmanned Aerial System. It's just a government word for drone. Yes, they're all possibilities. The rules require that drones have a so-called digital license plate and that they broadcast their signal via Bluetooth, I believe, when they're flying, but the regulatory framework is a bit porous. There's not a requirement, as far as I understand it, when you buy a drone, to register it with the government like you do when you register your new car with the DMV when you buy it at the lot.

Also, the broadcasting is a bit trickier to track. There's, as I understand it, now like a trail or a footprint where you can track a drone's movements like you can with a commercial aircraft. These things, you can buy them at Costco or The Toy Store and start flying them and start spooking your neighbors. I'm not suggesting that people should do that, but as the Pentagon spokesman and others have said, there's a million or whatever drones flying all the time. A lot of them are mission-driven drones flying for companies, utilities, inspecting power lines, and law enforcement. They are out there. We may not know the truth of who's flying what drone and where at any given time.

Brian Lehrer: Dave in High Bridge, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Dave.

Dave: Hey. Calling from High Bridge, by the way, the home of the semi-famous Howard Menger, famous '50s flying saucer contactee.

Brian Lehrer: I don't know that story.

Dave: Oh. Well, I won't go into it. Look look him up. Two points. Number one, I really think you need to stop calling-- You're just saying drone, all these drones, every drone, when it's obvious, as your guest is saying, that they're not all drones. Stop calling them all drones. Right? It just fans the flames of this sort of mania, hysteria.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. [crosstalk] I agree. That was the point of the Pentagon spokesman clip and the NYPD clip saying these are not all drones, but a lot of them are drones. That's part of the story too, is that there are a lot of drones, a lot of kinds of drones that are out there that the general public isn't generally aware of the specific context for. Then they see something and they start conjuring up aliens from outer space or Iran or China trying to spy on us, imaginations will run. A lot of them are drones.

Dave: Yes, a lot of them are drones, but not all of them, so let's call this something else. Number two. Yes, there are many drones, as your guest has enumerated. I don't understand why some reporters, like your guest, why isn't someone doing some actual research when there is a public database that the FAA maintains of the legal drones. Go look at the database and see who owns them in this area. Like the railroads on them, the pipeline, companies own them for various types of inspection. No one is doing that. Their facts are out there, but everyone just wants to keep saying like, "We don't know. We just don't know." Well, go see what is available and find out."

Brian Lehrer: Dave, it's a great call. Andrew, for you as a reporter, or any other reporter you know, is there inspection of such databases? Do such databases exist that reporters even can access?

Andrew: He brings up a great point, and I think I have that database or one of them pulled up in one of many tabs on my computer. It may not tell you what particular drone, if it's not an aircraft or a star above your house, but there are also ways you can actually download an app. Check the app store. I don't have the names handy, but you can see what drone you happen to see buzzing over your house or whatever. See if it's emitting a Bluetooth signal for its digital license plate. You can see where it's supposedly registered to. That's one way you can do your own research here, but yes, the caller raises a good point.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with another clip of Pentagon spokesman John Kirby trying to debunk the enemy drones or alien drones theories that are out there. We'll get into Andrew's reporting in The Wall Street Journal about the conflict between local and federal authorities now over who can shoot down a drone if, let's say, the NYPD or the New Jersey State Police were determined that one does appear to be a threat, they're not allowed to shoot it down. We'll get into that. More of your calls and texts. Stay with us.

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John Kirby: "After days and days now of forensics work, analysis, detection work, and looking at the tips that came in, and our assessment is that these drones represent lawful, legal, commercial, hobbyist drones, even law enforcement drones."

Brian Lehrer: Again, John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, on CNN last night as we continue to try to figure out what's really going on here and how much is myth or public imagination with Andrew Tangle, who covers aviation safety for The Wall Street Journal. The headline on your article from last week, Andrew, is interesting. "The mystery drones are back, this time over New Jersey." The mystery drones are back. This kind of wave of sightings all close together happened before?

Andrew: That's right. There was a case at the Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia about a year ago, where apparently the waves of drones kept flying over the base. The Pentagon was baffled. My colleagues wrote about that extensively some months ago, but it was a big ordeal playing out quietly among the DOD, FAA, DHS, and all those agencies trying to figure out who was sending [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Wait. Let me jump in, because what you just said is already very different from what we just heard from John Kirby from the Pentagon. You're saying the Department of Defense, when this happened last year over Virginia, was baffled. This time they're coming out and saying, "Ha ha. No, we're not baffled. Oh, all you people, come to your senses. These are ordinary business drones, law enforcement drones, and hobbyist drones." Why the difference?

Andrew: I think the focused nature of the Air Force base is what is different here. If you recall from my colleague's reporting, at one point the Air Force moved some sensitive fighter jets away from the base because of the perceived threat. An FAA official had interjected to try to keep the Pentagon from shooting down the drones because there was a potential threat to commercial aviation as well. In that case, the focus was an Air Force base, not necessarily a--

Brian Lehrer: General civilian area.

Andrew: Exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Well, what did the government conclude in the Virginia case last year if this swarm, as your article called it - it called it a swarm and a fleet from last year - was seen over sensitive national security sites? What did they conclude, and did that swarm go away or did people just stop talking about the presence of it?

Andrew: If I recall, it went away, and I don't believe we have gotten a full assessment or at least a public conclusion about where they might have come from. There was, if I recall from my colleague's story, an arrest of a drone operator near that Air Force base eventually. I believe they were charged with some flavor of an espionage count, but I have to go back and check. Anyway, that's how a lot of these cases are resolved.

The authorities don't necessarily-- because of the various restrictions on shooting down drones, they don't take down the drones, but they look for and use technology to look for the operators of the drones, and then they go question the operators about what they're doing and why. That's what a lot of law enforcement will do to try to resolve a drone problem at an airport, at an Air Force base, or wherever.

Brian Lehrer: Nicole Nyack, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nicole.

Nicole: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I'm a big fan. I live right on the banks of the Hudson River. Sunday night I was looking out across towards Westchester, and there were five objects just hovering and floating above the Hudson River. They were at different heights, and they just did not move. They were just there. They were not stars. They were not anything that I've ever seen before.

Brian Lehrer: Helicopters?

Nicole: It did have lights on it. No. There wasn't any sound that I heard with it. I've never seen anything like this before. I wasn't looking for it. I hadn't even really heard about it. I was on the phone with someone at the time, and I was like-- I know this sounds crazy, but I really think it was like a UFO. I just never have seen anything like this before, and I'm always looking. It was very bizarre.

Brian Lehrer: Nicole, thank you very much for that report and how that looked to you. Kerry in Toms River, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kerry.

Kerry: Hi there. How's it going?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Kerry: I saw these drones myself, but it's their drones. I live in Toms River, and I live really close to a couple of the joint bases that are around here. I also just want to say that I'm a realtor, so in my industry, we use drones a lot. I'm very familiar with lots of things that go in the sky from the military base and also from drones, and these are not like anything I've seen before. As people pointed out, they're huge. They're coming in multiple series. About two weeks ago we saw six in the sky over the parkway driving home.

Then just on Saturday night, we were letting the dogs out and we were on the balcony, and we just see it hovering over our house. It's moving slowly, floating, going, directions that planes and a helicopter wouldn't go. I just want to say that this is pretty terrifying. Everybody is just chalking it up to like, "Well, there's legal drones. There's this, there's that," but how many people do you know-- People are saying these things cost $150,000 for the size of drone this is. How many people own six $150,000 drones? It's just clearly not something normal. Even our Sheriff's Department has confirmed sightings. They are saying this is not something that's normal. To just keep having-

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Kerry: -people saying over and over, "Oh, they're just drones. They're just normal. Oh, they're legal. Oh, it's fine. It's nothing," it just feels like we're getting gaslit. When you are stuck with your own imagination for the answers, the answers just get more and more terrifying. We're already living on the edge here, [laughs] the reality that we've all been experiencing. Not only that, I just want to also point out that the government has been holding congressional hearings telling us that there's a possibility that aliens are real. Why do they want us to think that? I don't know if aliens are real or not. There's a lot of things in the world. They could be. I just want to know why they're telling us they're real and why they're not giving us answers now.

Brian Lehrer: Kerry, thank you. Thank you for all of that. Well, on a few things in Kerry's call, Andrew, one, have you seen-- I know these statements from the NYPD and the Pentagon basically saying "Nothing to see here," when you see the things you're seeing here were just yesterday. Is there pushback from local officials, like she mentions the local sheriff there in the Toms River area? I don't know that that was yesterday after these statements came out, but are you hearing yet of any skepticism about the reassurances? Because they're not saying the drones aren't real. They're saying they're normal activity.

Andrew: Right. I think in the last week we've heard a lot of skepticism from local officials and local elected federal officials who are demanding answers. They're demanding answers of all the federal agencies because they're not getting any real clarity, and not getting much clarity really fast. There are obviously possibilities that haven't been rolled out. You've got cases like what your caller is saying that are very rattling and just disconcerting. General officialdom assurances are not necessarily going to tell somebody they didn't see what they thought they saw or did actually see. There's a gap there, and I'm not sure how to close that and solve it.

Brian Lehrer: The stories we're getting from callers about what they see at night, listener texts, "Drone question. Why haven't we heard about drone sightings during the day?" Or have we, Andrew?

Andrew: I haven't heard of the alarmed reports of drones during the day recently, but they do fly during the day. Obviously, aircraft that are mistaken for drones are flying in the day, but are obviously much more visible with their outline and don't have the lights on that they need to line up with the runway and all that.

Brian Lehrer: For you as an aviation safety reporter, are these drones posing a safety hazard for commercial airliners? I've heard chatter about recent alleged incidents of delayed flights or having to avoid the drones, but no confirmed news stories that I've been able to find. Do you know?

Andrew: Yes, drones are potentially a threat to commercial aviation or aviation generally. There are reports of pilots who see drones on approach to land. Drone incursions are very common at airports and at Air Force bases. If you think of a bird strike and the threat of actual birds and what they pose to aircraft when they get ingested in an engine or crash into a window and break the cockpit window or whatever, it's a potential threat. In this case, you've got a metal contraption or plastic metal contraption getting ingested or colliding with an aircraft on approach while landing or during takeoff. It is potentially very hazardous for commercial aviation.

Brian Lehrer: One issue is if a drone does seem to be a threat of any kind, local officials don't have the authority to shoot them down. Only the federal government does. You reported on that. Do you see states or localities actively lobbying about that?

Andrew: Yes. Law enforcement, state and local, tribal across the country would like the authority to take down drones that they perceive as threats. What businesses? There are stadium operators, there are airport operators. Seems like everybody wants this authority to be able to take down a drone because they're growing, they're legitimate, et cetera, but there also is this growing potential threat. There are drones that are used for unlawful means. Yes, they would like the authority-- There are only a handful of federal agencies that have that authority now. DHS, the FBI, Department of Energy are among them.

When it comes to, say, the New Jersey State Police or the Turkey Foot Sheriff's Department, wherever, they don't have the authority, but they could be dealing with legitimate security threats at a parade, at a jail where drones are delivering contraband, or at a local airport where someone's up to no good and wants to do something bad with the drone. It's a real problem that the Congress is grappling with, federal agencies, local agencies are grappling with.

There's also another aviation safety concern that comes along with the ability to take down drones and that is potential collateral consequences from counter drone technology to civilian aircraft. The FAA has been involved with testing of that because, as one former FAA official put it to me, they don't want the cure to be worse than the disease.

Brian Lehrer: No kidding. I was just going to ask you about that. I've heard on other stations, commercial talk shows in recent days, people, "We should just have the local authority to shoot these things down. We don't know if that's Iran. We don't know-- If it's a threat, it's over the Air Force base, we should be able to shoot it down." Local officials. It can sound like the prudent/cowboy thing to do, but a falling drone in a populated area like New York City or most of New Jersey is its own hazard. In fact, we just got a text to that point.

Interesting listener writes, "Shoot a drone down? I was a Navy gunnery officer. Our anti-aircraft guns fired a 13 pound 3 inch diameter explosive projectile with a 10-mile plus range at 45 rounds per minute. You wouldn't want these flying over or landing in your neighborhood. Cops firing automatic rifles or your neighbor out with his 12-gauge duck gun would probably unwelcome too. Be careful what you wish for."

That very well-worded by Bob in Riverside, Connecticut. That's probably a conversation that local law enforcement officials of the mature variety are probably having with each other. Right?

Andrew: Right, but they're also reminding each other in the public that it's against federal law to interfere with a drone which, under federal law, is regarded the same as a piloted aircraft. If you were to try to take down a drone or shoot at a drone, it's the same as shooting at a 737, and you could face federal prosecution for that. That's the state of law right now. Of course, taking on a drone, it may not be a drone. I think we saw yesterday the FBI Newark office warning people about trying to do that with what they suspect is drones. They're primarily warning them not to shine lasers at them because you've got a lot of problems with pilots getting blinded flying into Newark or wherever. They have people down below shining lasers up at them, but they're actually aircraft, not drones. That's a problem.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Some other adults in the room type texts. Listener writes, "Picatinny there in Jersey is a military research facility. The drones were seen in that area. Full scale rideable drones are now commercially available. It makes sense that the military would be testing these."

Other people are asking, "Can these drones be for Google Maps? I've been seeing a new type of overhead view in Maps." Similar, another person asked, "Could these be some of them Amazon drones for delivery?" Several people are pointing up that Elon Musk has a company that has-- I think it's called Skylink, is that right, that has satellites. That Starlink might appear like drones.

There are all these other military and commercial applications who people trying to debunk the fears of some of our callers are pointing to. I'm just curious if you have anything on any of those in particular.

Andrew: I don't personally, but those are obviously possibilities to consider.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing. Some critics have compared this to the so-called Chinese spy balloon incident of a couple of years ago. Did you cover that story too?

Andrew: A bit. I forget if I had a byline on the story or not, but I was--

Brian Lehrer: Was it even a Chinese spy balloon at the end of the day?

Andrew: You're challenging my ability to remember from about a year or two ago. I thought we did find out that some of these balloons might have been sent from over there, but also some might have been hobbyist balloons and were maybe shot down by an F16 or something over one of the Great Lakes. The details escape me, but obviously there was a massive federal response that included fighter jets shooting down these devices over the water.

Brian Lehrer: There we leave it with Andrew Tangle, who covers aviation safety for The Wall Street Journal, and the clips from the NYPD and the Pentagon advising everybody to calm down about all of this. There are so many uses for drones and so many misperceptions, as the NYPD official put it, that we have more important things, more real things to worry about in terms of things that are actually worrisome, and some of your calls with your own perceptions and feelings.

We thank Andrew Tangle, who covers aviation safety for The Wall Street Journal. Andrew, thanks a lot.

Andrew: Thanks, Brian.

 

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