Frustration grows as FBI investigates unidentified drones in New Jersey

in the skies above the East reports of mysterious drones look guys there was one there one there one there turning into thousands of posts going viral online coming in one after one with people from coast to coast now spending a lot more time looking up and pointing their cameras into the night this bizarre there's more over there look some could be optical illusions planes that seem closer than they are I can hear that one that is definitely a plane but others have defied normal explan what the car-sized drones operating for hours in restricted airspace and

able to elude local law enforcement when they send their own drones up to give Chase in New Jersey the Army reporting the patini Arsenal has had 11 unauthorized drone incursions in the last month look what's back again same spot as last night 21 local Mayors now demanding answers from the state the minute you get eyes on them they they go dark this is something we're taken deadly seriously the enti month before that it was nightly drone incursions over Langley Air Force Base let's just start with current events today a congressional hearing on Capital Hill on

the national security threat drones posst what is going on in New Jersey uh we're investigating but I don't have an answer of who's responsible for that of um one or more people that are responsible for those um drone flights but for those who see them on a nightly basis not a plane that is a drone in the airspace the drones are a very real reminder almost hear a little bit of a hum that our airspace it's a very little thermal signature is not as secure as we might hope all right so there's a big difference

between me going outside or someone else going outside that doesn't really have training and looking up and those cops that went outside and were looking up and then a mayor a mayor of Mine Hill Township Sam Morris who went outside as well and he saw something weird mayor Morris thanks so much for being with us can you walk us through exactly what you've seen in your skies and and what's being done about it sure um you know of course I was aware of this issue but last Tuesday night it kind of came uh full force

into my life with a resident who I know well lives a block from me reported to me that there were eight drones over our uh school and Municipal complex which are on the same block so I got in my car and I went around there um and by the time I got around here they were not overhead anymore um and I so I went into there's a field behind our town hall that has a lot less light pollution uh it's a park and when I went in there the um uh I could see a series

of it was like a stationary drone it was sitting still and three drones going back and forth in a in a north south pattern they would go to the north certain distance stop and turn back around um almost like somebody farming a field field or you know something like that um and that's what really got me a little hyperfocused on all this because it I saw it personally and videoed it personally so so you saw were you able to to kind of track them how big did they look how fast were they moving any details

there well um they aren't you know when they're doing whatever they're doing they aren't really moving particularly fast um they're you know I can't estimate speed but they're not like oh man that was rocketing across the sky they're going very methodically with a plan and you can see that you can see that they aren't they aren't just whizzing around you know uh there are people that have drones and they just fly willy-nilly so to speak these are very methodical in their in their flight path uh and it looks very planned it looks very planned and

you know in certain places it is very illegal especially pitini Arsenal is very close to you you've got Bedminster also out there in New Jersey there are TF cars some of them are over airports just hovering there you'd think that if like it's illegal and someone is breaking the law uh the cops or or some Authority would be able to go out there and very quickly figure out who's who's doing this has that been the case at all uh no there's there's a lot of rules on that but I gota be H I'm we got

to be a little bit um after watching U Robert Wheeler's testimony today I'm kind of fed up and I I I'm part of that group of Mayors the authored a pair of letters on Sunday uh trying to bring more Focus to this and we did um I I genuinely think it's time to start harvesting drones and stop worrying about the rules whoever's running these drones they're not worrying about the rules they they're using the rules against us and that's always you know it happens in a civilized society but whatever they're doing they're they don't care

what the rules are they're 11 drones it's been admitted now 11 drones have gone over pitini um Arsenal which is about five miles from here in a direct line those drones should have been blown out of the Sky why are we putting up with this why are we putting up with this you're not talking about like the TFR temporary flight restriction rules you're talking about literally just blasting them out of the sky they have over a pitini Arsenal is a weapons Development Center okay it's a high-tech place um it's in a it's in a rural

area which is in beautiful but it's a high-tech place if you're the bad guys you want to know what's going on a pck atini um they went into pck atin's airspace that's a violation of the law it has to be you know I don't have the chapter and verse of the new of the US code but you could if I did that and they came back and track that I put a drone over or average person somebody put a drone over we'd be in big Federal trouble I don't know why they even put up with

letting them go over like that um and then minor said Langley and then uh several other bases in New Jersey they're doing that um I what I don't really understand is the the testimony from the FBI today he said said well the FAA has rules about what we can do and how we can engage these drones well what is the FAA going to come and arrest the FBI if they if they take care of little business I mean give me a break you these things can be brought down and and I've been saying this all

week these drones have a have a battery life they have to come back to the Earth at some point and somebody's controlling them just follow them to where they're going and I know they're saying oh they go dark well we have high-tech we have night vision we have tracking devices uh we can track we could track onto one of these drones with in a helicopter and follow it anywhere it goes even if it goes dark you can follow it so that we have extreme technology in our military um they need to go do that we

need to get to the bottom of this because what my residents are reporting to me and all the other Mayors in all the other counties in Jersey are reporting to them um they don't feel comfortable or safe with people over their head who are not regulated everybody knows the plane's going to go by everything like that but this is gotten ridiculous and this testimony today was horrible horrible and Mr Mayor one question is there a chance that this is something from peni or or or something that the US military is testing that they may not

want to share or have you been assured that's not the case the guy in my position doesn't know any of that um and and unfortunately residents think you know because you're the mayor you know everything right you really know you you really don't we're really befuddled but I can tell you pck atin's close enough to hear that a lot of people um you know peni they they've been going around peni looking that was for one of the first instincts was ah they're coming out of p atini and going back in there and people then have

said you know I went and sat in your P atini at night uh I sat in the park near there I sat on a Road near there there's no activity um you know these drones pop out around 5:30 and they go till 11 or midnight they're not hiding themselves they're out when people are out and they're not around that military base um in a volume you know that anybody's picked up on yeah the lights on those drones continues to just baffle my mind if you're if you're being you know nefarious why would you have lights

or you're trying to spy you have red and green lights that are it's just very if I could share with you there was one in Mine Hill that I I think it was Sunday uh I think it was Thursday night of last week A lady called me about it it was just sitting I don't know how far but let's go with a quarter mile from my house and I um I I videoed it but it came out grainy but I watched it with my own eyes red green red green red green and it was sitting

perfectly still no plane and it was you know two 300 feet up and it just sat there we don't know what it was doing but it just sat there um so it's this this is definitely by plan it's just a matter of whose plan and I think we need to get I need think we need to get our hands on a few and if they need to get a court order to do it the FBI needs to go get a court order to do it but this enough of this is enough of this for everybody

mayor thank you so much for joining us was speaking a lot of people want to hear mayor thanks thanks for watching stay updated about breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or follow us on social media