Where are the drones coming from? House Intel Cmte meets over mysterious sightings

right now our assessment leads us to conclude that these are lawful and legal Aviation activities Mann and unmanned drones and CI civil aviation uh aircraft or commercial aircraft so let's talk a little bit about drones because you know there are these little baby drones you can see that one this is like a a toy drone that is as small as you can as you can have um and that drone you know you could fly it for a couple of minutes again this is really really small but then there are you know these uh drones which

are really popular and these are like the under 249 G drones which means that you don't have to be registered with the FAA can I catch that no uh but these aren't the drones we're talking about we're talking about drones that some people say are as large as a small car joining us now NBC's Maya eagland Maya it's great seeing you and James and Jamie Jacobs Executive Director Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for research and education and a professor at Oklahoma State University so Maya let's begin with this whole issue more and more drones again not like

this right the the huge ones more and more drones being cited and more and more questions are being asked what's the latest on that the latest we have is from John Kirby on The Today Show this morning he reiterated that there's no active threat to the American public at this time most of what people are reporting are actually commercial drones military drones police drones some of them could be recreational drones as well he said the FBI has had over 5,000 reports of these drone sightings only 100 of those reports have actually led to further investigation

so he really wanted to put some calm to the American public saying there's not much to worry about other local officials like New Jersey Congressman Josh gimer still a little bit concerned here's what some of he had to say there are postings of sightings all over the Internet Internet some of them true and others I'm concerned are being posted by others to scare people that's why I'm setting up on my website a new page where people from New Jersey can share information on tips on their latest drone sightings gimer also really trying to encourage an

effort to create an air traffic control system for drones specifically so we'll be monitoring that as well yeah and so Jamie let's talk about this because look drones are part of uh life uh fortunately or or or unfortunately we've been seeing proliferation of these you know under 249 drones and so many others but what is it that you think has been happening in the past three weeks what are people seeing well I think it really just comes to the point that you know people have a really hard time identifying things that they see in the

night sky and drones just like any other aircraft have navigation lights on board uh and it's really difficult to determine a sense of scale both distance and size of the vehicle when you're looking at it particularly at night these are mostly misidentifications from everything that we've seen and our research really backs this up that it's hard for even professionals to be able to identify you know the difference between a drone and an aircraft during the evening yeah okay but so correct me if I'm wrong if you do fly drones you know over 249 you do

have to register even an under 249 G their the FAA is happy to to register it and and you know when you fly any size drone you still have to go on and essentially ask for a flight plan right I mean isn't it is it impossible for the fa to track these larger drones that may be up there for more than you know 10 minutes yeah it it's really difficult because these systems are very small and like you mentioned you know a drone pilot that's oper in under FAA guidelines should have both registered their drone

it should have remote ID on board that allows it to be tracked but they should also be a licensed part 107 or Private Pilot and so many of these cases are not malicious they're just careless actors people have gone out they've bought a drone off you know from Best Buy or Amazon and they're out flying it you know at night without realizing really what's going on and then you kind of pile on people start mentioning this on social media and you know some of the Drone oper operator said hey I think I'll join in on

the fund and see what I can do just to stir the pot yeah and then there's of course the concern of maybe this is all part of a movement something that starts like that but that maybe malicious actors could join in and uh what's the white house uh asking Congress to do about this so we saw this joint statement with several Federal organizations today the dod FBI posted on the faa's website today it says in part they're asking Congress to to expand existing counter drone authorities and help identify threats so really trying to push Congress

to set up a new task force potentially or pass some laws that Grant more authorities to not only the federal government but the local entities that are involved in these investigations as well I just don't know how much more stuff you need regulations and authorities and investigating councils I mean this stuff is registered there is a way to find out if they are car-sized things you should be able to figure it out and I'm just wondering Jamie uh are how big can drones be and and you know we're talking about commercial military Etc but I'm

just talking about for the majority of people how big can a drone be yeah most of these operations are going to be 55 lbs and Below you need special permission to be able to go much larger than that but 55 lbs is still really large for a drone and you know I doubt most of these were even within that particular scale but when we're talking talking about things such as Advanced Air Mobility or Urban Mobility we're really now talking about things that will carry people and they will be you know the size of small cars

to be able to do that um now the threat still exists and you know we don't have a great way to track these really small drones so if you are a malicious actor and this is you know one of the reasons why I think it goes back that these are just careless the first thing you would do is turn off your navigation light so you couldn't be seen and it'd be really hard to spot you at night time if you don't have your on board uh but you know there is risk and we have to

be aware of that that there is a Potential Threat I just don't think that's the case true but if you create Confusion by turning on the lights and you know blanketing the area then that is a way of maybe getting you know the ones without lights in in as well under the you know confusion that's created by so many of these questions Maya elen and Jamie Jacob thank you both so very much I I have this little collection here of all all baby drones but these you know you just can't see this at night with

if this doesn't have any lights you can't see it and this one you know you can holding your hand there it goes