Drones from New Jersey: Why we will see more drones in the future

If you live in the Northeast like me, it’s probably impossible for you to escape the story of the month.

No, not the murder of a key health care executive on the streets of midtown Manhattan.

No, not the sudden and completely unforeseen collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the end of the more than decade-long Syrian civil war.

I’m talking about the drones, of course. Since mid-November, people have reported seeing swarms of drones — which can range from 6 inches to more than 6 feet or larger — across the region, first in northern New Jersey and then in surrounding states. Politicians like new New Jersey Senator Andy Kim took to social media over the weekend to describe their own drone hunts, while the federal government received thousands of tips about drone sightings.

Whenever many people believe they are seeing things in the sky, it is only a matter of time before conspiracy theories arise. The drones were a foreign intelligence operation that spied on military bases and even President-elect Donald Trump’s golf club in New Jersey. Or they were part of a covert surveillance operation on our part own Military. Or it was a simulated alien invasion staged by our own government to lay the foundation for a world dictatorship. Or they were real aliens.

(A word about aliens: As my former Axios colleague, space reporter Miriam Kramer, was fond of saying: They’re not aliens. They’re never aliens. Stop saying they’re aliens.)

The real answer, at least if national security officials are to be believed, is much more mundane. On Monday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that most of the reports were not drones at all, but rather regular, manned aircraft taking off or landing at night at one of the region’s many major airports. Others were either small aircraft or simply ordinary commercial drones.

“We have not identified any anomalies or risk to national or public safety in the civil airspace of New Jersey or other states in the Northeast,” Kirby said. In other words, there is nothing for citizens to see here, everything is fine.

Of course, if you’re someone who believes in The Truth Is Out There™, your concerns probably won’t be assuaged by the words of a G-man. But it’s true that people can easily misjudge how big things are in the night sky – especially a plane with bright landing lights – and that we can all be subject to a kind of mass hysteria.

Once news and social media reports trick us into thinking that there might be drone squadrons out there, we’re much more likely to see something in the night sky and think “drone” rather than “the night flight to Heathrow.” This is particularly true if the objects in question can be perceived as a threat (e.g. supposed foreign military drones or alien landing craft).

While this month’s mystery may be solved, it won’t be the last time we look at the sky and be convinced that it’s crawling with drones. That’s because it’s there Are There are a lot of drones out there, and their number will only increase.

As the government itself said in its investigation into the sightings, there are more than a million registered drones in the US and “on any given day, thousands of commercial, hobbyist and law enforcement drones are lawfully in the sky.” These figures do not take into account entry-level drones under 250 grams, which are not subject to regulation.

These days, you can buy ready-to-use small entry-level drones for as little as $50 and professional drones for applications like advanced photography for $5,000 or less. And if you’re flying your simpler drone for recreational purposes, you don’t even need a license. However, if you use your drone for commercial purposes such as land surveying or photography, you will need what is known as a Part 107 license from real estate.

The reality is that we are only just beginning to realize how profoundly ubiquitous drones will change the skies and our lives. Not only will we be putting unprecedented surveillance tools that the Stasi would have dreamed of in the hands of ordinary citizens, but we will also see an increase in drone deliveries. Amazon Prime Air has expanded its drone delivery efforts in cities like Phoenix and College Station, Texas, while Wing and Zipline are partnering with Walmart to deliver goods in Dallas-Fort Worth. And companies like DroneUp are experimenting with software that could support autonomous drone operations, which would significantly increase the potential for widespread drone delivery.

All in all, this is a good thing. The huge increase in electronic home delivery has resulted in more and more Amazon and FedEx trucks filling city streets, leading to more traffic congestion and pollution – particularly noticeable during the holiday season. Replacing at least some of this with air delivery would ease the burden on those of us who still have to move around the world on the ground.

But a world in which the number of drones increases significantly would look and feel very different – as different as the sudden appearance of cars and trucks on the roads must have felt a century ago.

In fact, this historical example is a good analogy to what we are currently experiencing with drones. The Farmers’ Anti-Automobile Society proposed laws that would require drivers to fire rockets, cover their cars with blankets, or even dismantle them when horses were nearby. Vermont actually passed a law requiring a person to walk in front of a car and wave a red flag – presumably to warn passersby not to get too close to the horseless carriage.

Apparently, at some point we got over our fear of cars enough to give them a try now restrict Their use tends to lead to public opposition. It’s possible, even likely, that the same transition will eventually occur with drones. (We’ll know for sure when we see angry politicians on TV denouncing laws that would restrict Americans’ God-given right to fly their drones wherever they want.)

But until we get to that place, things are likely to feel weird — and that’s exactly the kind of psychological place that can lead thousands of people to become convinced that they’re surrounded by swarms of drones. And drones Are different. Cars still needed roads, which gave the government an easy way to control where they could go. However, drones can navigate through three-dimensional space. They can see over walls and invade public property. Because of their size, it is difficult to keep track of them or even trace them back to their owners. And like other technologies, they are getting cheaper and better – they can fly longer distances and avoid obstacles. They are naturally more difficult for the state to control.

And while cars are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths every year, it is drones that have already become real weapons of war. The conflict in Ukraine has been characterized by the use of drones for everything from reconnaissance to active killing. In the Ukrainian city of Kherson, there were thousands of attacks by small drones that actively hunted civilians and killed dozens of people. The dystopian future of autonomous weapons, prophesied by films like Battle robots is anything but here, in Ukraine. That’s frightening.

What happened throughout the Northeast is (probably) not a foreign invasion, an alien visit, or a secret military project. Instead, it is a look at a future that is almost here.

A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Register here!