How worried should the public be over the mysterious Northeast drones?

Reports of drones hovering in the skies over the Northeast have drawn angst among people in the area and across the nation. Government officials have continually assured the population that there is no threat. Yet the drones continue to fly, with no satisfactory explanation being provided as to their owners and their purpose.

Before delving into conspiracy theories surrounding them, one must look at the situation from the top down (policy), rather than the bottom up (personal), which is the natural tendency for most people.

The U.S. air system is effectively protected by two federal agencies: the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration. The TSA oversees airport security, whereas the FAA has full jurisdiction over the national airspace in which airplanes and drones operate.

Drones, by design, use the airspace both for commercial and recreational purposes. Some types of drones can only be operated by a Certified Remote Pilot, which a person can become by applying to the FAA. If the drone is being used for commercial purposes, the operator must obtain FAA certification as a commercial drone pilot.

Some drones do not require the pilot to be licensed. For drones weighing less than 0.55 pounds (or around 9 ounces) and used recreationally, owners are pretty much free to do as they wish, within certain limits. For example, recreational flying places an altitude cap of 400 feet in uncontrolled airspace, which includes airspace over private residences or fields. In such cases, drones are prohibited to fly anywhere near controlled airspaces around airports, densely populated urban areas, military bases, government installations, and critical infrastructure, to name just a few.

The recent Northeast Corridor drone activity is disturbing because it has affected controlled airspace. On Dec. 13, Stewart International Airport closed one of its runways for one hour due to drone activity. A similar issue arose in the air space around Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

Such disruptions move the drones away from recreational to commercial use, which makes them subject to FAA regulations.

If drone operators violate FAA rules, the agency can issue penalties, though their magnitude serves little deterrence for such activities. For example, the FAA proposed over $340,000 in fines to 27 drone operators between October 2022 and June 2024. Given that there are nearly 800,000 drones registered with the FAA, evenly split between commercial and recreational, and more than 400,000 pilots certified, the FAA has a reliable database on who is flying drones in the nation.

Yet nondescript explanations have been provided about the source of the Northeast Corridor drones, and that they pose no risk to the population. One can infer that the operators and the drones are part of the FAA database for such a statement to be made. Note that if the drones weigh more than 9 ounces, they must be registered with the FAA and have their registration numbers displayed on their bodies. To date, the existence of such registration numbers have not explicitly been reported.

Given the widespread regulations governing the nation’s airspace, the time has come to report whether any such drones are registered with the FAA, determine their owners, and take the necessary actions when FAA rules are being violated.

If they are not registered — either exempted by their weight or flying unlawfully — that in itself makes them a national security risk when they enter controlled airspace, and it would be unwise to let such a risk become a threat. In this case, the lack of information forthcoming is certainly creating the perception of risk, whether real or imagined.

Does that mean that some of these drones should be shot down? That too poses risks and may not even provide any useful information. However, the Department of Defense owns and operates more than 11,000 drones. Law enforcement agencies operate another 1,400 drones. These can be used to obtain a closer look at the suspicious drones, determining their registration numbers (or lack thereof), and provide information that would inform the public what is happening in the skies above them.

What remains an open question is whether these drones are U.S. or foreign government-owned and operated. If the former is true, then anxiety about their presence is likely unfounded, and information about them should be publicly shared (provided that disclosing such information does not pose a national security threat). If they are foreign-owned, action must be taken.

Based on the information being publicly provided, the former seems much more likely than the latter. Of course, until definitive information is publicly shared by the FAA, which remains uncharacteristically silent on the issue except for a mostly uninformative joint statement with other government agencies, speculation on the source of the drones will continue, and the potential risks will remain unknown. The best way to end all such speculation and angst is to simply reveal the truth.

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor of computer science in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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