Drones Coming From Ocean, Tailed Coast Guard Vessel At Jersey Shore, NJ Rep Says

OCEAN COUNTY, NJ — U.S. Rep. Chris Smith is urging the federal Defense Department to take action to identify and address the "potential threat" posed by drone activity over New Jersey after being told a U.S. Coast Guard vessel was followed by drones and that dozens of drones were seen flying onshore from the Atlantic Ocean over the weekend.

Smith made the demands in a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after conversations he had Monday night where he was told about a large number of drones coming onshore from the Atlantic Ocean and about drones following a U.S. Coast Guard boat off Ocean County.

Smith told Austin he is very concerned about the proximity of unidentified drone flights over the last several weeks to sensitive sites and critical infrastructure across New Jersey, including Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. The base is part of New Jersey's 4th District, which Smith represents.

He told Fox News host Martha MacCallum on Tuesday that he had been with Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardy and the sheriff's office unit that is chronicling drone activity when a U.S. Coast Guard officer told him about the drones following the Coast Guard motor lifeboat.

"One of their 47-foot boats was trailed very closely by more than a dozen of these drones" off Barnegat Light, Smith said in the interview Tuesday. The drones were very large and close to the stern of the boat, Smith said he was told.

A message left for the Coast Guard seeking additional details was not immediately returned Wednesday morning.

In addition, Smith said 50 drones were seen flying toward the shore from the Ocean on Sunday night.

Mastronardy said that incident happened Sunday evening at Island Beach State Park and was reported by an officer with the New Jersey State Park Police.

"She saw them coming over the horizon," Mastronardy said, confirming it was 50 drones the officer counted. The officer notified other law enforcement and captured some of it on cell phone video, he said.

Mastronardy said the sheriff's office drone unit is going out every night to try to gather information on the drones to learn where they are coming from. The unit captured video of a drone on Saturday night.

"The drone came up to our drone, shut off its lights then took off at 60 mph," Mastronardy said.

One thing that is making matters more challenging, he said, is they are not able to see the drones on radar, in spite of using several radar systems to try to see them.

Authorities were set to launch a 400-pound camera equipped with a heat sensor and radar starting Wednesday evening to try to identify the drones, mayors from all over New Jersey were told Wednesday during a meeting with Col. Patrick Callahan of the New Jersey State Police, the director of Homeland Security and members of Gov. Phil Murphy's staff. Colonel of the New Jersey State Police, the Director of Homeland Security, and Governor Murphy's staff, according to Kinnelon Mayor James Freda.

Smith said he spoke with officials at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and was told the defense department has "the capability to ascertain who they are and take them down," but that the defense department has not been given the authority to shoot one down.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew of the 2nd District, which covers from part of Ocean County all the way to Cape May, echoed the sentiment of shooting the drones down and suggested they might be coming from Iran, because a "drone mothership" is missing from a port in Iran.

"The time to act on this information is now before the threat escalates any further. These drones are intentionally flying in uncontrolled airspace, expertly navigating around areas with radar coverage," Van Drew said. Read more: Shoot Down Mysterious NJ Drones, Van Drew Says

Smith, who spent hours with Mastronardy on Monday at the Sheriff’s Mobile Command Center while it was at Island Beach State Park, said he is deeply concerned by the potential threats posed by the drones.

"This is very, not just suspicious, but provocative," Smith said in the Fox interview. "This could be a foreign power whether it be Putin, Xi Jinping or (a country in) the Middle East."

Smith, in his letter to Austin, said he is very concerned about the proximity of flights to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, along with other sensitive sites and critical infrastructure across New Jersey over the last several weeks.

"As you know, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JBMDL) possess capabilities to identify and take down unauthorized unmanned aerial systems and have utilized this capability to address overflights of the installation," Smith said. "I urgently request all capabilities possessed by the Department of Defense, especially those in use by JBMDL to be immediately deployed to identify and address the potential threats posed by UAS over the state of New Jersey."

Smith, in a news release Tuesday morning, described the response so far by state and federal agencies as "tepid" and called it "totally unacceptable."

"As we saw with the Chinese spy balloon last year, our fiercest adversaries will stop at nothing to surveil our homeland and threaten our national security," he said.

"The serious concerns of New Jersey residents need to be put to rest with answers—not empty reassurances," Smith said. "The time to act is now."

Note: This article has been updated with comment from Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardy and information from Kinnelon Mayor James Freda.