Yet another thing to fuel idiotic conversations with my in-laws.
This commentator makes as much sense as anyone. (Contains profanity.)
Trump is asked if he has been given a security breifing on the drones and says “I don’t wanna comment.” That obviously means “yes”. Seems pretty out of character for him not to spill the beans anyway.
I think it’s expected for the president-elect to get security briefings. I think even prior to the election, the two major party candidates get them.
But it’s unexpected for Trump not to blab.
Maybe there’s nothing to blab about…
It is, however, expected for trump to obfuscate, vacillate, titillate, and scintillate to get people to talk about him.
He’s cancelling his planned trip to Bedminster.
Military pilot injured during rash of laser pointings at planes in N.J. sky - nj.com
People thoroughly engaged in stupidity with lasers.
It’s even more unusual for Trump to pay attention.
Drones as big as cars certainly do exist. Easy enough to google “big military drones” and see zillions of pictures.
A plausible-sounding theory is that various secretive government agencies are desperately searching for something in New Jersey… something they lost, or something that bad actors smuggled in. But they aren’t commenting about it due to the secrecy of what they are looking for, and the secrecy of the tech they are using.
More or less plausible than just “lots and lots of sober sounding people are reporting lots and lots of mysterious-sounding stuff and it’s all just mass hysteria”? Hard to say.
Certainly I would have thought that the government would be quick to clearly say “we see no evidence of anything going on at all, these sightings are all completely spurious”, which as far as I know no one has.
(Although frankly, I’m probably a bit more likely to believe something implausible than I normally would be, due to… gestures broadly…)
John Kirby, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, weighs in:
After days and days now of forensics work analysis, detection work and looking at the tips that came in, our assessment is that these drones represent lawful, legal, commercial, hobbyist drones—even law enforcement drones.
Joint statement from the DHS, FBI, FAA and DoD:
Having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.
So some drones are Venus, some drones are fixed wing aircraft, and a few of the drones are drones.
Kevin Drum points out that the great state of New Jersey is a) densely populated and b) has unusually permissive drone policy. New York’s policy is tighter, so a number of NY drone outfits operate in NJ.
According to the Mercatus Center, New Jersey is the third most drone friendly state out of the ten highest density states.
On a related note, when I was a teenager, ca. 1980, we were watching a TV show about UFOs, and the voiceover talked about weather balloons while this video played. My dad said, “That’s not a weather balloon” and he was right; it was a meteor that was probably about the size of a car that passed through the atmosphere at about 40 miles above the earth. Had it struck, we could have had another Tunguska event.
Every picture or video I’ve seen posted on Next Door in NJ has been such an obvious airplane that I wonder if these people are from 125 years ago and are just now getting used to the idea of airplanes in the sky.
Nope.
Just now learning to look up from staring at their shoes and/or their phones. Of course the trigger for them to look up came from a social media post on their phone. 
Drones reportedly have been buzzing Wright-Patterson AFB, which temporarily closed their airspace yesterday.
The below is from a different article linked inside your article from a few days ago (I think your article confirms a drone sighting recently but no AFB shutdown, and a few days ago a drone actually led to a shutdown of the AFB). Anyways, this is what I’d take away from all of it:
“We have had confirmed sightings at Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle,” the spokesperson said. “This is not a new issue for us. We’ve had to deal with drone incursions over our bases for quite a time now. It’s something that we routinely respond to in each and every case when reporting is cited.”
While those two places are not the AFB, it’s the same principal. These AFBs, Arsenals, Naval Stations, whatever, are located next to non-military populated areas. Drones are very popular and people legally fly drones. The military deals with drones that fly where they should not be. It’s made clear nothing nefarious is occurring other than drones flying too close.
Unless I’m missing something. I tried to ignore this as long as I could.
Welcome to 'Murrika. The stupid, it burns. And is highly profitable for certain propagandists.
Yeah, like this. It was Venus.
Another was the belt of Orion.
When are the Chinese balloons going to step back into the picture?
Drones and balloons and ufos, oh my!