New Jersey’s mayor warned Tuesday that troubling drone sightings over the state’s skies may be linked to missing radioactive material, but federal officials say they have no idea how much radioactive material is missing in any case. says it does not pose a serious threat.
Belleville Mayor Michael Melham said the drones flying in a grid pattern over Essex County “look like they’re looking for something.”
“What are they looking for? It’s probably radioactive material,” Melham said on Fox Television’s “Good Day New York.”
“It was a shipment. It arrived at its destination. The container was damaged and empty,” Melham said.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a warning earlier this week after medical equipment used for cancer tests was “lost in transit” while being transported from Naza Cancer Center in Newfield, Gloucester County, in southern New Jersey, on Dec. 2. uttered.
The device, an Eckert & Ziegler model HEGL-0132, was supposed to be properly disposed of, but “the shipping container arrived at its destination in a damaged state and was empty,” officials said. said.
The item, known as a “pin source,” contains trace amounts of germanium-68, a radioactive chemical used in PET scanners to calibrate accuracy.
This radiation source is considered less than Category 3 by International Atomic Energy Agency standards. This means that it is “very unlikely to cause permanent injury to humans, or contains very small amounts of radioactive material that will not cause permanent injury.”
News of the missing equipment sparked alarm on social media, with some netizens speculating that mysterious drones patrolling New Jersey’s skies were desperately scouring the region for radioactive waste.
This baseless theory was also popularized by John Ferguson, CEO of a remote aircraft systems company in Kansas. He claimed in a video that has been viewed nearly 3 million times on X that the drone was trying to “smell” gas leaks, radioactive material, or the material. Something else.
“The only reason you would fly a drone at night is if you were looking for something,” Ferguson said in the video, adding that he did not believe drones were a threat to the public.
Here’s what we know about the mysterious drone flying over the East Coast.
The idea gained further traction when podcast king Joe Rogan said he was “very concerned” about the drone situation after watching footage from Ferguson.
Residents and lawmakers in three states are outraged by the federal government’s lack of explanation for alarming drone sightings reported over the past month.
The FBI announced late Monday in a joint statement with other federal security agencies that more than 5,000 reports of suspected drone sightings have been reported in the past few weeks alone.
The group said it received thousands of tips, resulting in about 100 leads that required further investigation.
However, “After careful review of technical data and information from relevant members of the public, sightings to date include legal commercial drones, hobbyist drones, law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.” , we have determined that the star combination ‘was incorrectly reported as a drone,”’ the joint statement said.
“That said, we recognize there are concerns among many communities, and we continue to support state and local governments with advanced detection technology and law enforcement support.” Masu.”
The Biden administration has repeatedly downplayed the situation.
White House National Security Council Press Secretary John Kirby said drones are not a public safety concern and many reported sightings are actually manned aircraft.
The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI announced Monday that they will be belatedly deploying drone detection technology and infrared cameras to determine what kind of threat posed by unidentified flying objects.
