Larry Hogan shot this video last night.
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These lights over his hometown in Davidsonville,
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just 25 miles from the nation's capital,
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as he pointed out.
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And then there's this.
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I've never seen them.
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New Jersey Senator Andy Kim shared this video of drones he shot yesterday.
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Federal authorities insist most of these sightings are actually legally manned aircraft.
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But Senator Kim says he checked a flight tracker app while capturing this video and
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that the devices he was capturing were not on it.
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The sightings are happening near LaGuardia Airport too.
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Officials say they received unconfirmed reports of drone activity over that busy airport.
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As for numbers,
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the FBI says it's received more than 3,000 tips from the public about drone
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sightings going back to November 18th,
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all over New Jersey.
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Since then, there's been an average of 92 sightings per night and expanding across half a dozen states.
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In a joint statement,
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the FBI and Department of Homeland Security said,
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quote,
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we have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national
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security or public safety threat or that they have a foreign nexus.
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Lawmakers, however, aren't buying it and are pushing for answers and action.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and two other senators wrote a letter calling
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for a briefing with the FBI and Homeland Security.
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While in Connecticut,
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Senator Richard Blumenthal says the devices should be shot down if they can't be identified.
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And we've learned that House Speaker Mike Johnson did get a federal briefing on the sightings,
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as have Senate staffers in a few select offices.
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But other than that, there's been very little transparency.
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So what's going on?
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Is this some contagious mass hysteria?
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Or are people really seeing something that our government cannot identify?
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Our own Rich McHugh went out drone hunting in New Jersey.
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He did not come back empty handed.
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Rich, tell us what you saw.
SPEAKER 3
2:12
Hi, Elizabeth.
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Well, I got to be honest here.
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You know, when this story first came out a few weeks ago,
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as a resident of New Jersey,
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as a journalist,
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I didn't pay it much credence.
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I thought it would turn out to be a bunch of pranksters and this would all be over by now.
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The experience I had last night, however, changed the way I feel about this story completely.
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What I saw was more sophisticated than I ever imagined.
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Take a look.
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One, two, three, four, at least five lights, six lights.
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I didn't believe what I was seeing, but what was I seeing?
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We're here in central Jersey.
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We've been looking for the past hour.
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I think we've seen about 40 or 50 of these drones.
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In fact, there's one over my shoulder right there.
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One after another, after another, these drones appeared in the night sky.
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If you look real close,
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they look like fixed wing aircraft, about eight to 10 feet wide,
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colorful,
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white blinking lights.
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That is not a plane.
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Definitely not an airplane, but what was it?
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Hours earlier, I was invited to join the Ocean County Sheriff Department.
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They launched their own drones to see if they could intercept the mysterious
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aircraft New Jersey residents have been reporting in recent weeks.
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The department says these mystery drones evade detection because they don't give
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off heat like regular drones.
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Why do you think that is?
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We don't know.
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It's just something that we haven't, you know, it's not something that we've had our hands on.
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It's not something that we've experienced.
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Something they hadn't experienced until now.
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One of their officers called 911 after seeing 50 of them come off the ocean.
SPEAKER 2
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Advised after we made contact with that officer that there were 50 that came off the ocean.
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50?
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Five zero. at was my reaction also.
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There were 50 that were coming off the ocean.
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And this is a sworn officer?
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A sworn officer, yes.
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We contacted state police, we contacted the FBI, we contacted the
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coast guard at which point the coast guard went out with their boat and they
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reported seeing 13 following their boat and then the coast guard also advised that
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they went over them about 300 feet and had a wingspan of about eight feet can i see
SPEAKER 3
4:21
one right here did i see the same thing that officer saw i'm still not sure what i
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can show you is this video what i can tell you is i've never seen anything like it
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before
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And more than a month since these reports started,
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the federal government doesn't know what they are either.
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What's your message to the White House?
SPEAKER 2
4:40
My message, come to the Jersey Shore.
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I know it's wintertime,
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but come see what we see and then,
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you know,
4:02 the federal government doesn't know what they are either.
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What's your message to the White House?
SPEAKER 2
4:40
My message, come to the Jersey Shore.
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I know it's wintertime,
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but come see what we see and then,
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you know,
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maybe have a better appreciation for why our residents are concerned.
SPEAKER 3
4:54
You know, the Ocean County Sheriff, that drone unit, they have an industrial grade drone.
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They put it up.
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They were tracking one of these drones,
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Elizabeth,
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and they said this thing easily evaded them,
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disappeared out of thin air.
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So, you know, to me, if this is not our military, then it's even more scary and we need answers, frankly.
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Oh.
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