Two men arrested for 'hazardous drone' ops in Boston adding to UAP hysteria
Two men caught flying drones "dangerously close" to Boston’s Logan International Airport have been taken in by authorities after another weekend of drone anxiety in the Northeast US led to the closure of several nearby airports and military bases.
Image by Chad Jones | X
Two men caught flying drones "dangerously close" to Boston’s Logan International Airport have been taken in by authorities after another weekend of drone anxiety in the Northeast US led to the closure of several nearby airports and military bases.
The drone sighting triggered a four-hour shut-down of the nearby Wright Patterson Air Force base in Ohio on Friday – the second airspace closure over the weekend due to the plethora of UAPs descending on New Jersey and, as it now seems, multiple states in the surrounding region.
Boston police announced the arrest of 42-year-old Robert Duffy and 32-year-old Jeremy Folcik of Charleston and Bridgewater, Massachusetts Saturday evening on Long Island, which is part of the Boston Harbor Islands.
Both men, who were chased on foot by police and found with a drone inside one of their backpacks, have been charged with trespassing, while a third suspect remains at large, reported Ohio’s WHIO news station.
"The incident began earlier that evening, at 4:30 p.m., when a Boston Police Officer specializing in real-time crime surveillance detected an Unmanned Aircraft System operating dangerously close to Logan International Airport. Leveraging advanced UAS monitoring technology, the Officer identified the drone's location, altitude, flight history, and the operators' position on Long Island," the Boston Police Department said in a Sunday statement.
DRONE UPDATE - Last night a source sent me this video that shows multiple “drones” hovering over the water.
undefined Mick (@BeyondAvgMick) December 16, 2024
This was filmed at a north shore beach close to Boston MA.
People have speculated that these are planes getting ready to land at Logan Airport.
You be the judge: https://t.co/Nt8N4GVFK9 pic.twitter.com/1ApMqB5WfR
“To date, installation leadership has determined none of the incursions impacted base residents, facilities, or assets,” said Bob Purtiman, Chief of Public Affairs at the Wright Patterson airbase.
Still, the arrests leaves authorities no closer to explaining why swarms of “very sophisticated” UAPs are appearing en mass across the Northeastern skies.
Drone sightings show no sign of slowing down
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, news outlets to UFO hunters, to even the Pentagon, have been buzzing about hundreds – if not thousands – of unexplained drone sightings reported across New Jersey over the past month.
The New Jersey State Police last week described the UAPs seen in the Garden State as having a wingspan of about six feet – not necessarily pocket-sized as the one found on the suspects from New England. In fact, a spokesperson for the 88th Air Base Wing had summed a description of the unmanned drones involved in the Boston incident, calling them “small.”
New Jersey's mystery UAPs have raised concerns, not just with uneasy residents who have been busy documenting the sightings and posting theories all over social media, but also with US lawmakers who have chastised the federal government for failing to provide answers and have publicly called for the drones to be shot down.
In a TV appearance last Thursday, New Jersey Congressman Jeff Van Drew raised eyebrows – and a rebuttal from the Pentagon – after claiming the stealth-like drones were being launched from an Iranian “mothership” sitting in the Atlantic off the coast of New Jersey.
On Sunday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy met with state police and radar technicians from the NJ Regional Operations Intelligence Center (ROIC), tasked with manning the skies for a plausible explanation.
“The public deserves clear answers — we will keep pushing the federal government for more information and resources,” Murphy posted X after the meeting.
Tonight I met with @NJSP officials and radar technicians at the Regional Operations & Intelligence Center who are surveying the area for unmanned aircraft systems.
undefined Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) December 16, 2024
The public deserves clear answers — we will keep pushing the federal government for more information and resources. pic.twitter.com/PBye7a8wMv
Drone detection system deployed to New York
Meantime, In a separate drone sighting incident, the runways at Stewart International Airport, just over an hour north of New York City, were also shuttered Friday evening, New York Governor Kathy Hochul revealed in a statement released to media on Saturday morning.
“Last night, the runways at Stewart Airfield were shut down for approximately one hour due to drone activity in the airspace. This has gone too far," Hochul said, adding she would do “whatever it takes to ensure New Yorkers remain safe.”
Since the Stewart airspace pause, Hochul on Sunday posted on X that the federal government agreed to send New York its own drone detection system to help protect the skies.
In response to my calls for additional resources, our federal partners are sending a drone detection system to New York.
undefined Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) December 15, 2024
I am grateful for the support, but we need more. Congress must pass a law that will give us the power to deal directly with the drones.
New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who also urged Washington to send in the drone detection system, said the government's more advanced “Robin Radar Systems” would provide "360-degree technology" capable of surpassing the state’s current linear detection systems.
"Some of the drones are small. Some of the drones flight patterns are erratic," Schumer said in the Sunday press conference, New York's NBC News reported.
In a post on X, Schumer said he was working with fellow senators to pass a new bill that would give local authorities additional tools for drone detection.
"Multiple drones flying together can confuse a traditional radar system, and that's why, again, this new technology can really get us the answers that we need," Schumer said.
According to Schumer, only the federal government has the legal authority to detect drones.
Making matters more difficult, NBC reported that there is currently no drone registration system to help law enforcement track who may be actually flying the drones once identified, only exacerbating the conspiracy chatter on social media.
The unexplained drones have also made their way to Connecticut and Pennsylvania, according to witnesses uploading recordings on X over the weekend.