SLO County couple spots more than a dozen ‘abnormal’ lights hovering in sky. Were they drones?
The drone craze that has swept the East Coast in recent days may have now reached San Luis Obispo County.
At about 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jenny Joseph said she got up to let her dog out at her home near Creston when she noticed “what was 100% a slow-moving object above me,” she told The Tribune.
The “abnormal number of bright objects in the sky” weren’t stars, she said, adding that they “moved abnormally and hovered in place periodically.”
She called over her fiance to take a look.
Over the next 20 minutes, the pair witnessed roughly more than 30 of the strange blinking objects, Joseph said.
“We jokingly talked about how this is probably part of the drone craze that’s currently occurring in New Jersey,” she told The Tribune. “We observed them for around 20 minutes and realized our joking conversation may not be entirely a joke.”
More than 5,000 reported drone sightings in U.S., federal agencies say
Reports of mysterious drones flying over the skies of New Jersey and other states on the East Coast have captured the public’s attention in recent days, with even New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and a U.S. senator going “out on drone hunts,” the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
As of Monday, drone sightings had been reported in at least six states: New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio, according to CNN.
The sightings appear to have begun on Nov. 18 near Morris County, New Jersey, CNN reported, with more drone sightings each night since then.
The FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration, state police and other agencies were investigating the reports, though the agencies stressed that the drones are likely not a threat to public safety.
In a joint statement Tuesday, the FBI, Homeland Security, FAA and U.S. Department of Defense said the FBI has “received tips of more than 5,000 reported drone sightings in the last few weeks with approximately 100 leads generated, and the federal government is supporting state and local officials in investigating these reports.”
After examining technical data and tips from concerned citizens, the agencies said they concluded 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.”
“We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the Northeast,” the statement said.
The SLO County sighting comes less than a week after a Brentwood man bound for China was arrested for allegedly illegally operating a drone above Vandenberg Space Force Base.
SLO County couple snapped photos, video of mysterious lights
As Joseph and her fiance watched the strange lights early Monday, she said, they checked to see if they could possibly belong to something other than drones.
“These definitely weren’t planes or helicopters,” Joseph said. “We’ve seen those fly over us plenty of times and these moved very differently — and we cross checked this with FlightRadar, which showed no activity in the area.”
She added that the lights were “all moving pretty slow, not in a straight line necessarily, and they were clustered together traveling east to west toward the coast.”
As they watched, they also took several photos and videos of the lights to prove what they had seen. Joseph provided those photos and video to The Tribune.
“The whole experience was surreal,” Joseph said. “Pictures and videos don’t do justice.”
When reached for comment Tuesday, San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Tony Cipolla told The Tribune on Monday the agency had not had any calls for service reporting drone sightings in the county.
He added that anyone who spots mysterious or suspicious drone activity can report it to their local law enforcement agency.
This story was originally published December 18, 2024 at 10:42 AM.
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