Shaun Golden, the sheriff of Monmouth County, New Jersey, is calling on Gov. Phil Murphy to declare a state of emergency over the mysterious drones that have been reported flying above critical infrastructure, sensitive military sites, and residential neighborhoods nearly every night since November.
“We continue to urge our governor to press the federal government to put more … resources out here,” Golden said Thursday on NewsNation. “The only way we’re going to solve this is by the federal government coming in here and doing full investigations as to what these things are, how their movements are made.”
He also wants Murphy to issue an executive order banning the use of recreational drones at night.
Monmouth County Board of County Commissioners supported those calls.
“On behalf of the entire Board of County Commissioners, I have stayed in constant contact with the Sheriff, Prosecutor, and members of law enforcement concerning the drones that have been sighted all over Monmouth County,” said Commissioner Director Thomas Arnone. “We are completely supportive of the Sheriff’s call for Governor Murphy to declare a state of emergency, as well as his call for Congress to immediately pass federal legislation enabling state police and sheriff's offices to address this issue nationwide.”
Golden's plea comes as the Pentagon denies a claim by New Jersey Rep. Van Drew, a Republican, that there is an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast sending the drones.
National security spokesman John Kirby also dismissed concern from lawmakers and residents.
“Using very sophisticated electronic detection technologies…we have not been able to…corroborate any of the reported visual sightings. To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears many of the reports of sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully,” Kirby said Thursday. “We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus.”
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Those remarks did not sit well with New Jerseyans.
“I have to tell you, that’s incredulous. I’m incredulous about that. That is ridiculous,” Sam Morris, the mayor of Mine Hill township, said in an interview with ABC News.
“That guy – that guy is an idiot,” Republican Assemblyman Brian Bergen, a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot, told Fox News. “That I can tell you right now. Because the colonel of the state police told the members of the state legislature that one of his helicopters was hovering above a six-foot-wide drone, and he landed that helicopter because he felt unsafe for his pilots. I am a former Apache helicopter pilot and a member of the New Jersey state legislature, and I have seen these things in my own community. That guy, I don’t even know his name, who was on here a couple of minutes ago, is a fool if he is going to say there is no issue.”
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