Neda Torfik
Appearances
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
Just last night, coming home and being on the phone with family members and us kind of comparing how many drones we were seeing in the sky. I live in Union, New Jersey, and me and my husband counted about three. But my family members live in central Jersey, Somerset, and that's where we've really seen the majority of sightings the last few weeks. Last night, they counted more than 10 in the sky.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
These are large drones that are the size of bicycles, small cars. When you get close to those drones, they notice those drones kind of turn off their lights and evade police helicopters.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
My family members and friends who live in that part of New Jersey for a while now have been saying, how are more people not concerned about this? Well, it turns out many people are concerned about this. I mean, the FBI says they've gotten 3,000 tips.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
The Coast Guard has said that they themselves observed a low altitude aircraft in the vicinity of one of their vessels near Island Beach State Park, so on the coast. So now we're seeing this kind of fever pitch of people reporting and why we're seeing so many lawmakers in New Jersey coming out now and speaking openly about this.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
Yeah, we're hearing, for example, from both the White House and the FBI that there's no evidence that these reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus. They say it legally. It's not happening in restricted airspace. They're not even sure these are drones.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
But what we're hearing from, for example, the New Jersey representative, Josh Gottmeier, is, you know, people can... see for themselves these drones, and that there is a responsibility from the federal government to brief the public more thoroughly, that they're just not sharing enough information.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
And that even local law enforcement, because remember, they're kind of hamstrung by existing laws, they want local authorities to be able to shoot these drones down if they want. And what I thought was really interesting was the mayor of Belleville, Michael Melham, He said, you know, we're not getting the full answers we want in briefings.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
But because there is this strong line that there's no national security or public safety threat, he wonders if it is the US government's own assets, perhaps doing research, not wanting to share information fully.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
Yeah, I think we should really stress that these aren't, you know, hobbyists with drones in the sky. I mean, these are large drones that are the size of bicycles, small cars. You know, they have blinking red and green lights.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
And in fact, when you get close to those drones, what we've heard from officials is that they notice that those drones kind of turn off their lights and evade police helicopters when approached. So, you know, even local officials are baffled by this.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
They know the federal government must know something more because you don't just have these large drones, some of them flying in patterns and have no idea what's happening. So that's why there is this clamor for more information to be given to the public, because people's curiosity is really turning into concern.