Security expert says Pentagon is too “embarrassed” to admit drone activity

A veteran soldier and homeland defense expert believes the Pentagon’s refusal to reveal the source of the recent wave of drone activity is likely because it is implicated.

“If they don’t say anything, it’s usually because the information embarrasses them in some way,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and defense and security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan body in Washington, DC

“It’s entirely possible that they tested UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and created public hysteria, and are now embarrassed to say, ‘We did it.'”

At a news conference Monday, a Defense Department spokesman said there was no evidence that the reported drone sightings posed a risk to national security or public safety, but declined to explain the frequency of the sightings in the tri-state area and beyond.

Cancian added that the military could also test new technologies.

“It is conceivable that they (the Ministry of Defense) are using a mechanism that they do not want to make public,” he added.

Cancian, who has held positions overseeing budget strategy and military procurement at both the Defense Department and the Office of Management and Budget, told The Post on Tuesday that drones fall into three risk categories, with most being “benign” or ” “semi-benign”. and a small percentage are classified as “malicious.”

“(Malicious) would be the equivalent of aerial vandalism,” he said. “It could be people snooping or tinkerers trying to disrupt communications. It is conceivable that a small number of them are foreign intelligence drones.”

But most foreign powers have satellite systems, Cancian said, and do not rely on drones. This includes manned aircraft on legitimate flight patterns.

He described semi-benign drones as those that belong to “the hobbyist who is curious to see what’s on the other side of the fence and who isn’t trying to be malicious but still does something he shouldn’t do.” “

Last week, The Post revealed that one of the locations where many of the mysterious drone sightings have been reported is a military facility in New Jersey that is helping to develop robotic drones that can combat weapons of mass destruction.

The U.S. Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, located at the Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County, awarded a Maryland company a $50 million contract in 2018 to develop robotic drones that create and use three-dimensional maps of urban areas Countermeasure surveillance measures can take weapons of mass destruction.

However, a spokesman for Picatinny Arsenal said the military facility had nothing to do with recent drone activity over the state – which has led to more than 5,000 reports to the FBI since the start of the month and left many local residents nervous.

A New Jersey mayor added to the drone panic on Tuesday when he said the drone sightings could be linked to missing radioactive material.

Belleville Mayor Michael Melham suggested the drones flying in a grid-like pattern over his Essex County community may be “looking for something.”

“What could they be looking for? Maybe this is radioactive material,” Melham told Fox TV’s “Good Day New York.” Federal officials said the material did not pose a serious threat.

“The truth will come out in the new administration, if only to embarrass the Biden administration,” Cancian added.

“One conceivable thing is that they (the Defense Department) are using a mechanism that they don’t want to make public. But this will be an increasing problem as drones fly over airfields.”

President-elect Donald Trump on Monday accused President Biden and the Pentagon of hiding information about the mysterious drones.

“The government knows what is happening,” Trump said after Biden officials claimed ignorance even though thousands of Garden State and New York City residents had seen and in some cases videotaped the unidentified plane.

“Look, our military knows where it started – if it’s a garage, they can go straight to that garage. They know where it came from and where it went, and for some reason they don’t want to comment on it,” the former and future president said during a wide-ranging, 70-minute news conference in Palm Beach, Florida.

“And I think it would be better if they said what it is. Our military knows it and our president knows it. And for some reason they want to keep people in suspense.”