Speaker 1: Everyone. I'm Matt Ford and welcome to the Good Trouble Show.
It's the end of twenty twenty four and mystery drones
are operating above the skies of New Jersey. The White
House is acting as if this is something new, something
they have never seen before, something they are going to
get to the bottom of.
Speaker 2: But are these drone incidents new tonight? A growing mystery
in the night sky over Colorado. Fleets of unidentified drones
reportedly flying in grid patterns, even spotted by law enforcement.
Speaker 3: I had what I related to your own heading towards humor.
Speaker 2: So for this video they shot is the best evidence
to emerge. The sightings reported across five counties in Colorado,
as many as thirty drones flying in formation, some with
wingspans estimated at six feet.
Speaker 1: That was December of twenty nineteen in Colorado, but it
didn't stop there.
Speaker 4: The enigma puzzling Colorado and Nebraska law enforcement in more
than a dozen counties. Witnesses say the drones typically appear
after sunset, as many as thirty flying information two hundred
to three hundred feet above ground, some with wingspins estimated
at six feet.
Speaker 1: That same December, the drones moved north into Nebraska, operating
well into January of twenty twenty. Again, more reports of
drones up to six feet in size. Let's fast forward
to December of last year.
Speaker 5: New reports that mysterious drones are swarming a US military
base and did so for seventeen days in December of
last year. Wow, new reports of something that happened in
December that breached our national security. The Pentagon says it's
stumped with no idea who was behind it.
Speaker 6: In December twenty twenty three, US Air Force commanders at
Langley Air Force Base in southern Virginia, home to the
F twenty two raptors, noticed, over a period of seventeen days,
dozen of unidentified drones would begin flying over the base
shortly after dusk each night. The Air Force, by federal law,
was not allowed to shoot these mystery drones out of
the sky. The White House reportedly called for national security
meetings to discuss how to address drones possibly sent by
a foreign adversary. There were concerns about using electronic warfare
or jamming systems for fear of interfering with commercial air
travel over the holidays. Three months earlier, mysterious drones were
also spotted flying over a sensitive nuclear facility in Nevada.
It is not clear whether these incidents were related.
Speaker 1: The drone incursions at Langley Air Force Base, which lasted
almost the entire month of December of twenty twenty three,
with so severe the United States Air Force had to
relocate an entire wing of F twenty two fighters to
another base. On top of that, they had NASA fly
one of their high altitude surveillance planes for hours above
Langley Air Force Base to gather data on these drones.
Let's jump to November of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 7: The US Air Force says unidentified drones have been spotted
over four joint US and UK military bases in England.
Speaker 8: The mysterious drones.
Speaker 7: Have repeatedly appeared for over a week now. Stephanie Bennett
is live in London, So Stephanie, this is pretty disturbing.
Speaker 8: What do we know about these drones?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right, Julie. I mean the details are
still very limited at this time. We do know that
the sighting started last week on November twentieth, and they
have really ranged in size, in style and also the
amount that we've been seeing over that last week or
so now, a senior British official confirm to Fox that
the UK has deployed about sixty troops, including counter drone specialists,
to help determine who is behind this and to help
defend the air bases, and it fears its potential coordinated operation.
They're describing the incidents as unusual and say this is
a serious set of circumstances. Take a look at map.
The bases are spread across England and are all used
by US Air Force. Now the drones have been seen
over RAF Fairford, laken Heath, Mildenhall and felt Well for
now Civilian police supported by the UK Ministry of Defense
have launched an investigation and so far we're told there
has been no impact to residents or infrastructure and they
have not been identified as hostile.
Speaker 9: General Rider, There's been a number of incidents in England
with drones targeting US bases, kind of swarming US bases,
challenging security. Do you believe they have hostile intent? Do
you believe they were sent by a foreign adversary? What
is happening with What can you tell us about these drones?
Speaker 10: What I would tell you, Jennifer, is that they are
being actively monitored installation. Leaders have determined so far that
none of these incursions impact the base residents, the facilities,
or the assets that we have on those bases. We're
of course continuing to work with host nation authorities and
our mission partners to ensure the safety of our personnel,
our facilities, and the equipment.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 10: The bottom line is it's something that we're going to
take seriously. We're continuing to look into it, but as
of right now, has not had any significant mission impact.
Speaker 9: Why not shoot them down?
Speaker 10: Well, I won't get into force protection measures. We of
course always maintain the right to defend ourselves if we
deem something to be a threat, but again we'll continue
to work with the local host nation authorities there.
Speaker 9: Do you think it's linked to the drones that were
cited or three or four different locations back in December
of last year that we reported on recently.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 10: I don't want to speculate and draw unnecessary connections. You know, Again,
this is something that we'll look into. As you know,
small UAS's drones have become something that's you know, relatively
common now across the the landscape. It's something that the
Department has been looking closely at in terms of how
it applies to our facilities, our personnel, whether it's in
combat zones or outside of combat zones. But in terms
of these particular incidents in the UK versus the ones.
Speaker 8: In the States.
Speaker 10: You know, again, I don't want to speculate that there's
any connection.
Speaker 9: Appear to be those of hobbyists.
Speaker 8: Is that correct?
Speaker 10: Again, it would be you know, premature to draw any conclusions.
We've got to see what these are. I mean, it's
entirely possible that it could be hobbyists or something else.
We just got to look into it.
Speaker 1: So who knew drone hobbyists were on a world tour
flying drones of military bases. I need to get in
on that seriously.
Speaker 8: Though.
Speaker 1: The point is is that this is nothing new, folks.
This is absolutely nothing new. Every time it happens, the
Pentagon says, we are going to look into it and
we will get right back to you. Well, they never do.
The Pentagon knows that historically these drone events end about
usually about after two to four weeks, and when they do,
people move on, and the Pentagon is more than happy
to move on as well, hoping that they get no
more questions about this stuff. Guess what? Here we are again,
this time with drones operating with impunity over the skies
of New Jersey. Here to talk about what is flying
above the homes of the town of Belleville, New Jersey.
Please welcome to the show, Mayor Michael Melhem, Mayor. How
are you, sir?
Speaker 8: I'm doing well. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: You're very welcome. So what are the citizens of Bellevue reporting?
And for how long? How long has this been going on?
Speaker 11: I mean you're going on across New Jersey for about
three three and a half weeks now. I must say
it was pretty quiet for us the first couple weeks,
but as of Wednesday we became inundated, I mean Wednesday Thursday,
and it did simmer down a little bit on Friday.
Last night, we've been inundated with swarms and swarms of
drone coming in nightly. It's been a little chaotic here
because people just are curious and they have no.
Speaker 8: Idea what's going on.
Speaker 11: And now it's starting to turn into fear because we
just can't get any transparency from our federal government.
Speaker 1: And that was actually going to be my next question.
Are your citizens are they concerned about this? Are they amused?
Are they concerned? How are they reacting to all of this?
Speaker 11: I could tell you that they are definitely concerned. They're
certainly not amused. I mean, when you have objects flying
objects hovering one hundred feet or a couple hundred feet
above your home, you're definitely not amused about that. And
being that we live in the United States of America,
and we have a fairly substantial federal budget, and we
have a fairly substantial military and defense, you would think
that somebody would be able to give us some answers
as to what is hovering just over our homes.
Speaker 1: Now, it's been reported that these drones have been hovering
over a critical infrastructure in New Jersey. Is this taking
place in Belleville?
Speaker 11: So we do have a critical infrastructure here in Belleville.
We haven't seen them hovering over that critical infrastructure, but
you're absolutely correct. We had a very interesting briefing on Wednesday.
It was a one of a kind briefing where two
hundred mayors were gathered along with every member of our
state legislature. And that was the security briefing. That was unprecedented.
It had never happened before, and One of the first
things that we were told is that these drones are
indeed hovering over critical infrastructure, and depending on how you
digest that, it's either cost for concern or comfort concern
if it would be a foreign actor and we don't
know who that is, or cost for comfort if you
actually believe, like I'm starting to be led to believe
that this might indeed be our military or our defense capabilities,
and therefore you would want them up there as a
countermeasure to what's ever going on. The question is no
longer who's operating the drones. I think that's kind of obvious.
The question is why are they here and why do
they appear to be on patrol.
Speaker 1: In this meeting, did they offer any specific guidance to
mayors such as yourself as far as how you should
handle this, how you should message to the citizens in
your city.
Speaker 11: Again, this was Wednesday, so lots happened since then, but
during that meeting it was really just we advise you
to engage your residents and inform them that shooting upon
these drones is a federal offense to shoot on an aircraft,
because drones are considered an aircraft when they're in the sky,
and we were advised and told and told to reiterate
the fact that if you do fire upon these, you
are firing on an aircraft and that would be against
federal regulations. And they did make sure they wanted us
to know that you can't fire on drones.
Speaker 8: But that was a couple of days ago. They've since gotten.
Speaker 11: We've gotten clearance on how to now deal with the
downdrone and that kind of made some news yesterday when
we finally got that guidance on how to deal with
a downdrone.
Speaker 1: What is your opinion as far as how the governor
of New Jersey. I know there's been a lot of
criticis leveled at the federal reaction. How do you feel
about how the governor has handled this entire incident that
continues to this day.
Speaker 11: There's been criticism, There's no doubt about that. Early on,
he came out about a week ago and said that
I have no idea what they are, but there's no
cause for concern, which nobody's buying that anymore. And then
when we had that unprecedented briefing. Again, in the history
of New Jersey, every single mayor has never been assembled
under one roof wit members of the state legislature for
security briefing, and the governor was a no show.
Speaker 8: I mean our governor here.
Speaker 11: He did approximately two hundred and fifty press conferences for COVID,
and yet he's still not done a press conference about this.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. I actually wasn't aware of that. I figured he
had at least been out in front of the public
to discuss this. Now, you caught one of these drones
on your shelf, excuse me, on your I believe your
cell phone, and I'm going to play that clip, and
if you wouldn't mind, just tell us what we're looking
at here and where you took this and when this happened.
Speaker 11: Yeah, this was my first encounter. Actually, I believe this
was on Thursday, a couple of days ago, and I
was home. I heard an interesting sound, a sound that
I had not heard before.
Speaker 8: I got up.
Speaker 11: I ran to the window, realized didn't have my phone,
doubled back, grabbed my phone. Now, I will say, there's
been whites widespread speculation about that second light, and when
it gets in front of the cloud there, it does
seem like another one comes out right there. You know,
the internet and social media's a buzz with this clip.
I am one to say that I was shooting through
a glass window, and it might very well. I'm no
aviation expert, nor my video expert, but it may very
well be of reflection.
Speaker 8: I was not aware of that when I shot that.
Speaker 11: Actually, this clip went to CNN for an interview, and
it was only after CNN ran it that other people
on the internet and social media start to dissect it.
So I'm not quite sure what that other little orb
is or what that other little light that comes out
of it is. But I did shoot it. I did
see it come right past my house. I heard it,
I saw the lights. These are not manned aircraft. It's
insulting for the administration to tell us here in New
Jersey that we're all nuts, that we're all seeing things
that we can't distinguish the difference between a manned plane
and a drone hovering over our houses. It's insulting, but
that's something that I saw. We have reports here in
bellebel I had a flight attendant called me two days
ago who said, I'm seeing for right now.
Speaker 8: She knows the difference between a plane and a drone.
Speaker 11: And I also had a police officer actually catch one
on video and he's actually a licensed drawn operator. We're
not nuts, we're not seeing things. These are not airplanes.
Speaker 1: And you're quite convinced and what you have seen and
what you were hearing from your constituents that this isn't
sort of normal drone technology or misidentified private or commercial aircraft.
Speaker 8: I'm certain of that. Now.
Speaker 11: I'm not going to say that there is no miss
you know, misreadings here. I mean now in New Jersey, well,
there's paranoid that's spreading.
Speaker 8: People are looking up in the sky.
Speaker 11: I mean, I was going to dinner yesterday and we're
in the parking lot and people are looking up at
the sky. There's a lot of people look in the
sky for the first time, or people that haven't really
focused on the sky in some time, and they got
their phones out there, and everything they see they think
it's a drone. I'm sure there's some miscategorization going on,
but I'm going to tell you that there's definitely drones
up there. I mean the first day I saw it,
which was Wednesday, I went to my balcony I looked
out and it was the equivalent to looking into a
forest and seeing those lantern bugs, that those lantern flies
with the green and blinking lights coming back at me.
It was it was annerving, to say the least, because
I know exactly what my sky looks like at nighttime
and it wasn't that.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it's it's really just amazing that this is
going on and seeing the sort of what I I
would say, ineptness from the federal government and how it's
responding to this so speaking, which finally, what would you
like to see in terms of a response from the
federal government.
Speaker 8: I mean, I want some transparency at this point.
Speaker 11: I think that the lack of transparency is what's fueling
all these conspiracy theories that are.
Speaker 8: Going out online.
Speaker 11: I've developed a unique line of thought on this, and
I've really taken new account what we were told when
I went to that briefing. We were told, when you
leave here, you can know exactly what to stay in.
Speaker 8: New Jersey knows.
Speaker 11: It was very little, but I did get some nuggets
out of that. I mean, they told us, first and foremost,
they're hovering over critical infrastructure. They told us there's no
credible threat. How they can know that if they don't
know where they're coming from.
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 11: But when you put that stuff together, hovering over critical infrastructure,
no credible threat. They told us for sure they're not
going to shoot them down, and they also told us
they're not interested in a no flight of a ban
on drones. Put all that together in conjunction with blinking lights,
it adds up to it's probably our government. I mean,
you know, if it was little green men, if it
was something inter terrestrial, you don't need blinking lights. If
it was a foreign adversary looking to do is harm,
you don't need the blinking lights. The fact there's blinking
lights is almost telling me for sure this is government.
And if it's government, maybe that actually is comforting to
knowing that they're over our critical infrastructure. But the question
is why are they there? Are they aware of a threat?
You could put a thrown up. You can put a
drawn up in the sky for five minutes to take pictures.
Put a drawn up in the sky for five minutes
and take mapping. The fact that they're patrolling, the fact
that they're moving into grid like pattern, it appears like
they're looking for something. Is our government aware of a
threat and do we have assets that are previously unknown
to members of Congress, United States senators, and certainly the
state of New Jersey.
Speaker 8: Are we deploying.
Speaker 11: Assets up there that are ours that are previously unknown
because they're aware of a threat and they're searching for something.
Speaker 8: That's what we want to know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what we want to know for sure, you know.
And I can tell you we actually have been for
about the past month and a half conducting pretty in
depth interviews with the former police chief of a city
that I can't speak of up in Nebraska, and they
had during twenty nineteen and twenty twenty, I can tell
you virtually identical drones swarmed their small towns. These are
towns with maybe a population of three or four thousand
for a literal two week period, so you know. So
this happened twenty nineteen, twenty twenty in both Colorado and Nebraska.
And then, as we recently mentioned in an episode, this
also occurred over Langley Air Force Base last year, this
time exact time last year, where the drones were so
prolific for literally the entire month of December, the United
States Air Force had to relocate an entire wing of
F twenty two fighters to another airport because these things
had completely disrupted all air operations at Langley Air Force BACE,
which is of course an incredibly critical air force base
for our national security. So in my opinion, this is
something the government has been well aware of, at least
since twenty nineteen. So you know, they really need to
come clean because they're leaving you guys hanging in the dark.
That's not fair to you. It's not fair to your constituents,
you know, and really it's not fair to you know,
every American. But they please go ahead.
Speaker 11: I'm sorry, it's not I mean, you can't tell me
that they don't know what's flying in our airspace. I mean,
they have technology that they could read your driver's license
number from a mile up in the sky.
Speaker 8: Probably why it's throw in your pocket.
Speaker 11: So you can't tell me that they don't know what's
flying around our airspace.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. Mayor Melholm, thank you very much
for joining us, and hopefully, hopefully we'll have you back
on and you'll have some answers from the government as
far as what is going on above your town. Thank
you for joining us, Thank you for having me