A former CIA staffer has said the government needs to be more 'transparent' after an FBI official said the public were 'overreacting' to a spike in drone sightings.
On the east coast, namely in New Jersey and New York residents have reported seeing drones in the sky and have become increasingly alarmed.
The situation seemed to have first started on November 19 with people reporting a drone in the sky to authorities.
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Since then, the number of sightings have ballooned to roughly 1,000 in New Jersey alone, according to state officials
The authorities have downplayed the frenzy seen among the public, arguing that many are just misidentified aircrafts.
Former CIA operations officer Laura Ballman admitted she was growing more 'troubled' as time went on.
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Unfortunately for all of those hoping it was aliens, this isn’t what Ballman’s theory is tied to. Sorry.
That being said, she did question why the government wasn’t being more forthcoming and offered up some reasons as to why they responded to concerns by stating some people were 'overreacting'.
Fox News previously reported an FBI official dismissed the nationwide panic while speaking to a senior Biden administration official.
According to the report, they said: “We’re doing our best to find the origin of that specific…those drone activities.
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“But I think there has been a slight overreaction.”
Ballman seemed to have a different attitude, however.
Speaking on Fox News on December 14, she said: “Now in terms of who is behind this, deducing the statements that have been made by John Kirby, who has said that these objects are not operating illegally coupled with the several op-eds that have been out the last 24 hours about the need to look at our detection systems, makes me think, perhaps, this is actually a classified exercise to test either evasion technology or detection technology in urban areas.”
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She continued: “In terms of why the federal government would not be more forthcoming, I’ve actually been troubled by that. If I were in a position to advise on this, I would say it’s time to become more transparent.”
An official with the Department of Defense has made it clear that they are not particularly concerned, however.
According to a New York Post report, the official said his agency has not gathered any intelligence that suggests the drones are ‘aligned with a foreign actor or that they had malicious intent.’