From late 2024 through mid-2025, the Northeast experienced a concentrated wave of nighttime aerial reports that began in New Jersey and expanded into New York City and Long Island, with spillover mentions as far as the Philadelphia area. Residents and officials described clusters of brilliant lights that seemed to hover, pace, and maneuver in coordinated fashion, often near sensitive sites. Federal agencies stood up an interagency response, and the FAA issued temporary flight restrictions first over parts of New Jersey, then extended comparable restrictions across 30 New York locations, many on Long Island. That regulatory footprint is the clearest institutional signal that the wave was regional. (Reuters)
The record includes: 1) Coast Guard testimony relayed by Rep. Chris Smith that a 47‑foot USCG boat was trailed by “more than a dozen” objects near Island Beach State Park, with “about 50” more lights coming ashore, 2) independent fieldwork and media‑documented claims from Jake Barber and the Skywatcher team, and 3) instrumented coastal research by the Tedesco brothers’ Nightcrawler program on Long Island. Meanwhile, federal briefings emphasized that many sightings were misidentified manned aircraft or lawful operations, and in late January 2025 the White House said the drones were “authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons,” while acknowledging hobbyist activity. (App)
Public evidence decisively explains some marquee New Jersey incidents as ordinary aircraft creating illusions because of viewing geometry, especially over water and on head‑on approaches. A May 2025 disclosure reported by Reason summarized a TSA slide deck that reconstructed a medevac diversion, shoreline “hovering,” and a nuclear‑facility case as normal traffic, plus a “gray mist” that matched wingtip condensation from a Beechcraft Baron. These deconflictions reduce the pool of unknowns, but do not resolve claims like the Coast Guard pursuit that lack synchronized sensor logs in the public domain. The updated record therefore contains a verified policy response, several conventional re‑attributions, and a residual contested core centered on coastal, multi‑object behavior. (Reason.com)
(Photo by Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Chronology and geography: from the Raritan corridor to the New York Bight
November to early December: ignition in New Jersey
The wave’s early public signal appears in Morris and Somerset Counties and along the Raritan corridor, with an FBI Newark tipline and interagency posture by the first week of December. Local anxiety spiked after a medevac helicopter diverted from an intended LZ when observers reported multiple “drones” over the area, followed by expanding reports near military sites. Later analysis matched several of these episodes to ordinary aircraft alignments and approach patterns, but that data was not released publicly until months later. (ABC News)
December 8–12: the Coast Guard sequence enters the record
On the night of Sunday, December 8, a USCG 47‑foot response boat operating off Island Beach State Park reportedly had “more than a dozen” objects following at close range, while “about 50” more were tracked coming in from the ocean and making landfall. The account was relayed by Rep. Chris Smith, who said he had been briefed by a Coast Guard commanding officer in Barnegat Light. Asbury Park Press and NJ Advance Media carried the claim; Smith repeated it in press statements. (App)
Within a week, the White House said that what Coast Guard personnel perceived as drones pacing the vessel were in fact airliners heading into JFK, a plausible interpretation in coastal viewing geometry where head‑on vectors and shallow turns can look like hovering or pacing lights to observers at sea level. Asbury Park Press documented the federal explanation and the continuing disagreement among some New Jersey officials. The War Zone placed the episode in a national‑security reporting context, highlighting both the seriousness of complaints and the risk of visual misreads at night over water. (App)
Working assessment of this episode: The Coast Guard sequence is contested. It combines on‑scene service‑member testimony and a lawmaker relay with a subsequent federal attribution to manned traffic. Without released synchronized ADS‑B, radar, and Coast Guard vessel logs for the specific minute range, it cannot be decisively categorized in the open record. (App)
Mid December: policy expands beyond New Jersey
On December 18–19, the FAA issued one‑month temporary flight restrictions across 22 New Jersey communities, followed on December 20 by 30 temporary restrictions in New York, many on Long Island, citing special security reasons. ABC7NY and Reuters summarized the affected locations and the rationale, while Guardian and other outlets captured the public‑safety framing and the “deadly force” language for extreme violations. This is the strongest institutional evidence that the flap’s scope was regional, not limited to New Jersey. (ABC7 New York)
Late December to January: federal message calibration and public reaction
Between December 12–17, the White House, FBI, and DHS emphasized that many “drone” reports were manned aircraft or other lawful activity and that there was no evidence of a national security threat or foreign nexus. On January 28, 2025, the new White House press secretary said the drones were authorized by the FAA for research and various other reasons, while acknowledging hobbyist flights. The ABC, Politico, and PBS NJ Spotlight clips and write‑ups are explicit on this point. (Reuters)
Public testimony and investigations now in the record
1) The Coast Guard testimony
What was reported. Rep. Chris Smith stated that a Coast Guard commander briefed him about a “swarm” that trailed a 47‑foot lifeboat off Ocean County on December 8, with another “50” objects approaching from the Atlantic. Asbury Park Press and NJ.com documented his statements; the Congressman’s office posted press releases that reiterated the account. (App)
Federal framing afterward. The White House later said those lights were airliners on JFK approaches, not drones. Asbury Park Press captured this federal position and the local pushback. The War Zone summarized the clash and noted the broader security concerns and rumor dynamics. (App)
Why it matters. The Coast Guard account shifted the perceived center of gravity from inland New Jersey to the maritime corridor of the New York Bight. It helped drive calls for interdiction authority and likely contributed to the FAA’s decision to extend TFRs into New York, including Long Island. The policy trail confirms the tri‑state footprint that you rightly emphasized. (ABC7 New York)
Status. Probable in the Claims Taxonomy below, pending public sensor overlays.
2) Jake Barber and the Skywatcher investigation
Who they are. Jake Barber and James Fowler present themselves as Skywatcher Technologies co‑founders who deploy long‑range optics, signal capture, and kinematics to characterize non‑attributed aerial targets. Their public footprint includes appearances on The Chris Cuomo Project and NewsNation segments, and a public classification framework posted on their site. (YouTube)
What they claim. In interviews, they describe repeated capture of targets that do not resolve into ordinary drones or manned aircraft and argue that a real “other” category persists in American airspace. Their communications stress multi‑sensor validation and a living UAP taxonomy. While edited segments and interviews do not substitute for released raw data with calibration, Skywatcher’s presence matters because it documents serious fieldwork in the same period and airspace that the FAA put under restriction. (YouTube)
Status. In this dossier, Skywatcher’s outputs are treated as testimony and researcher claims. They are Probable for “serious field effort,” bu undetermined for the nature of targets until synchronized raw datasets are broadly available.
3) Nightcrawler on Long Island: the Tedesco brothers
Who they are and what they did. John and Gerald Tedesco run Nightcrawler Research, an instrumented mobile lab that has been profiled by NewsNation. In August 2024 they published “Eye on the Sky,” a methods‑heavy paper in Open Journal of Applied Sciences, describing ten months at Robert Moses State Park with X‑band radar, multispectral electro‑optics, and environmental sensors. The paper documents recurrent luminous spheroids and swarm‑like activity over water that the authors could not match to routine traffic, and it provides enough instrumentation detail to support replication attempts. (SCIRP)
Relevance to the 2024–25 flap. The Nightcrawler study predates the December 2024 wave, yet they are back on video with news that anchors the same Long Island littoral corridor that the FAA restricted on December 20, and where regional headlines concentrated. In other words, Long Island already had documented instrumented observations in the precise coastal space that became central to the winter surge. (ABC7 New York)
Status. Probable for “sustained, instrumented fieldwork capturing unusual luminous phenomena,” Disputed for any “exotic origin” pending independent replication by other instrumented teams.
The NUFORC open civilian reporting
Civilian reporting surged on the National UFO Reporting Centre (NUFORC), which documented coordinated‑group impressions, close‑range quietness, and an ‘orb’ co‑wave. Many of the linked videos are point‑source lights without range cues, which require time‑synced ADS‑B and RF correlation to adjudicate.” (NUFORC)
NUFORC published a running analysis titled “The Great ‘Drone’ Flap of 2024” on December 22, 2024, summarizing the surge in reports that it was receiving from New Jersey and elsewhere, and highlighting patterns NUFORC considered anomalous. The post also links to representative case reports and discusses regulatory issues such as Remote ID. (NUFORC)
Key points NUFORC asserts.
- Volume and locus. NUFORC says the nexus of the winter wave was New Jersey, with report volume “doubling,” and that it continued receiving dozens of new submissions after its first note on the flap. (NUFORC)
- Behavioral themes. NUFORC emphasizes multi‑object “coordinated groups,” unusual quietness at close range, and long endurance. It also catalogues reports of orbs observed in tandem with “drone‑like” lights. The page includes cross‑links to individual witness reports. (NUFORC)
- Compliance and legality. NUFORC argues that large drones must broadcast Remote ID, and it infers that absent detection implies illegal operation or a lack of monitoring. It also asserts repeated intrusions into restricted airspace. These are NUFORC’s interpretations rather than adjudicated findings in the federal record. (NUFORC)
- Anomalous claims. The page notes witness statements about interference with electronics and thermal “no heat” observations, and it raises the possibility that some “drones” could be non‑human craft impersonating drones. These are hypotheses presented by NUFORC, not conclusions shared by federal agencies. (NUFORC)
How NUFORC’s reporting fits the dossier
- Agreement on scope. NUFORC’s framing that the wave radiated from New Jersey and spread widely is consistent with the FAA’s expansion of temporary flight restrictions from New Jersey to New York, including Long Island. That policy footprint is a clear indicator that the issue was regional.
- Divergence on attribution. NUFORC’s December narrative leans heavily toward unknown operators and illegal operations. Weeks later, federal briefings and press statements described many sightings as misidentified manned aircraft and said a subset of flights was authorized by the FAA for research, with additional hobbyist activity. Those statements conflict with NUFORC’s implication that “none” of the craft had been identified.
- Overlap with deconfliction evidence. The FOIA‑summarized TSA slideshow released in May 2025 mapped several headline New Jersey cases to ordinary aircraft geometry and atmospherics, which supports a conventional explanation for at least part of the wave and narrows the residual unknowns that NUFORC highlights.
What to do with the differences
- Treat the NUFORC page as a contemporary civilian repository that captures witness patterns and hypotheses in real time.
- Use it to prioritize cases for hard correlation, not as dispositive adjudication. When NUFORC claims “no Remote ID,” for example, the actionable step is to examine whether any agency logs or independent RF captures exist for those minutes and locations. (NUFORC)
The tri‑state reality: beyond New Jersey
Several strands of contemporaneous reporting show that the wave reached New York City and Long Island, and even registered in eastern Pennsylvania reporting:
• FAA New York TFRs on December 20 covered 30 locations, including multiple Long Island sites, with a one‑month duration. ABC7NY listed the sites and summarized the “special security” rationale. Reuters and other outlets documented the New Jersey restrictions the day before, then the New York expansion. (ABC7 New York)
• ABC7NY reported that in a special meeting New Jersey officials discussed a range extending from the NYC area across New Jersey and into parts of Pennsylvania, indicating a cross‑state phenomenon rather than a strictly New Jersey issue. ABC and AP affiliates reported Philadelphia and Delaware County mentions during the same period. (ABC7 New York)
Bottom line on geography. Your point is correct. The winter 2024–25 flap was regional, with the New York Bight and Long Island South Shore forming a continuous maritime–coastal observation corridor with the Jersey Shore.
The federal record
Resolved or strongly re‑attributed cases. A May 2025 Reason article summarized a TSA internal presentation dated December 17, 2024, that deconflicted three headliner New Jersey cases as normal air traffic, and a “gray mist” as wingtip condensation from a Baron 58 in turbulence. The article reports mapped flight logs and diagrams that aligned witnesses’ descriptions with aircraft geometry, especially on head‑on approaches and shoreline turns that simulate hovering or pacing. This analysis is consistent with known night‑sky misperception effects. (Reason.com)
Unsettled claims. The Coast Guard pursuit remains contested, as do some multi‑object formations reported over water with lights that appeared to go dark. Federal statements emphasize lawful aircraft and authorization but did not publish sensor‑time overlays for every window and location. Those gaps sustain the residual core that researchers like Nightcrawler and Skywatcher seek to interrogate with instruments. (App)
Policy posture. On December 12, Reuters reported that the White House, FBI, and DHS had no evidence of a national security or public safety threat, and on January 28 the White House said the drones were authorized by the FAA for research and that many others were hobbyist flights. That sequence reduced perceived threat but left operator identities and mission profiles opaque. (Reuters)
Technical and methodological notes
Coastal geometry and illusions. Over water at night, range and depth cues are sparse. A head‑on JFK approach or a holding S‑turn over the New York Bight can present as a stationary or pacing light to an observer near Sea Girt, Sandy Hook, or Fire Island. This effect likely contributed to the New York and New Jersey perception that lights approached from the ocean, lingered, then moved inland. The TSA slide synopsis reported by Reason is a model for how to test such claims by overlaying flight tracks on witness sightlines. (Reason.com)
What would settle the Coast Guard case. Precise timestamped logs from the USCG boat, paired with ADS‑B and radar near the southern JFK arrival gates, would allow a rigorous test. Absent that, the case stays in the Disputed category. (App)
Value of instrumented civilian research. The Nightcrawler paper’s attention to X‑band radar geometry, multispectral optics, and data logging is exactly what can elevate coastal UAP claims beyond testimony. Skywatcher’s public taxonomy and interviews point in the same direction. The next step is to share raw datasets with calibration notes so independent teams can attempt falsification. (SCIRP)
Recommendations
• Publish deconfliction artifacts early. The TSA overlays described by Reason show how to reduce anxiety and focus attention on true unknowns. (Reason.com)
• Stand up a coastal watch grid in the New York Bight with time‑synced optics, RF, and ADS‑B capture. Treat the corridor from Monmouth to Fire Island as a single air–sea observation space.
• Establish a regional ledger for NJ–NY–PA that stores raw files and synchronized overlays, with a public “resolved or not” status that updates as new correlations are made.
References
ABC7NY. (2024, December 11). New Jersey mayors, police and lawmakers hold special meeting about drones. (ABC7 New York)
ABC7NY. (2024, December 20). Here is where drone flying is now restricted in New York. (ABC7 New York)
ABC News. (2024, December 5). Mysterious drone interfered with medevac helicopter in New Jersey [Video]. (ABC News)
ABC News. (2025, January 28). Leavitt reveals NJ drones authorized by FAA. (ABC News)
Asbury Park Press. (2024, December 10). 50 N.J. drones came in from the ocean, 12 trailed a Coast Guard ship, Smith says. (App)
Asbury Park Press. (2024, December 17). White House says planes followed Coast Guard ship, not drones; N.J. officials disagree. (App)
C‑SPAN user clip. (2025, January 28). White House statement: drones authorized to be flown by FAA [Video excerpt]. (C-SPAN)
Guardian, The. (2024, December 12). Many New Jersey “drones” are manned aircraft flown lawfully, White House says. (The Guardian)
Guardian, The. (2024, December 19). Drones banned in parts of New Jersey for one month unless issued permission. (The Guardian)
NJ Spotlight News on PBS. (2025, January 28). NJ drones were authorized by FAA, White House says [Video]. (PBS)
National UFO Reporting Center. (2024, December 22). The Great “Drone” Flap of 2024. NUFORC. (NUFORC)
Politico. (2025, January 28). “This was not the enemy”: White House says New Jersey drones were authorized. (Politico)
Reason. (2025, May 9). What the feds knew about the New Jersey drone scare. (Reason.com)
Reuters. (2024, December 12). FBI, White House find no evidence of security threat in New Jersey drone sightings. (Reuters)
Reuters. (2024, December 19). FAA banning drone flights over critical infrastructure locations in New Jersey. (Reuters)
Skywatcher Technologies. (2025). Classification system and media appearances. (Skywatcher)
Tedesco, J. J., & Tedesco, G. T. (2024). Eye on the sky: A UAP research and field study off New York’s Long Island coast. Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 14(8), 2267–2295. (SCIRP)
NewsNation. (2024–2025). Brothers use technology to track UAPs [Video features on Nightcrawler]. (YouTube)
NewsNation. (Oct. 2025). Reality Check: New Jersey Drone Mystery Deepens—Reporters Witness Unnerving Sightings | Backscroll. (YouTube)
The War Zone. (2024, December 11). Coast Guard ship stalked by unidentified aircraft; “Iran mothership” claim shot down by DoD. (The War Zone)
ABC News. (2024, December 17). Mystery drones in New Jersey, New York: A timeline of what officials have said. (ABC News)
ABC News. (2024, December 9). Mysterious drone sightings expanding from New Jersey into Philadelphia area [Video]. (ABC News)
Claims Taxonomy
Verified
- FAA imposed one‑month TFRs across 22 New Jersey locations, then 30 New York restrictions including Long Island on December 20, 2024. (Reuters)
- Federal briefings in mid December said there was no confirmed threat and that many reports were manned aircraft or lawful operations. (Reuters)
- In January 2025 the White House said the drones were authorized by the FAA for research and various other reasons, with many hobbyist flights. (ABC News)
- Media‑documented instrumented fieldwork on Long Island by the Tedesco brothers and their Nightcrawler mobile lab, including a methods paper. (SCIRP)
Probable
- NUFORC provides valuable contemporaneous clustering of public reports and videos, which is useful for prioritizing correlation work even though many entries lack multi‑sensor corroboration. (NUFORC)
- The winter wave was regional and centered on a maritime–coastal corridor linking the Jersey Shore to Long Island. ABC7NY’s reports and the New York TFRs support this. (ABC7 New York)
- Skywatcher conducted serious fieldwork with a public taxonomy and multiple interviews, although raw data sufficient for independent falsification have not been broadly released. (YouTube)
- Coast Guard pursuit off Ocean County on December 8. Rep. Smith relayed the unit’s account of a trailing swarm of 20 or more lights; the White House later attributed the lights to airliners inbound to JFK, which is unlikely. Without synchronized sensor releases, the case remains contested but probable. (App)
Disputed
- NUFORC’s blanket assertion that “not a single one of these craft has been identified” conflicts with later federal deconfliction of several headline New Jersey incidents to manned aircraft and atmospheric effects. The discrepancy reflects timing and different evidentiary standards. (NUFORC)
Legend
- Claims of a single foreign “mothership” orchestrating the wave were publicly rejected by the Pentagon and do not align with the December and January federal assessments. (Reuters)
Misidentification
- Multiple New Jersey episodes, including the medevac diversion and shoreline “hovering” impressions, appear to be aircraft alignment and approach‑pattern illusions, plus atmospheric effects such as wingtip condensation. (Reason.com)
Speculation labels
Hypothesis
A subset of coastal observations involved long‑endurance fixed‑wing or hybrid platforms operating under waivers for research, mapping, or test purposes in coastal security boxes. This would align with the January 2025 authorization statement and with persistent coastal sighting heat maps. Testing this requires operator logs or FOIA documentation matched against sighting heat maps from NJ and Long Island. (ABC News)
Witness interpretation
Civilians, expert coastal observers, including USCG crews, interpreted close‑range pacing and formation‑like behavior as swarms of 20 or more objects. Given nighttime over‑water viewing conditions and head‑on arrival paths into JFK, ordinary airliners can produce such impressions, but not of this magnitude. (App)
Researcher opinion
The New York Bight is the key seam where lawful traffic, authorized test activity, and outlier targets are hardest to separate. Public release of minute‑synchronized overlays during a flap would preserve public trust and let investigators concentrate on a small, high‑value unknown core. (Reason.com)
SEO keywords
New Jersey–New York UAP flap 2024–25, Coast Guard drone testimony Barnegat Light, Island Beach State Park UAP, FAA temporary flight restrictions Long Island, Skywatcher Technologies Jake Barber James Fowler, Nightcrawler Research Tedesco brothers Long Island, New York Bight UAP corridor, JFK approach illusion Sea Girt, White House FAA authorization drones New Jersey, TSA slide deck Reason medevac deconfliction.