Drone sightings merit a more urgent response

It's been a month since reports began coming in about waves of mysterious drones appearing in the night skies over the East Coast.

Eyewitnesses have posted more than 5,000 videos and other accounts of such sightings. Most are centered on the New Jersey area, but unusual drone activity has popped up in Ohio, California and elsewhere.

Is this the work of Iran, China, Russia or another one of our enemies who are on an espionage mission testing our vulnerability to a high-tech aerial attack?

Are they cases of mistaken identity? Some of the more closely scrutinized sightings have turned out to be manned airplanes and helicopters that mass contagion has turned into "mystery drones."

Or are these sightings a reflection of the increased use of drones for commercial and recreational purposes?

We don't know the answer, and that's more worrisome than the drones themselves.

The Biden administration has had four weeks to figure out what's going on, but has shown little interest in doing so.

The chronically feckless Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assures us the drones are not being launched from an Iranian mothership off the Atlantic Coast, as has been rumored. He brushes off concerns from local officials and members of Congress, suggesting what's being seen is normal activity that is getting undue attention because of public hysteria.

Former New Jersey Gov. Christ Christie rejects that explanation, saying the secretary is "just wrong."

"I lived in New Jersey my whole life," Christie says. "This is the first time that I noticed drones over my house.”

Until Mayorkas and other officials can tell us what the drones are, they can't say for certain what they aren't.

Even if there's nothing sinister behind the increased drone activity, it has had a deleterious effect.

The giant Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was forced to shut down for four hours over the weekend due to intense drone activity in the region. The base is a critical piece of the nation's air defense network.

An airport in Orange County, New York, also had to close briefly because of drones in its airspace.

And two men were arrested for operating unauthorized drones near Boston's Logan International Airport. If nothing else, the threat such a heavy drone presence presents to commercial air traffic merits a serious response.

Federal officials say they will increase surveillance and analysis of the drone sightings in hopes of producing a definitive answer, perhaps this week. Congress has been promised a briefing by Mayorkas.

But four weeks have already gone by without determining whether the drone sightings are legitimate, and if so, if they are a national security threat.

That's the same lack of urgency the Biden administration exhibited when the Chinese weather and/or spy balloon was allowed to drift unmolested across the full length of the country before being shot down.

If nothing else, what's been exposed already is a vulnerability to unconventional attacks on the homeland. And while our enemies may not be responsible for what's currently happening above our heads, they now know that if they should decide to get frisky with drones or balloons our skies are wide open.

Nolan Finley is the editorial page editor of The Detroit News.