Satellite Images: Iran’s Drone Carriers Far From US Amid Drone Mystery

• Mysterious aircraft sightings have been reported around New Jersey lately.
• The unexplained incidents have fueled theories, including that Iran may have launched the systems from a ship.
• Iran does have drone-carrying vessels, but satellite images show they’re far from the US right now.

Newly captured satellite imagery shows that Iran’s drone carriers are off its southern coast, thousands of miles away from the eastern United States.

The images back up the Pentagon’s refutation of a New Jersey lawmaker who suggested that one of the Iranian ships was operating nearby and responsible for the rash of reported drone sightings in the congressman’s state lately.

An image captured on Thursday by Maxar Technologies, a commercial satellite imagery operation, and obtained by Business Insider shows three Iranian vessels that were modified to carry drones in the Persian Gulf off the southern coast of Iran.

Iran’s drone ships aren’t anywhere near the US. There’s been significant hysteria surrounding developments in New Jersey, with some misidentifying crewed aircraft as drones. That doesn’t, however, mean the US doesn’t have a drone problem.

The military has been increasingly concerned about the threat posed by drones, which lower the barrier to entry for surveillance and attack operations, as has been seen in global conflicts and a range of incidents here in the US.

The New Jersey sightings

Since mid-November, dozens of suspected drones have been spotted at night flying over New Jersey, including near several military institutions, raising concern among civilians and state officials and drawing comparisons to similar incidents in other areas.

US Northern Command said that it is “aware and monitoring the reports of unauthorized drone flights in the vicinity of military installations in New Jersey,” including near the Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle.

Meanwhile, a drone swarm was also observed near a US Coast Guard vessel off the Jersey coast, and local police in the state have also detailed incidents around critical infrastructure like water reservoirs and train stations.

The Pentagon assesses the drones are not the work of a foreign adversary or entity, but there does not yet appear to be any explanation for the mysterious incidents, and White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the US has “no evidence” that the reported drone sightings are a national security or public safety threat. He added that the government has not been able to confirm the reported visual sightings and noted that some suspected drones were crewed aircraft operating lawfully.

Amid the confusion about the drones, which have been described as being bigger than hobbyist drones and able to avoid detection, a theory about the reported drones emerged from New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who, citing “very high sources,” said these drones were linked to an Iranian mothership.

“Iran launched a mothership, probably about a month ago, that contains these drones,” the Republican congressman told Fox News on Wednesday, adding that “it’s off the east coast of the United States of America.” He said “they’ve launched drones.”

The Pentagon challenged that theory, saying “there is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there’s no so-called mothership launching drones towards the United States.”

Iranian drone carriers

Iran has turned several container ships into militarized drone carriers in recent years. Satellite imagery revealed that the newest of the vessels, the Shahid Bagheri, had left its berth for the first time by the end of November. There was some speculation the ship was off to sea trials.

Open-source intelligence accounts tracked these ships to Iranian coastal waters as recently as Wednesday. The new satellite images BI obtained show the vessels were still there as of Thursday, contradicting Van Drew’s claims.

He doubled down on Thursday, saying that drones could have been launched from hundreds of miles out at sea. The congressman stressed that the drones could be from another adversarial country like China.

“Here’s the deal,” Van Drews said. “They don’t know what it is. They don’t know what it’s about. They haven’t taken one down to analyze it. They have no idea where it came from.”

“We are not being told the truth,” he said.

The congressman has said that the drones should be shot down. There are real challenges, though, to employing some sort of kinetic or electronic warfare countermeasures in civilian areas. The military has been grappling with this issue.

The military’s drone problem

The reported New Jersey incidents are not a new phenomenon. They are the latest in a series of mysterious drone sightings around sensitive military sites in the US and abroad, from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to RAF Lakenheath in the UK, which hosts American forces and aircraft.

Gen. Gregory Guillot, the commander of Northcom and North American Aerospace Defense Command, said in October that there have been hundreds of drones reported flying over US military installations in recent years.

The general, per reports on the roundtable discussion, said that the threat and the need to counter it are “growing faster” than the military can react from a policy and procedure standpoint.

The Pentagon recently announced a new counter-drone strategy to address the growing threat posed by uncrewed systems operating over American soil and abroad to US installations and troops. Priority is figuring out better ways to defeat the threat.

“The Department is mitigating the potential negative effects of unmanned systems on US forces, assets, and installations — at home and abroad. A critical portion of our efforts, particularly in the near-term, comes from improving our defenses, with an emphasis on detection as well as active and passive defenses. The Department will ensure our forces and priority installations have protection,” the Pentagon said in a fact sheet.

While US officials have said that there is no clear link between the New Jersey incidents and America’s adversaries right now, the developments still highlight concerns over the potential national security implications of drone incursions.

Just this week, for instance, a Chinese citizen and US resident was arrested while preparing to board a China-bound flight after flying a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.