Nearly every video I’ve seen of the initial sightings has been of conventional aircraft mistaken for drones. After that, there have been many hoaxes and random sightings that have nothing to do with New Jersey. To make matters worse, a House committee on border security shoehorned in an FBI deputy director to comment on what is happening in NJ. His honest answer was, “I really don’t know.”

This, I think, is the most significant UFO flap of the smartphone age. We’re seeing tons of digitally compressed, artifact-laden shots on Twitter and Facebook of objects that lack context or perspective. Then, all the follow-up news is full of panic-mongering. I’ve been comparing it to the rash of Jersey Devil sightings in 1937 across south Jersey and the Philadelphia region, which even involved local police taking pot shots at the devil with a tommygun.

For example, a local PA Patch outlet posted a story listing three sightings of drones in the Philly region.

One is probably a plane.

One could be a drone, but the video is so terrible, who can tell. (And even if it was a drone, who cares? Hobbyists fly drones at night).

One, taken Dec. 8, is clearly Jupiter and Venus. The cameraman occasionally shoots it through a tree. Still, the object is stationary and does the weird color-changing thing when you digitally zoom in on Jupiter or Venus. (Yes, those planets were out on that date)

I should probably catalog these things, but I don’t really have that much free time, I swear.

Kudos to Mr. Greenstreet here.