Clip showing ‘unidentified drone’ in New Jersey is digitally created

A clip has been widely shared on social media with claims it shows “an unidentified drone” spotted over New Jersey in the US. 

But this footage has been digitally created and does not show a real drone. 

One Facebook post sharing the clip, which shows a drone flying above what appears to be a city, has 26,000 views. The caption says: “I have made this as clear and stable as possible, An unidentified drone is spotted flying at low altitude somewhere over NewJersey [sic]”. The clip has also beenshared elsewhere on Facebook, YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) with similar captions. 

While there have been recent reports of drone sightings in New Jersey, as well as other US states, this particular footage is not real. 

The clip was shared on TikTok last week with the caption noting: “This video was created digitally.” The account that shared the clip says in its bio: “Mixed reality”, and has shared many other videos of drones and aircraft with notes identifying them as “digitally created”. 

What is happening in New Jersey?

A joint statement on 17 December from multiple US agencies (the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense and Federal Aviation Administration) said the FBI had received more than “5,000 reported drone sightings in the last few weeks” and was investigating around 100 leads with support from state and local officials. 

The statement said the agencies had not identified “anything anomalous” and that the drone activity to date did not “present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast.”

It added that their assessment of “technical data” found the sightings were a combination of lawful commercial, hobbyist and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars.

The statement goes on to say that drone sightings over military facilities and restricted air space in New Jersey and elsewhere are “not new” and “mitigation measures are in place”.  

This is not the first time we’ve seen digitally created content being shared as if it’s genuine, including a recent image supposedly showing a prisoner found underground in Syria that was actually from a video created with artificial intelligence. We’ve also seen many instances of graphics from the Arma 3 military simulation game circulating as if it shows real conflict scenes. 

It’s important to check whether something genuinely shows what it seems to before sharing online. Our guides on spotting AI-generated images, as well as deepfake video and audio, offer some tips on how to do this.