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BY THOMAS L. KNAPP

On Wednesday, Dec. 18, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an alert banning drone flights over parts of New Jersey through Jan. 17 for unspecified “Special Security Reasons.”

The unspecified actual reason is lots of people getting creeped out because they believe they’re seeing lots of drones hovering over the state at night.

There’s an element of panic here, and panic tends to spread and get silly.

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan took his panic public, only to get told that the “drones” he thought he saw over his house were probably, you know, stars – the constellation Orion.

New Jersey congressman Jeff Van Drew babbled about “circumstantial evidence that there’s an Iranian mothership off the East Coast of the United States, and that’s launching these drone incursions,” a claim Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh denied, probably right after spewing coffee all over her desk and rolling around on the floor unable to speak without laughing for awhile.

Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, so well-known for her calm demeanor and sharp analytical skills, announced that she’s ready to “shoot the drones down myself along with every other red-blooded, freedom-loving American.”

Some otherwise non-politician normal (but I repeat myself) New Jerseyans apparently made it their whole lives without noticing that airplanes use the sky before seeing 737s on approach to Newark Liberty International and thinking “drones.”

But yeah, there are probably quite a few real drones involved at this point. Some of them may even be up to no good. But every drone hobbyist in the state is probably having a few good laughs at the panicked public every night over a few beers.

In a rare moment of calm and lucidity, President-elect Donald Trump tried to shut down the idea that the drones – real and imagined – are some kind of attack on the U.S. The government may not want to issue a clear statement on what’s happening for some reason, he says, but “I can’t imagine it’s the enemy, because if it was the enemy, they’d blast it.”

Maybe it’s just a bunch of civilian drones and a bunch of things being mistaken for drones.

Maybe the aliens are finally here in force, hoping to find and rescue their lost explorer, the Jersey Devil.

Maybe the Iranians or al-Qaida or the Judean People’s Front managed to build a “mothership,” park it off the eastern seaboard and launch multiple large drone incursions, all  without attracting the notice of the world’s leading surveillance state.

Maybe it’s a U.S. government operation of some kind – dangerous or harmless, necessary or pure money-waster – that’s “classified” because reasons.

Who knows?

The only thing we can be sure of is that an FAA notice won’t put a stop to it.

(Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism. He lives and works in north central Florida.)