TOM LEONARD: Why were firefighters told by officials to don hazmat suits as dozens of mystery drones buzzed over military bases across America?

They are as loud as lawn mowers and as big as a large car, only appearing after dark and being captured on blurry videos that have gone viral on social media.

And they have managed to upset Americans who don’t expect to see mysterious flying objects in their airspace that even the Pentagon can’t explain.

Not since a startlingly realistic 1938 Orson Welles radio adaptation of HG Wells’ The War Of The Worlds convinced thousands of listeners that a Martian invasion was actually taking place, there has been so much concern – and confusion – about unidentified flying objects over the US.

The sightings started over New Jersey almost a month ago and have since spread to other parts of the US.

The first confirmations that they were drones reassured the more superstitious that they were not at least alien and carrying little green men.

Then, last Thursday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby complicated the picture when he told reporters that images suggested many of the reported sightings were actually manned aircraft.

The consensus, however, is that America is being overrun by dozens of drones – but who sent them, where from and why remains tantalizingly mysterious.

Critics have urged the US government to say what it knows as soon as possible.”

Mysterious drone sightings across the country,” Trump complained on social media.

“Can this really happen without the knowledge of our government? I don’t think so! Let the public know, now. Otherwise, shoot them!’

The alarm bells have been fueled by claims, including from politicians, that one of America’s enemies – China, Russia or Iran – is responsible and may launch squadrons of the invaders from ships lurking at sea.

Theories are circulating on sites such as Facebook that these are alien UFOs that the US government is keeping secret.

Other conspirators have latched onto a possibly even more bizarre theory: Project Blue Beam, which maintains that NASA, the US space agency, is working with global elites to establish a single world religion led by the Antichrist so they can easily control everyone. on the planet.

Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist who has been to Trump’s Florida home Mar-a-Lago and is reportedly advising him on his second term in the White House, wrote on d.

“The drones are Project Blue Beam. Look for videos of them turning orbs into airplanes while filming and see for yourself.”

The first sightings occurred on November 18 near New Jersey’s Raritan River, which flows into the Round Valley Reservoir, the largest in the state, about 50 miles from New York City.

Within days, the reports had spread to other parts of New Jersey, where officials said they had received more than 3,000 calls about sightings in just 48 hours.

A New Jersey mayor stoked panic after revealing that his fire department had been instructed by state officials to wear hazmat suits in case the objects crashed.

Concerns grew when part of the device was spotted near Picatinny Arsenal – a military research facility dedicated to robotics research.

They were also seen around key infrastructure such as power lines, railway and police stations and an emergency communications centre.

The objects were generally larger than those used by amateur drone hobbyists: low-flying and nocturnal.

They often flew in groups and made a loud buzzing noise, some with rotors, others with fixed wings, and were of a sophistication rarely seen outside the military.

The New Jersey sightings prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ban drones from flying over Picatinny Arsenal and another potentially sensitive spot where they had been spotted: Donald Trump’s golf course in the New Jersey town of Bedminister.

The ban was later extended to military facilities in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Still, government officials and politicians assured the public that they posed no threat to the people. And yet, if they were so confident, some wondered, why didn’t they say who served them or why?

Local police admitted they were in the dark, and a concerned senior officer issued a statement saying that while the drones did not pose an “imminent threat,” they did appear “nefarious in nature.”

Other officers described them as “unlike anything we’ve seen before” and undetectable on radar.

The FBI has asked people to report any sightings through a tip line. Around the same time in late November, the US Air Force confirmed that unidentified drones were spotted over three US air bases in Britain: RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk and RAF Feltwell in Norfolk.

Soldiers were sent to investigate and British defense sources said they suspected these were at least the work of a foreign ‘state actor’.

Earlier this month, drones were also spotted over the huge US Ramstein air base in southwestern Germany.

Back in the US, unexplained drone sightings have spread beyond New Jersey to neighboring states such as Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York.

In Maryland, the state’s former governor, Larry Hogan, claimed he saw “dozens near his home 25 miles from Washington, DC.”

“Like many who have observed these drones, I am unsure whether this increased activity over our airspace poses a threat to public safety or national security,” he said.

“But the public is increasingly concerned and frustrated about the federal government’s complete lack of transparency and dismissive attitude.”

In New York, there have been unconfirmed reports of drone sightings over La Guardia Airport, while another airport 50 miles north of the city had to be closed due to drone activity.

The US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are downplaying the concerns.

And yet, disturbingly for skeptics, the federal government is better at saying what the objects are not than what they are.

Last week, the Pentagon was forced to deny claims – from including Jeff Van Drew, a US congressman for New Jersey – that Iran had stationed an ‘enemy mothership’ off the east coast from where it is now releasing the drones.

He said: ‘We are not told the truth. They treat the American public like we’re stupid.”

However, the Pentagon insisted there was “no truth” to the Iranian mothership theory and that the initial assessment was that the drones did not come from a “foreign entity or adversary.”

Since the Pentagon has also said that the drones are not controlled by the US military, there are either some mischievous amateur drone enthusiasts trying to scare everyone that the aliens have arrived (again) – or the US government is running very fast behind in its assessment of the enemy’s capabilities. .