A New Jersey mayor has claimed drones spotted over the state are "looking for something" - and believes it is "missing radioactive material". Belleville Mayor Michael Melham has sparked a new theory that the lights and drones spotted above Essex County are looking for "radioactive material." He told Fox's Good Day New York: "What might they be looking for? Maybe that's radioactive material. It was a shipment. It arrived at its destination. The container was damaged, and it was empty.".
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this week issued an alert stating a piece of medical equipment used for cancer scans was "lost in transit" on December 2. The item, a Eckert & Ziegler model HEGL-013, was being shipped from the Nazha Cancer Centre in Newfield in Gloucester County in southern New Jersey.
The item contains a tiny amount of the radioactive chemical Germanium-68. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s scale, it is “very unlikely to cause permanent injury to individuals or contain a very small amount of radioactive material that would not cause any permanent injury.”.
It comes after a large number of mysterious drones have been reported flying over New Jersey and across the eastern US sparking speculation and concern over where they came from and why. New Jersey Govenor Phil Murphy and U.S. Sen. Andy Kim have both gone out on drone hunts, hoping for answers. The FBI, Homeland Security, state police and other agencies are investigating.
Murphy and law enforcement officials have stressed that the drones don’t appear to be a threat to public safety, but many state and municipal lawmakers have nonetheless called for stricter rules about who can fly the unmanned aircraft — and to be allowed to shoot them out of the sky.
