The drone hysteria is a glimpse of the future

If, like me, you live in the Northeast, you’ve likely found it impossible to escape the story of the month.

No, not the killing of a major healthcare executive on the streets of midtown Manhattan.

No, not the sudden and entirely unforeseen collapse of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the end to the more than decade-long Syrian civil war.

I am talking, of course, about the drones. Since mid-November, people have reported seeing swarms of drones — which can range from 6 inches to more than 6 feet or larger — around the region, first in northern New Jersey, and then in surrounding states. Politicians like incoming New Jersey Senator Andy Kim took to social media over the weekend to describe their own drone hunts, while the federal government received thousands of tips about drone sightings.

Any time large numbers of people begin thinking they’re seeing things in the sky, it’s only a matter of time before conspiracy theories start bubbling up. The drones were a foreign intelligence operation, spying on military bases and even President-elect Donald Trump’s golf club in New Jersey. Or they were part of a covert surveillance operation by our own military. Or they were a simulated alien invasion being staged by our own government to lay the groundwork for a world dictatorship. Or they were actual aliens.

(A word on aliens: As my former Axios colleague, the space reporter Miriam Kramer, was fond of saying: It’s not aliens. It’s never aliens. Stop saying it’s aliens.)

The real answer, at least if national security officials are to be believed, is much more quotidian. On Monday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that most of the reports weren’t drones at all, but rather regular, piloted aircraft taking off or landing at night at one of the region’s many major airports. Others were either small aircraft or just run-of-the-mill commercial drones.

“We have not identified anything anomalous or any national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace of New Jersey or other states in the Northeast,” said Kirby. In other words, nothing to see here citizens, all is well.

Of course, if you’re someone who believes The Truth Is Out There™, your concerns are unlikely to be assuaged by the word of a G-man. But it’s true both that people can easily misjudge how big things are in the night sky — especially a plane with bright landing lights — and that we can all be subject to a kind of mass hysteria.

Once news and social media reports have primed us to think that there may be squadrons of drones out there, we’re much more likely to see something in the night sky and think “drone” instead of “the overnight flight to Heathrow.” That’s especially true if the objects in question can be perceived as a threat (like supposed foreign military drones or alien landing craft).

But while this month’s mystery may be solved, this won’t be the last time we’ll look to the sky and become convinced it’s swarming with drones. That’s because there are a lot of drones out there, and their numbers are only going to increase.

As the government itself said in its investigation of the sightings, there are more than 1 million registered drones in the US, and there are “thousands of commercial, hobbyist and law enforcement drones lawfully in the sky on any given day.” Those numbers don’t count beginner drones under 250 grams, which don’t have to be regulated.

Today you can buy out-of-the-box small, beginner drones for as little as $50, and professional drones for uses like advanced photography for $5,000 or less. And if you’re flying your more basic drone for recreational purposes, you don’t even need a license, though you will need what’s known as a Part 107 license if you are using your drone for commercial purposes, like land surveying or taking photos of real estate.

The reality is that we are only beginning to wake up to just how thoroughly ubiquitous drones will change the skies and change our lives. Beyond putting unprecedented surveillance tools that the Stasi would have dreamed of in everyday citizen’s hands, we’re poised to experience an increase in delivery by drones. Amazon Prime Air has been expanding its efforts on drone delivery in cities like Phoenix and College Station, Texas, while Wing and Zipline are partnering with Wal-Mart to deliver goods in Dallas-Fort Worth. And companies like DroneUp are experimenting with software that could support autonomous drone operations, which would significantly increase the potential for widespread drone delivery.

On balance, that’s a good thing. The huge increase in e-delivery at home has led to a growing number of Amazon and FedEx trucks filling up urban roads, leading to more congestion and pollution — something that becomes particularly noticeable during the holiday season. Replacing at least some of that with delivery by air would clear out traffic for those of us who still need to navigate the world on the ground.

But a world where the number of drones increases significantly would be one that looks and feels very different — as different as the sudden appearance of automobiles and trucks on the roads must have felt a century ago.

In fact, that historical example is a decent analog for what we’re in the process of experiencing with drones. The Farmers’ Anti-Automobile Society proposed laws that would require drivers to send up rockets, cover their cars with blankets or even disassemble them if horses were nearby. Vermont actually passed a law that required a person to walk in front of a car, waving a red flag — presumably to warn any passersby to not get too close to the horseless carriage.

Obviously we eventually got over our fear of cars, to the point where it’s now attempts to restrict their use that tend to create public opposition. It’s possible, even likely, that the same transition will eventually happen with drones. (We’ll know for sure when we start seeing angry politicians going on TV, decrying laws that would constrain Americans’ God-given right to fly their drones wherever they please.)

But until we get to that place, things are likely to feel weird — which is precisely the kind of psychological place that can lead to thousands of people becoming convinced they’re surrounded by drone swarms. And drones are different. Cars still needed roads, which gave the government a simple way to control where they could go. Drones, though, can navigate through three-dimensional space. They can look over walls, trespass over public property. Their size makes them difficult to keep track of, or even to trace back to their owners. And like other forms of technology, they will get cheaper and better — able to fly longer distances and avoid obstacles. They are inherently more difficult for the state to control.

And while cars are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths per year, it is drones that have already been transformed into actual weapons of war. The conflict in Ukraine has become defined by the use of drones for everything from reconnaissance to active killing. In the Ukrainian city of Kherson, there have been thousands of attacks by small drones that are actively hunting civilians, killing dozens of people. The dystopian future of autonomous weapons prophesied by films like Slaughterbots is all but here, in Ukraine. That is terrifying.

What’s been happening all along the Northeast isn’t a foreign invasion or visiting aliens or a secret military project (probably). Instead, it’s a glimpse of a future that’s almost here.

A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here!