The assertion that drones were deployed in New Jersey to search for missing radioactive material has been debunked. A social media post on December 16 suggested that military drones were being used to locate a radioactive isotope that had gone missing in the state. However, this claim is false. The New Jersey agency responsible for recovering the substance confirmed that drones were not employed in the search. The first sightings of drones in the area occurred two weeks before the incident involving the missing material.
The post featured an image of a report from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission detailing the disappearance of a small amount of germanium-68 from a shipping container in New Jersey. While the post insinuated drone involvement in the search, officials have clarified that this information is unfounded. According to Caryn Shinske of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, no drones were used to locate the missing isotope.
The germanium-68 was eventually located at a FedEx facility on December 10 and returned to its manufacturer in Tennessee. The state agency filed a report with the federal commission on December 5, and the case was officially closed on December 17. Germanium-68 is commonly used in medical imaging and nuclear medicine studies.
In summary, the claim of drones being deployed in the search for the missing radioactive material in New Jersey is inaccurate, as confirmed by official sources.
The object, measuring 6 inches in length and 1.5 millimeters in diameter, as indicated by Caryn Shinske, has been categorized in the report as falling below Category 3 on the radioactive scale. This classification denotes that it is deemed “very unlikely” to result in permanent injury, according to the document. USA TODAY has previously addressed and discredited unfounded assertions that a Pentagon spokesperson had validated the presence of drones from space, along with a purported image depicting a downed drone in Alabama. In an effort to verify these claims, USA TODAY reached out to numerous individuals on social media who had propagated the narrative, yet they did not provide immediate responses. Furthermore, PolitiFact has debunked a variant of this claim.
Our sources for fact-checking include Caryn Shinske, through an email exchange with USA TODAY on December 19, as well as Neil Sheehan, also via email exchange on the same date. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued Event Notification Reports for December 12 and December 18, 2024. Additionally, NJ.com has refuted the notion that drones are scouring New Jersey for nuclear material, dispelling the latest conspiracy theory. ABC News, on December 17, confirmed that drones were not engaged in tracking missing radioactive material in New Jersey, while NBC News reported sightings of drones in New Jersey and other states, providing the latest updates on the situation. The National Archives, accessed on December 19, offers insights from the Code of Federal Regulations.
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