JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The mysterious drone sightings in New York and New Jersey have landed in Jacksonville after a teen spotted a questionable aircraft in the sky.
Ava Ludwig noticed something out of the ordinary on the drive home with her mom Thursday night.
“I thought it was a star,” she said. “But [my mom] was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s totally one those drones that we’ve been hearing about.”
Ludwig has a family member who lives in New Jersey who said she’d seen the mysterious drones there.
“That would be an absolutely crazy coincidence if it was,” Ludwig said. “I started digging a little more into it and just looking at the videos and looking online and seeing what other news outlets have posted. I don’t know exactly what to think of it.”
News4JAX aviation expert Ed Booth said the sightings could be a sheriff’s helicopter or a medevac helicopter.
Drone regulations require that the operator stays in the line of sight of the drone. They also have to stay below 400 feet.
Booth is not convinced what Ludwig saw was a drone.
“You see those are the two wing tips. The wing tips have strobe lights on them. That’s either a training airplane, an airliner on approach to Jackson International, yeah, to be any number of things, it’s not a drone,” he said while watching Ludwig’s video.
Booth also said the military does operate unmanned drones that are the size of small commuter jets, but it’s also not likely that’s what was in the sky Thursday night.
While it’s unclear what was flying in the sky, Ludwig and her mom weren’t the only ones in Jacksonville who saw it.
"There’s so many theories flying around about it, but I guess hopefully more will come out, and hopefully more people saw it. Maybe got some other videos or angles," Ludwig said.