NYPD confiscates drone belonging to renewable fuel company in Brooklyn Naval Yard

New York Police Department officers recovered a huge drone that was left at the Brooklyn Naval Yard. According to The New York Post, the drone was about five feet in diameter and was raised in the air by a police officer.

An email alert notified the NYPD about the presence of the drone that was discovered on the sidewalk on Fifth St. During the investigation, an onlooker said that he was employed in the same building where the drone’s manufacturers are headquartered – Amogy, Inc., a company that promotes the use of ammonia as a renewable fuel that can even be used for some aircraft.

Amogy CEO Seonghoon Woo later acknowledged company ownership of the drone, explaining that it had ended up on the ground after an office party in November. Woo said the drone was unserviceable and had been sitting there for over a month before police found it, according to Post sources. The NYPD used its Emergency Services Unit truck to sever the drone’s nitrogen parts so that it could be moved to the 88th precinct for storage.

Rebecca Weiner, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Counterterrorism and Intelligence, told reporters that the current heightened concerns about drones being sighted in New York and New Jersey could be the result of people just thinking they are more drones in the air than usual.

“What we’ve seen over the past few days here in the city has actually been quite normal, frankly, in terms of the actual drone activity that we see everyday,” she said, declaring that there are about 2,000 drones in the air above New York City during any given week. “You have a really strong uptick in reporting but not a strong uptick in actual drone detection, which makes sense — all people are seeing on the news is drone sightings everywhere,” The Post reported.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have spun a similar line of talking points, releasing a statement on Friday about reports of drone sightings in New Jersey that claimed they have "no evidence" that the drones "pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”