What’s the truth about the New Jersey drone sightings?

What is going on with the drones buzzing over New Jersey in the United States? Reportedly ‘the size of cars’, sometimes flying low in formation, these mysterious semi-identified flying objects have been sighted in their thousands every night – and only at night – for weeks. They might not even be drones. Are they alien spaceships? Are they from Russia or China? Are they just planes? Are they even anything at all?

I’ve watched a number of videos purporting to show these invaders. ‘What is that thing? It’s freaking huge!’ one awestruck observer can be heard over footage of what looks like a commercial passenger jet. 

But am I seeing what I want to see, trying to fit the world back into its accepted normality as I see it? Not so long ago, I would have had no doubt that this was an outbreak of the kind of mania that seizes parts of the human race, and the media, from time to time.