Rumors about the cause of reported drone sightings in New York state and several other locations in the Northeast abounded toward the end of 2024.
Around Dec. 14, claims (archived) began to circulate (archived) that high radiation levels in New York City were related to the drone sightings. X user @CaptCoronado wrote: "Alert: Radiation levels in NYC are spiking!! This is related to the drones!!"
(X user @CaptCoronado)
On Dec. 18, British tabloid the Daily Mail reported on high radiation figures registered in the Bronx and on the Upper West Side. The Mail used figures from the Geiger Counter World Map, a site for user submissions of readings from customers with GQ Electronics Geiger counters.
The report said the raised radioactivity levels had fueled "conspiracy theories that the drones terrorizing the Northeast are searching for a missing nuclear warhead."
The theory in question originated on the TikTok account of John Ferguson, CEO of Saxon Unmanned, a manufacturer of custom remote aircraft systems. With statements like "My belief is they're trying to smell something on the ground: gas leaks, radioactive material, whatever," Ferguson tied drone sightings to theories of lost nuclear warheads, heavily suggesting those were what the reported drones were looking for.
However, official figures from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not corroborate those from the Geiger Counter World Map and showed no notable spike in radiation levels in New York City on Dec. 18. We reached out to government agencies including the Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Administration for their comments on Ferguson's lost nuclear warhead theory but found no proof in our initial research to support his claims. Hence, while the numbers the Mail report was based on were uncorroborated, we cannot rule out that there is a connection between drone sightings and radioactivity levels. Therefore, we have not applied a rating to this claim.
As reported drone sightings rose from 3,000 on Dec. 10 to more than 5,000 on Dec. 15, U.S. government sources had yet to publish details about a single verified sighting. Officials repeatedly said no threats to public safety have been found. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Dec. 19 that authorities in New York had not detected "any public safety or national security threats" in relation to reported drone sightings. On Dec. 16, the FBI and other agencies said that investigated drone sightings to date were found to be "lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones."
Reported Radiation Spikes Not Corroborated by EPA Numbers
Numbers from the Geiger Counter World Map played a central role in these latest claims about drone activity in New York City. The map is based on user submissions. Owners of GQ Electronics Geiger counters can run the company's software to extract data from their units to submit to the map.
GQ Electronics said via email on Dec. 21 that there had been "malicious data posting" on the Geiger Counter World Map in the past week. It added that website data was not officially verified, though, generally, "data with station name and automatically uploaded data" were more likely to be authentic. Neither of the NYC readings had this data.
The numbers reported in the Mail article, 1,048 counts per minute near the Bronx and 175 CPM on the Upper West Side, could still be seen on the Geiger Counter World Map iPhone app on Dec. 19 (below). However, there was no indication as to when these readings were submitted or what time frame they covered. It was also not possible to contact the person who submitted the readings through the app or website.
According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "depending on the elevation and the type of Geiger counter, a typical natural background radiation level is anywhere from five to 60 counts per minute or more."
(Screenshots from GMCMap App) — Taken Dec. 19 at 4 p.m. ET.
The EPA also monitors radiation levels in the US. According to its dashboard, gamma radiation levels at its New York City monitoring station never exceeded 0.0062 milliroentgen per hour on Dec. 18. According to the EPA, this is within the range for typical terrestrial exposure.
Though the two results are not directly comparable — counts per minute do not measure a specific type of radiation and are generally a less accurate measurement than milliroentgen per hour — the EPA's results found that radiation levels in New York City on Dec. 18 were within a typical range.
We also reached out to the New York Department of Health to ask if it had received reports of high radiation levels in New York City on Dec. 18. We will update this report if we receive responses.
Snopes has published several pieces on sightings of drones in the U.S., including our latest explainer and several videos allegedly showing drones in New Jersey.