Or...
They are from some type of easily monitored/taken out Iranian controlled cargo type vessel and the black hats are conveniently giving it a pass.
The Iranians are close to being in a corner. Their ME strategy is in the toilet, Israel has pounded them, all of their FOBs in Syria and Lebanon are in chaos, and they want payback for Sulemani and to chalk up a big “win” on the board for their side.
They have some decent drone tech, they absolutely have sympathizers and same goals people in our government AND military.
It would be a pretty cheap “hail mary pass” for them to put together 1 or 2 seaborne units off the east coast that are essentially drone carriers. Modded container or bulk carriers fitted out as off the shelf cheap UAV aircraft carriers. Key is sympathetic players here in the US (of which there are job lots in important positions. Don’t see that, look over there, hey there’s a squirrel etc...)
Unit 1 fly’s probing and testing runs over a relatively high density east coast area to gauge response and visibility. This goes on for several weeks.
Unit 2 lays low. Maybe some practice/test flights over open water. But they hold off, because their strike is on January 20...
I saw in the last few months a large space weapon looking item that produces an EMF pulse that can take out drones. What I can’t figure out on this story is why someone hasn’t utilized one of those to at least take one down and be able to ascertain origin, design, etc
Course we can also intercept the signals and pinpoint where signals to guide the thing are coming from- so it’s more likely that we are using their own tech against them to gather details on the owner’s ops/methods.