Until November I lived within 10 miles of that reported encounter. I think it’s a mass hysteria, people who rarely ever look at the night sky are going out and seeing benign normal stuff. But some real sightings of private or government drones may have sparked it. US government or foreign.
I'm in the UK we had something happening over some air bases but nothing like what they are describing or the footage looks like. I can believe mass hysteria, the mind is extremely powerful.
The pine barrens area is as remote as you can be in New Jersey and has a history of mysterious folklore and a prior hysteria around 1900 involving numerous reports of a “Jersey devil.” Similar to spring heeled jack.