It’s hard enough to pick out the lights of an aircraft 5 nm away in the sea of lights surrounding the NYC metro area. I highly doubt they were able to identify

It’s hard enough to pick out the lights of an aircraft 5 nm away in the sea of lights surrounding the NYC metro area. I highly doubt they were able to identify a drone by its lights from up to ‘several miles’ away. Let’s assume they did though. All of the drones I’ve owned have red and green lights. Aircraft typically have red and green lights in addition to white lights facing aft and typically a red beacon and strobes. What’s so different about these lights that they’re able to distinguish them as those of a drone? Isn’t it possible it was a helicopter? A GA aircraft flying VFR? What about the red, green, white lights from a boat? In my experience there have been many times I’ve seen something strange in the sky where my mind wants me to think it was something but in the end I really cannot be sure what it was. There’s been multiple times something has gone whizzing by at cruise or in the terminal area and for all I know it could have been a bird, a drone, a balloon, a kite, etc. Given the report was at night and it’s at an altitude that a drone shouldn’t normally be operating it seems questionable to me whether what they saw was actually a drone. With the recent media attention drones have had around airports I suspect there will be an uptick in reported sightings that likely are not drones at all.