"Mass panic"? Panic is a sudden onset of overwhelming fear and extreme anxiety that can affect many people at once. There is absolutely no evidence of this sort of behavior in any of these drone sightings or in the subsequent response. Such language is thus sheer hyperbole.
Furthermore, much of this article reflects the special interests of drone hobbyists and manufacturers, and not the public interest at large. As someone who considers himself hyper-sensitive regarding any effort to abridge the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, I wouldn't consider tighter regulations over the use of drones, given the obvious threat that they could pose in the hands of rogue actors or even irresponsible hobbyists, to be any more a curtailment of individual liberty than a prohibition against yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is an abridgment of free speech. Clearly there are common sense limits and the public does not need to be conditioned to accept such regulations, especially by means of some elaborate false flag operation conducted by the FAA. To suggest otherwise borders on conspiratorial lunacy.
If we can believe the veracity of the original witnesses and that these flights have stopped, then what has most likely happened is one of two things: 1) the original purpose behind these flights has been achieved and the flight phase of this program has ended; or 2) the flights have drawn too much attention and have been quietly stopped or perhaps relocated.
In either case, I stand by my conviction that - if we can believe the veracity of the original witnesses that there were indeed drone swarms being flown at night - that this is also a highly classified program. Therefore, we will never know the real truth. And within this void, the conspiracy theories will continue to thrive.