The White House said Monday that recent reports of drone sightings across the northeastern US, including New Jersey and New York, involve a mix of commercial drones, hobbyist activity and even misidentified objects such as stars.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the FBI has received approximately 5,000 tips regarding drone sightings in recent weeks, with about 100 cases warranting further investigation.
The federal government is supporting state and local officials in investigating these reports, Kirby told reporters during a webinar, noting that additional detection technologies and trained visual observers have been deployed to the region.
"Having closely examined the data, having closely looked at the tips and collated them as best we can from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones," he said.
"We have not identified anything anomalous or any national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the Northeast. The work continues.
"But I want to stress again: our assessment at this stage is that the activity represents commercial, hobbyist, or law enforcement drones, all operating legally and lawfully and or civilian aviation aircraft, as we continue to work through the leads that are out there," Kirby added.
Kirby also said that more than 1 million drones are registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with thousands of commercial, hobbyist and law enforcement drones operating lawfully across the US.
