The White House on Dec. 16 addressed the public’s concerns about the mysterious drone sightings in the United States, saying they were lawful aircraft and did not pose a threat to national security.
During a press conference on Monday, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said the government has assessed that the drones were a “combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones and law enforcement drones, as well as fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones.”
“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,” he added. “The work continues.”
Kirby said the FBI had received 5,000 reports of drone sightings in the last few weeks and determined, after analysis, that only about 100 of these required follow-up.
“We obviously recognize the concern among many communities,” he said, adding that the federal government will continue to support state and local authorities on the matter.
Kirby emphasized that there are over one million drones registered with the Federal Aviation Administration, with thousands of commercial, hobbyist, and law enforcement drones flying over the country each day.
His remarks came as President-elect Donald Trump suggested that the federal government was concealing information about the origins of drones that had been spotted in New Jersey and other areas.
“The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it’s a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went,” Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence on Monday. “For some reason, they don’t want to comment. And I think they’d be better off saying what it is our military knows and [what] our president knows.”
When asked about Trump’s remarks, Kirby said the government did not want to make any speculation or share information that it cannot be sure is accurate.
“I would say that we are making a very good faith effort to be as open and direct with all of you and with the American people as we can,” he stated. “There’s absolutely no effort to be anything other than as upfront as we can be.”
Drones have been spotted in New Jersey and other states in the northeast since November. The Wright–Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, which hosts the Air Force research laboratory and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, briefly closed its airspace on Dec. 13 after drone activity was detected in the area.
Trump stated on Truth Social last week that drones should be shot down if the government cannot determine where they came from. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the government has limited authority to take down a drone.
“I want to assure the American public that we in the federal government have deployed additional resources, personnel, technology to assist the New Jersey State Police in addressing the drone sightings,” Mayorkas told ABC News on Dec. 15.
Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
I had some snoopy neighbor flying his pet drone about the neighborhood a couple of years ago that turned out to belong to a convicted child molester and peeping Tom. When his drone flew over my ranch I downed it with the 12 gauge shotgun I use to shoot ducks on my pond and haven’t had a problem since. We also have several helicopters flying about which I beleive belong to the county property tax assessors or DEA marijuanna/poppy growth enforcers. We leave them alone to get their jobs done right.
Property owners own the airspace above the earth to a height of a 35-story building in most states and can be defended against invasion of privacy or property. When Amazon starts using drones to deliver packages, they may find many property owners exercising their 2nd amendment rights and see many of their packages shot out of the sky, unless they buy enought air rights to pass perhaps over highways. Air rights which do have value and maybe the states can get money to sell those air rights over the land and streets they own.
“Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos is a popular 13th-century Latin maxim basically translating to…”whoever’s is the soil, it is theirs all the way to heaven and all the way to hell.”
If property owners own 500 ft above their property?? These drones are higher than that.
Hobby drones are not usually as big as an SUV. In Maryland and New Jersey big drones may come from the military test center, but even if that is true, there is no reason to keep it a secret, even if the drones themselves are top secret.
But one thing we all can believe is: Nobody can believe ANYTHING that this corrupt, treasonous, Democrat Party controlled White House says.
IF they are legal, WHERE is the paper trail of FILED FLIGHT PLANS?
IF they are legal, WHY Can’t we get an answer to WHERE THEY ARE coming from?
IF they are legal, WHY ARE They flying over MILITARY bases!?