Back in December multiple news outlets reported dozens of drones spotted flying over New Jersey, and nearby states, prompting public panic and calls from officials for a temporary state of emergency.
Both the FBI and the military were unable to pinpoint the source of the drones and, while New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy stressed the drones appeared to pose no concern to safety, New Jersey assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia said, “To state that there is no known or credible threat is incredibly misleading.”
Six weeks after the mass confusion, the White House has confirmed that they were authorized by federal regulators and “not the enemy.”
President Donald Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at her first White House briefing on Tuesday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had approved the drones for research, and many also belonged to people in the local area.
ABOVE: Watch Karoline Leavitt "explain" the drone situation
"In time, it got worse due to curiosity," Ms Leavitt said of the online rumors. "This was not the enemy."
The FBI said in December that it received more than 5,000 drone sighting tipoffs, and the FAA temporarily restricted drone flights in 22 cities through January.
The FAA regulates drone use and flights in the US. Nationally, more than a million drones are registered for use, according to the agency. About 409,000 are registered for commercial use, while about 385,000 are used recreationally.
In mid-December, four federal agencies revealed that an investigation had "not identified anything anomalous" about the reports, claiming that they were actually a combination of legal drones used by hobbyists and law enforcement, as well as planes, helicopters and "stars mistakenly reported as drones".
Responding to unfounded claims from a Republican New Jersey congressman that the drones were from an “Iranian mothership” situated off the coast, Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, said US military bosses do not believe the drones are being sent from “a foreign entity or adversity.”
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