The drones that alarmed Americans along the East Coast last year have seemingly returned just days after the Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on flying the unmanned aircraft over certain states. President Trump has said he wants to give people answers. 

Sightings began last year in November, when New Jersey and New York residents began reporting hundreds of drone sightings on social media and to local authorities. It got so bad that at one point, a New Jersey congresswoman proposed deploying Reaper drones over her home state to help track the phenomena. 

At the time, law enforcement and the Biden White House were unable to give any answers about the proliferation of the drones. The then-spokesman for the National Security Council, Admiral John Kirby, said they could not even confirm if the drones were really there or if they were being flown illegally. 

Mr. Trump previously promised that he would have answers for people on his first day back in office. “I’m going to give you a report on drones about one day into the administration,” Mr. Trump told Republican governors on January 10. “I think it’s ridiculous that they’re not telling you about what’s going on with the drones.”

In response to the original drone sightings, the FAA banned the flying of recreational drones over certain parts of New Jersey and New York back in December, though that temporary flight restriction expired on January 19. Now, the drones are starting to return. 

According to Enigma Labs — an outfit that tracks sightings of flying objects like drones and UFOs — there have been at least 49 sightings of drones along the coastline from New Jersey to Virginia. Of those 49, 14 were spotted after the flight ban was lifted on January 19. Since mid-November, Enigma Labs has received 650 reports of unidentified flying objects.

“You look at the reports that people are submitting. They’re saying, you know, ‘I’m still seeing them, ban or no ban, and they’re happening,’” a spokeswoman for Enigma Labs, Christine Kim, told NBC News on Monday.

Enigma Labs doesn’t hear about all of these sightings, however. Instead, they only track the ones that users submit directly to their database. 

One New Jersey mayor recently shared a video from another man who had seemingly captured a strange flying object on video. Michael Melham, who is currently the mayor of Belleville, New Jersey, posted a video on X from a man named Dan Oliverio. 

In the video, a floating, glowing orb hovers in the sky before dimming and moving. “Appears to show glowing orbs turning into drones. Verified not to be planes. Hover. Glow. Then move,” Mr. Melham said in the caption of his video. The mayor said that the video had been taken over the north shore of Long Island. 

Mr. Trump has himself had drones flying near his properties since he was elected president. In December, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that a “car-sized” drone had been flying near Mr. Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey golf club, though it did not pose a threat to the then-president-elect. 

When he returned to the White House, Mr. Trump said he would try to get answers for people as soon as possible after the Biden administration failed to shed any light on the issue. 

​​”I would like to find out what it is and tell the people. In fact, I’d like to do that,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office while he was signing executive orders just hours after he had been sworn in. “Could we find out what that was, Susie? Why don’t we find out immediately?” he added, turning to his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. 

“I can’t imagine it’s an enemy, or there would have been, you know, people would have gotten blown up, all of them. Maybe they were testing things. I don’t know why. They wouldn’t have said what it was,” Mr. Trump said. “They had a lot of them flying over Bedminster, which is interesting,” he added, referring to his golf club. 

A spokesman for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.