The White House is now saying that they have been “unable to corroborate” the visual sightings of the drones flying over New Jersey, while also hedging to say that videos of the drones appear to be nothing more than manned aircraft that are being “operated lawfully.” This is despite the fact that members of Congress are set to discuss the drone activity on a classified call on Thursday. 

From the White House podium, the National Security Council spokesman, Rear Admiral John Kirby, said that the White House is working with federal, state, and local law enforcement to get to the bottom of the mystery, but have been unable to identify the drones even by using “very sophisticated electronic detection technology.”

“We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus,” Rear Admiral Kirby says. He added that the government has been unable to “corroborate any of the reported visual sightings.”

Despite the fact they have not been able to locate the drones themselves, it appears that they may just be a number of unmanned aircraft that are being deployed by hobbyists. “Many of the reported sightings are actually manned-aircraft being operated lawfully,” he said. 

Rear Admiral Kirby’s comments come just as members of Congress are set to hold a conference call where they would hear from intelligence and law enforcement officials about the phenomenon over New Jersey.  

Congressman Adam Smith, who serves as the ranking member of the Armed Services panel, told reporters Thursday that he and fellow members would discuss the drones, among other issues. The drones began appearing over New Jersey in mid-November. 

On Wednesday, a New Jersey assemblywoman, Dawn Fantasia, said she received a briefing from the state police on the drone issue. She said that law enforcement knows absolutely nothing about the phenomenon. She further said that it seems the drones can evade all detection technologies. 

“[State police] deployed helicopters over Raritan Bay but could not detect drones, even with infrared cameras. Current radio frequencies do not pick up drone signals,” Ms. Fantasia wrote. 

The drones were the focus of a hearing of a homeland security joint subcommittee meeting on Tuesday, where an FBI assistant director said the bureau is working with state and local law enforcement to determine what the drones are doing over the state. 

“We do not contribute that to an individual or a group yet,” the assistant director of the FBI’s critical incident response group, Robert Wheeler, told subcommittee members. “We’re actively investigating.”

Congressman Chris Smith, who has represented the Garden State in the House since 1981, said at the same subcommittee hearing that he had spoken to a New Jersey sheriff who claimed that one of his officers had seen around 50 drones in the sky. 

“I was on the beach in Island State Park in Ocean County with the sheriff,” Mr. Smith said. “He’s been working on it every single night … One of his officers two nights ago saw 50 drones come in off the ocean right there.” Mr. Smith further said that a Coast Guardsman claimed to have been followed by between “12 and 30” drones while he and his unit were out on patrol on the water one night. 

Mayors in the state have already called on Governor Murphy to dedicate every available resource to determining the origin and the intentions of these drones, and Mr. Murphy has said he’s taken the potential threat “deadly seriously.”