Many New Jersey drones sightings are ‘manned aircraft being misidentified as drones,’ FBI says

A drone or SUAV, Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

Richard Newstead | Moment | Getty Images

TheFBIandDepartment of Homeland Securitysaid on Saturday that ongoing investigations around reported drone sightings over New Jersey have found “many of the reported drone sightings are, in fact, manned aircraft being misidentified as drones.”

The investigations have also found no evidence that spotted drones have engaged in illegal activity or malicious acts, and that the United States Coast Guard has not found any evidence of foreign involvement offshore.

“At this point, we have not identified any basis for believing that there’s any criminal activity involved, that there’s any national security threat, that there’s any particular public safety threat or that there’s a malicious foreign actor involved in these drones,” a DHS official said.

The FBI has been investigating hundreds of reports of drones operating at night since mid-November, most of which are larger than the ones that hobbyists use.

Officials from the FBI said on Thursday that they had seen “no evidence” that the drone sightings “pose a national security or public safety threat.”

Sightings have occurred over the Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course owned by President-electDonald Trumpas well as near a military research facility.

Republican Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, who is Trump’s pick for national security advisor, speculated on where these drones could be coming from, including offshore.

“It’s not necessarily somebody that’s just on the other end flying it,” Waltz said on CBS “Face The Nation” Sunday. “They could be following pre-positioned GPS coordinates. They could be coming from offshore. And we need to take a hard look at our homeland defenses.”

Waltz suggested Trump’s interest in an “Iron Dome” for America needs to factor in drones. On his campaign trail, Trump promised to build something like Israel’s Iron Dome, or a “state-of-the-art missile defense shield.”

“President Trump has talked about an Iron Dome for America — that needs to include drones as well. Not just adversarial actions like hypersonic missiles. We need to have an all-of-the-above protection of U.S. airspace,” Waltz said.

— CNBC’s Yun Li contributed reporting.

CORRECTION: This story was revised to reflect that officials from the FBI said on Thursday that they had seen “no evidence” that the drone sightings “pose a national security or public safety threat.”