National security communications adviser John Kirby reiterated Monday there is no indication the recent drone sightings pose a risk to public safety.
Kirby, in an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier, said federal officials have worked with local and state law enforcement to examine more than 5,000 examples of possible drone sightings, and they’ve determined some aircraft are manned, while others are unmanned.
They’ve also concluded, however, that the unmanned drones spotted in and around New Jersey are operating legally and for the purpose of the common good. They do not show any signs of foreign involvement, Kirby said.
When asked how law enforcement could reach that conclusion, he replied that “we’ve done the analysis.”
“We’ve done the detection, then the analysis. We’ve corroborated the sightings,” the White House spokesperson said. “And in every case that we have examined to date, we have seen nothing, nothing that indicates a public safety risk.”
“There are drones flying over the skies of the United States every single night, every single day, and we’ve seen nothing in this, in and around New Jersey, that should give the people on the ground their concerns for their safety, for this activity,” Kirby continued. “And we’ve seen nothing, working with the Department of Defense as well, that indicates a foreign adversary actor involved or any kind of pernicious national security threat.”
He added that drone sightings spotted over military bases pose a different threat and the Pentagon is looking into that as a separate matter.
“Now, there have been some drone sightings, I think, as you know, over some military bases. We’re obviously looking at that,” Kirby said. “That is a different category, and DOD has different authorities to deal with that.”
He added, “But again, we’ve also seen no disruption of operations at our bases in New Jersey either from any of this.”
Later on Monday, a joint statement from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense indicated that, after looking into “the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.”
