The Trump administration said this week the hysteria about nighttime drone sightings in New Jersey late last year can be traced to drone flights authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration for “research and various other purposes.”
The explanation, offered Tuesday by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at her first news briefing, came “directly” from President Donald Trump, she said.
“This was not the enemy,” Leavitt said of the drones.
But the explanation was met with skepticism by state and local lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including many who are asking for clarification about the drones’ origins and greater transparency.
“This is friggin’ bonkers, man. Really,” state Assemblyman Brian Bergen, R-Morris, said Wednesday. “And the people who are just accepting it — it’s not me. I’m not OK with it. It’s like bizarro world.”
Bergen said it didn’t make sense that the FAA would have imposed temporary drone flight restrictions over regions of New Jersey and New York after the sightings if the agency was responsible for the drones all along.
He also said the White House’s explanation for the drone sightings is at odds with the federal government’s decision to send specialized drone detection equipment to New Jersey late last month.
“Nobody thought to say something that whole time?” Bergen asked. “Come on. I’m not buying it.”
Ryan Herd, the former mayor of Pequannock in Morris County, where some of the drone sightings originated, said the Trump administration’s explanation was welcome because it “does prove that we’re not nuts.”
Still, Herd isn’t satisfied with the White House’s update.
“I was hoping that the next administration would be more transparent,” he said. “OK, so they were approved by the FAA, but who is it, exactly? Tech or military? What is the research? What are the ‘other purposes’? Why New Jersey?”
Leavitt’s assurance that the drone sightings, which began in November and spread across half a dozen Northeastern states, presented no threat to national security is an echo of earlier statements by the Biden administration.
The FBI, FAA, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security said in a joint statement that month that the sightings were a mix of “lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.”
But the new statement from the Trump administration raised additional questions, including: What kind of drones were they? Why were they only spotted at night? And how many federally authorized drones were behind the more than 5,000 tips the FBI said it received?
It was also unclear whether Leavitt’s statement would be Trump’s final word on the matter. He previously said he would release a “report on drones” shortly after taking office.
Other lawmakers called for the release of additional information.
“While I appreciate the information provided, I believe there are still many unanswered questions,” Rep. Tom Kean, R-7th Dist., said in a statement on Tuesday.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th Dist., said he wrote to the FAA to ask them to explain what Leavitt meant by drones authorized for “research and various other reasons.”
Gottheimer also called on the agency to hold a public briefing “to address the concerns of Jersey families.”
The FAA added to the confusion by declining to comment on the White House’s statement.
Reached by email on Tuesday, Chris Mullooly, a spokesperson for the FAA, referred questions back to the White House.
Similarly, Emily Molinari, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Newark office, redirected a request for comment to the FAA and the White House.
She did not respond to a question about the status of the FBI’s investigation into the sightings, and it was unclear whether the probe had been closed.
Gov. Phil Murphy’s office declined to comment beyond a brief post on X, formerly Twitter, in which the governor said he was “glad” the White House had confirmed the lack of any threat to the public.
Murphy also said he was grateful for the state’s partnership with law enforcement on the matter.
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AJ McDougall may be reached at amcdougall@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on X at @oldmcdougall.