White House sees ‘no evidence’ of threat from drones and says ‘many’ sightings were of ‘manned aircraft’
The White House is knocking down claims that New Jersey’s airspace has been invaded by drones controlled by hostile nations and says many of the aircraft sightings that have been cited to support such assertions are actually normal piloted airplanes.
In recent days, residents of the Garden State have been posting videos of what they describe as sightings of unmanned aircraft over the areas where the U.S. Army has a research facility as well as President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey golf club.
One Republican congressman, Representative Jeff Van Drew, claimed Wednesday during a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing that the aircraft in question were Iranian in origin and were being controlled by a “mothership” operated by Tehran off the US coast.
“I’ve learned, for real, that there is circumstantial evidence that there’s an Iranian mothership off the East Coast of the United States, and that’s launching these drone incursions,” he said.
The Pentagon has denied that Van Drew’s assertions were in any way grounded in fact, with Defense Department press secretary Sabrina Singh telling ABC News that there was “not any truth” to what he’d alleged.
On Thursday, White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters that the federal government has “no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”
Kirby said the reports are being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in close consultation with “state and local law enforcement to provide resources using numerous detection methods to better understand their origin.”
But he also stressed that the government has used “very sophisticated electronic detection technologies” as part of that probe and thus far has not been able to “corroborate any of the reported visual sightings.”
“To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully,” Kirby said.
“There is no evidence of any foreign based involvement from coastal vessels, and importantly, there are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted airspace,” he added.
