White House Press Secretary Delivers Message on Mysterious Drones Directly from Trump

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Rumors and conspiracy theories ran wild after mysterious drones were seen flying over parts of the United States last year. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt put minds at ease Tuesday as she shared a message from President Donald Trump on the source of many of the drone sightings, including the ones reported over New Jersey in November.

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The drones were in fact authorized to be flown by the Federal Aviation Administration. “After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized by the FAA for research and various other reasons,” Leavitt said.

In addition to those authorized by the FAA, other drones flown by hobbyists were sighted, and that number increased as curiosity about the phenomenon grew, the White House said. “This was not the enemy,” Leavitt said.

On the campaign trail Trump had vowed to get to the bottom of the matter once he assumed office. “I can’t imagine it’s an enemy, or there would have been, you know, people would have gotten blown up, all of them. Maybe they were testing things. I don’t know why. They wouldn’t have said what it was,” Trump said from the Oval Office last week. “They had a lot of them flying over Bedminster, which is interesting,” referring to his club in New Jersey.

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Public concern erupted when the drones were first sighted, even attracting the attention of the FBI. Fox News reports of the drone history:

“The FBI Newark, NJ State Police, and NJ Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness are asking for the public to report any information related to the recent sightings of possible drones flying in several areas along the Raritan River,” a Dec. 3 FBI statement noted.

The Federal Aviation Administration even issued temporary flight restrictions after the large number of sightings, prohibiting drone flights over parts of New Jersey.

However, an FBI official later said that of the roughly 5,000 tips they received related to reported drone sightings, “less than 100 leads have been generated and deemed worthy of further investigative activity.”

In mid-December, a DHS official said they’re “confident that many of the reported drone sightings are, in fact, manned aircraft being misidentified as drones,” ABC News reported.

An analysis by the White House, in coordination with the FBI and state and local officials, concluded that “lawful, legal, commercial hobbyist and even law enforcement aircraft activity” was responsible for the sightings, former White House national security communications adviser John Kirby previously told Fox News.

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