President Joe Biden late Tuesday night addressed the recent drone sightings on the East Coast.
“Nothing nefarious, apparently. They’re checking it all out. There’s a lot of drones up there authorized. I think one started, and they all got—everybody wanted to get in the deal,” Biden told reporters.
His comments come after federal officials told members of the House Intelligence Committee during a classified briefing that the drones flying over New Jersey are not the work of a classified government operation.
Officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense privately briefed the House panel amid widespread concerns and calls for transparency on the mysterious drones.
Ranking member Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) spoke to reporters following the briefing.
“[The drones] are not federal government operations to sniff radiation, gas, recovery, anything else,” Himes said.
He added that federal agencies insisted that there is “zero evidence” that any laws have been broken by the drones or that they are operating with any malign intent.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J), also a ranking member on the committee, told reporters that federal officials continued to insist that there are no imminent threats to public safety.
Pentagon press secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder addressed the media as lawmakers attended the classified briefing on the matter.
Ryder reiterated that there are more than a million drones registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States. On any given day, approximately 8,500 drones are in flight.
“The vast majority of these drones are going to probably be recreational or hobbyist, they’re gonna be commercial drones used in things like architecture, engineering, and farming, or they could be used in law enforcement,” Ryder said.
“Is it possible that some of those drones could be up to malign activity? It’s entirely possible. But the vast majority, that is not the case.”
Ryder declined to say why Tuesday’s briefing for the House Intelligence Committee was classified if there aren’t any concerns of nefarious activity.
“I’d have to refer you to Congress.”
Also on Tuesday, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said that he believes that some unidentified drones spotted above New Jersey and New York are “spy drones” operated by China despite the Biden administration’s stance that many of the objects are commercial aircraft.
“We want answers but the response I’m getting is we don’t know whose drones these are,” McCaul told media before the classified briefing, reported New York Post. “I was with the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, he said that these drones have been reported over military sites, military bases. I would not think those are friendly. I would think those are adversarial,” McCaul said.
Belleville Mayor Michael Mellham warned that the drone sightings over the state may be linked to missing radioactive material.
“We know we have drones flying in a grid-like pattern. In my opinion, they’re looking for something. What might they be looking for? Maybe that’s radioactive material,” he told FOX 5 New York.
According to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission alert, Radioactive material went missing in New Jersey on Dec. 2.
“The shipping container arrived at its destination damaged and empty,” the report says.
Mellham also said he felt that it’s likely the drones are not being operated by a foreign adversary “because they would be able to figure out how to turn off the blinking lights.”