Recent reports suggest that drones have been spotted over the US states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

According to the BBC, after videos of the flying objects from several politicians were posted online, calls for answers about the ‘drones’ grew loud, including President-elect Donald Trump saying the mystery objects should be shot down.

Regarding the possible drones, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) jointly said: “We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.

“The FBI, DHS and our federal partners, in close coordination with the New Jersey State Police, continue to deploy personnel and technology to investigate this situation and confirm whether the reported drone flights are actually drones or are instead manned aircraft or otherwise inaccurate sightings.”

Collaborating with law enforcement

“We are supporting local law enforcement in New Jersey with numerous detection methods but have not corroborated any of the reported visual sightings with electronic detection,” the FBI and DHS continued.

“To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft, operating lawfully.

“There are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted air space. 

“We take seriously the threat that can be posed by unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), which is why law enforcement and other agencies continue to support New Jersey and investigate the reports. 

“To be clear, they have uncovered no such malicious activity or intent at this stage,” the two agencies concluded.