The White House now says that the drones seen flying over vast swaths of the East Coast were actually just research vessels approved for flight by the Federal Aviation Administration. After those drones took flight and led to concerns among many Americans, some hobbyists also took flight amid the frenzy, the administration says. 

At her first briefing from the White House podium on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt assured Americans that the drones were not enemy aircraft, as some lawmakers and local officials had speculated. The drones first started appearing over New Jersey and New York in November, and as of Tuesday, there have been more than 650 reported sightings of these drones up and down the East Coast in just the last two months. 

“After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons,” Ms. Leavitt said. “Many of these drones were also hobbyist, recreational, and private individuals that enjoy flying drones. In time, it got worse due to curiosity. This was not the enemy.”

Members of Congress, state and local officials, and average citizens have been demanding answers about the drones for months. It got so bad at one point that one New Jersey lawmaker, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill — who is a retired Navy helicopter pilot — called for reaper drones to be deployed over her home state. 

The FAA put a ban on flying drones over certain parts of New Jersey and New York back in December, though that ban was lifted on January 19. That led more drones to reappear just in recent days, with nearly 15 being reported to the crowd-sourced UFO tracker Enigma Labs. 

On January 10, President Trump promised a group of Republican governors to get to the bottom of the drone mystery as soon as he returned to the White House — a promise he reiterated to reporters in the Oval Office on his first day back. 

​“I would like to find out what it is and tell the people. In fact, I’d like to do that,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office while he was signing executive orders just hours after he had been sworn in. “Could we find out what that was, Susie? Why don’t we find out immediately?” he added, turning to his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. 

“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,” Mr. Trump said. “They had a lot of them flying over Bedminster, which is interesting,” he added, referring to his golf club. 

The Biden administration was unable to give answers before they left the White House, saying that they were not even able to corroborate the presence of the drones. 

“Nothing nefarious apparently. But they’re checking it all out,” President Biden said on the South Lawn as he was preparing to board his helicopter back in December. “I think it’s just one — there’s a lot of drones authorized that’s up there.” 

“I think one started and they all got, everybody wanted to get in their deal,” Mr. Biden said of the alleged attention-seekers. “So far, no sense of danger.”