White House: ‘We Continue to See Nothing Anomalous,’ But We Still Have 100 Reported Drone Sightings to Probe

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said that “our assessment, to date,” is that the reported drone sightings “are legal and lawful drones and other aircraft.” And “We continue to see nothing anomalous,” but there are still about 100 reported sightings that need to be worked through.

Kirby said, [relevant remarks begin around 27:25] “[W]hat I briefed today was that we have made an initial assessment here, based on the forensics we’ve been doing over the last few days and our assessment is that these drones, these things that people are seeing in the sky are not just commercial or civilian aircraft, but also drones of a commercial, law enforcement, or even hobbyist state. We continue to see nothing anomalous, no evidence of criminal activity, nothing that’s illegal, and, certainly, nothing that points to nefarious national security threats. So, we’ve done like — 5,000 sightings have been worked through. The FBI has boiled that down to about 100 that we still have to triangulate, we still have to work. So, it’s an ongoing effort. And I can’t rule out where that’s going to take us in the future. But we have tried very hard since last week to be as open and transparent as we can about what we know and what we don’t know. And now, frankly, a few days later, we know a little bit more. And our assessment, to date, is that these are legal and lawful drones and other aircraft.”

He added, “[M]y understanding is it’s still about 100 that they still need to work their way through. And it’s important to remember, Jen, as you know, if you get twelve people seeing the same aircraft, they’ll call it in. That’s twelve sightings, even though it’s only one aircraft. So, in many cases, that 5,000 was quickly dwindled down when you start to triangulate who’s seeing what in what location and you may be able to determine that it’s a single aircraft, and, like I said, even a star here and there has been called in as a sighting. So, we’ve got about 100 or so that the FBI is triangulating. I suspect that they’ll get continued sightings as days go on, and again, we’ll work with them very, very closely, local and state authorities, to see what we can do to corroborate the information.”

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