As drone sightings spread across East Coast, federal officials still don't know much

As the mystery grows around the drones flying over New Jersey, so do the calls from puzzled residents to authorities about the flying machines. Reports of drone sightings have spread from New Jersey to other states, including Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Connecticut and Ohio.

Federal authorities on Sunday repeated assurances that the drones are not a security threat. But they still don't know where they came from or who is responsible.

Meanwhile, some state and federal officials called for Congress to pass expanded legislation that would give federal authorities greater resources to mitigate risks from drones.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC News' This Week on Sunday that the federal government has deployed additional resources, including personnel and technology, to assist New Jersey State Police with addressing drone sightings and that the Biden administration remains "vigilant" in investigating the drone sightings.

"There's no question that people are seeing drones," he added, but noted that some of the recent sightings on the East Coast are likely crewed aircraft or duplicate sightings.

He called for Congress to act quickly to extend and expand the current drone-countering authorities — authorized in the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2018 — which are set to expire on Dec. 20. The law enables the Homeland Security and Justice Departments to use advanced detection technologies to identify, track and mitigate drones.

"It is critical, as we all have said for a number of years, that we need from Congress additional authorities to address the drone situation," Mayorkas said in the ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos.

A joint congressional subcommittee hearing held last week centered on a bipartisan bill — called the Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act — that would expand federal drone-countering measures, like bolstering the FAA's oversight powers of drones.

The federal government is also sending a drone detection system to New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Sunday.

"I am grateful for the support, but we need more," she said on X. Passing the Counter-UAS legislation, she said in a separate statement, "will give New York and our peers the authority and resources required to respond to circumstances like we face today."

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said on Fox News Sunday, "There's a lot of us who are pretty frustrated right now."

"'We don't know' is not a good enough answer," he said, in reference to what he said is a lack of information from federal agencies.

Drone activity over the weekend forced a pause on air traffic in at least two states. The New York Stewart International Airport runways shut down for an hour on Friday night after the FAA reported drone sightings in the area, a spokesperson confirmed.

In Ohio, there was a temporary closure of the airspace above Wright Patterson Air Force Base between Friday night and Saturday morning after "small unmanned aerial systems were spotted in the vicinity of and over" the base, base spokesman Bob Purtiman told NPR member station WVXU.

During a call with reporters on Saturday, a Pentagon spokesperson acknowledged that there had also been sightings of drones over two military installations in New Jersey, at Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle, but said such sightings are typical.

"This is not a new issue for us," the Joint Staff spokesperson said, according to the Pentagon's news service. "We've had to deal with drone incursions over our bases for quite a time now. It's something that we routinely respond to in each and every case when reporting is cited."

Still unclear who is responsible for drone activity

The military maintained over the weekend that there were no signs of foreign adversary involvement.

"To date, we have no intelligence or observations that would indicate that they were aligned with a foreign actor or that they had malicious intent," the Pentagon spokesperson said. "But ... we don't know. We have not been able to locate or identify the operators or the points of origin."

The spokesperson also said the drones are frustrating the Department of Defense, adding that the military has "limited authorities" to investigate outside military installations in the U.S., and is also prohibited from conducting intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations that could help determine the origins of the drones.

"We don't know what the activity is," the Pentagon news service quoted the spokesperson as saying. "We don't know ... if it is criminal. But I will tell you that it is irresponsible."