In recent weeks, a number of drones have been sighted over New Jersey, prompting concern and thousands of telephone calls to report them. Some of those drones have even been sighted over Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle, both in New Jersey. 

During an on-background telephone call today, officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration and the Joint Staff provided comment and answered questions from reporters about the drone sightings. 

A spokesperson from the Joint Staff acknowledged that there had been sightings of drones over two military installations in New Jersey, but said such sightings are typical. 

"We have had confirmed sightings at Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle," the spokesperson said. "This is not a new issue for us. 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." 

The spokesperson said military installations have means to detect and respond to such drones, and that security personnel are trained to identify, categorize and employ those tools to keep drones from flying unauthorized over U.S. military bases. 

Right now, the FBI, DHS, FAA and DOD have been unable to determine who is responsible for flying the drones, and there's no indication that there are adversary nations involved.

"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 spokesperson said. "But ... we don't know. We have not been able to locate or identify the operators or the points of origin."