White House national security spokesman John Kirby addressed the sightings of'drones' over New Jersey's skies, denying that any evidence suggests a foreign adversary is responsible. An uptick in alleged drone sightings along the East Coast touched off a flurry of panicked calls for investigation on Friday from residents and state lawmakers, even as public officials stress the aircraft in question are, in fact, being flown lawfully, and a retired port authority aviation expert tells Fox News Digital that fears are overblown. The drone complaints began pouring in last month in New Jersey, where witnesses and residents first began reporting drone sightings off of coastal areas, including off of Cape May, a scenic town located outside of Atlantic City. More recently, lawmakers in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland have reported new alleged drone sightings in their home states, with some witnesses alleging the aircraft in question have been the "size of cars" or seen flying above sensitive infrastructure or in restricted airspace. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, told reporters on Friday he had written to President Biden to share his concerns about the fresh reports of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) sightings in New Jersey airspace, and called for more federal resources to investigate the issue.

Drone users in the UK must now sit an online test and pay a £9 annual fee or face a £1,000 fine after the launch of a mandatory national registration scheme on Tuesday. Owners are obliged to identify and label all drones by 30 November, and operators must pass a test about legal and safe usage before they can fly them. The Civil Aviation Authority estimates that about 130,000 people will have to pay and register by the end of the month. All drones weighing more than 250g, which encompasses virtually all but the smallest toys, must be registered and labelled with a unique licence number. This means they will have to be grounded to identify their owners, but in future it could be done remotely or while drones are in the air.

Remember back when you could fly drones without having to pay the government money first, and when the only thing you had to worry about was a midair takedown by an anti-drone hit squad made up of highly-trained Dutch eagles? We're sad to have to report that we probably won't be seeing compelling videos of eagles handling rogue drones anymore, and also that the United States government has flexed its muscles and mandatory drone registration is now back on. You probably remember how the FAA finalized its mandatory drone registration rules just in time for the holiday season in 2015. Any drone that weighed more than 0.55 pounds was required to be registered before being flown outdoors, a process that involved providing your complete name, physical address, mailing address, email address, and a credit card that was charged a one-time fee of US $5. In exchange, you got a unique registration number that had to be visible on all of your drones.

Be sure to also wrap up some extra rotors, a spare battery or two, and get drone registration through the Federal Aviation Association (FAA), because the drone registration requirements that were declared dead earlier this year were just revived by the Trump administration. A relative footnote in the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law today, the new regulation requires that drone owners register their unmanned aerial vehicles before taking to the skies. You can register you new drone on the FAA's drone Unmanned Aircraft System website. But for longtime drone pilots, this requirement is nothing new. In December 2015, regulators began requiring drone registration, and the program took off, with 300,000 drone owners signing up within the first month.

The UK government has announced plans to introduce drone registration and safety awareness courses for owners of the small unmanned aircraft. It will affect anyone who owns a drone which weighs more than 250 grams (8oz). Drone maker DJI said it was in favour of the measures. There is no time frame or firm plans as to how the new rules will be enforced and the Department of Transport admitted that "the nuts and bolts still have to be ironed out". The drone safety awareness test will involve potential flyers having to "prove that they understand UK safety, security and privacy regulations", it said.