Add former Gov. Chris Christie to the list of New Jersey residents reporting mysterious “drone” sightings outside of their homes.

As reports of strange lights seen in the sky in New Jersey and other Northeast states have sparked questions and concerns across the country, Christie said during an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” he believes he saw a drone outside his own home last week.

“That was a drone over my house, and I’ve never seen anything like that before and I’ve been living at that house for 30 years,” Christie said.

The sightings have raised concerns about potential public safety threats, with Christie and others saying more needs to be done to investigate. Christie said he wants the state police to have authority to “bring those drones down and find out why they’re doing what they’re doing.”

“You can see why people are concerned, and it’s a lack of communication from the government at the federal and state level that’s at fault here,” Christie said.

Federal authorities have tried to reassure Americans that the objects don’t appear to be operating nefariously. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have said such sightings mostly appear to be not drones at all.  

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkas also said on ABC’s “This Week” that the federal government is helping the New Jersey State Police investigate the drone issue.

“I want to assure the American public we are on it. We are working in close coordination with state and local authorities,” Majorkas said.

Federal authorities have found no evidence of foreign involvement in the drone flights, Majorkas said.

While acknowledging concerns about the drones, Majorkas noted there are more than one million registered in the United States and thousands flying every day, implying such activity is normal and frequent. He also noted that the Federal Aviation Administration changed the rules in 2023 so drones can fly at night.

Majorkas said some of the sightings are actually manned aircraft but added “there’s no question that drones are being sighted.”

Christie noted that drones have become an important part of commerce, law enforcement and other areas, adding: “We need to be able to operate in a safe way and we’re not doing that.”

President-elect Donald Trump joined the drone conversation with a recent social media post, calling on the government needs to give more information.

 “Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!” Trump wrote.

Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY

Tom DeLonge is offering his thoughts on the mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey.

On Saturday (Dec. 14), the Blink-182 guitarist and UFO aficionado shared a post on social media, proposing a theory about the mass drone sightings that have been reported across the Garden State in recent weeks.

“The drones that are being discussed, can hover for six hours, and then disappear once they are spotted,” DeLonge wrote on Instagram. “This is why it’s been hard to get facts from any US Agency. Some of them can even move into the ocean, and then back up to the air. Which is called ‘transmedium travel.’ A very hard thing to do.”

The drone sightings, which have also been reported in New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut since late November, are currently under investigation by local, state and federal authorities, who remain puzzled by the flying objects.

On Friday (Dec. 13), White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby downplayed the sightings, suggesting that people may be misidentifying manned aircraft as drones, according to the New York Post. He also assured the public that there was no cause for concern. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy reported nearly 50 sightings in the state alone just last week, NPR reports.

DeLonge, who has dedicated many years to researching and raising awareness about UFOs, compared the current sightings to mass UFO reports from the 1960s.

“There’s a strong possibility that these drones are ‘mimicking’ other aircraft,” the Blink-182 co-founder speculated, sharing a 1960s document about a military base that had “experienced a considerable number of reports of unidentified flying objects.”

He continued, “It’s all something to consider, and [although] we don’t have all the facts yet, we do know that UFOs play with ‘mimicry’ and that has been known for quite some time. Why? To get us to notice them without a major freak out? Who knows… but well, we are noticing nonetheless.”

Check out DeLonge’s full post about the East Coast drone sightings on Instagram here.