U.S. officials said they’re not sure what to make of the swarms of drones detected flying over New Jersey in recent weeks, sparking outrage from lawmakers who said it makes the government look incompetent.

Those lawmakers decried the lack of answers — and lack of action.

“We can bring one down tomorrow,” said Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Democrat.

Robert Wheeler Jr., who runs the FBI’s critical incident response group, said they don’t see any evidence yet to suggest nefarious motives, but they haven’t been able to rule that out, either.

“It is concerning,” he told the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday.

He said there have been more than 3,000 tips from the public and reports are all over the place.

Some drones have been fixed-wing aircraft, while others are rotary. Some are larger than the typical commercially available size.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy this week called the drones “sophisticated” and said they “go dark” once they are detected.

“We’re most concerned about sensitive targets and sensitive critical infrastructure. We’ve military assets, we’ve got utility assets,” he said.

The drones were spotted in the general area of Picatinny Arsenal, a major Army research complex, and President-elect Donald Trump’s home at Bedminster.

“Why are we not taking action?” Rep. August Pfluger, the Texas Republican who convened Tuesday’s hearing on drone dangers, demanded of FBI and Justice Department officials.

Mr. Wheeler offered a bureaucratically intricate response, saying that “authority exists to mitigate” a drone while in flight, but didn’t explain why it hasn’t happened.

At the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Biden was aware of the New Jersey drones, but she would not comment beyond that.

“Obviously, this is something DHS and the FBI are tracking very closely,” she said.

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, New York Republican, said the lack of answers has become an embarrassment.

“The fact that we continue to say we don’t know what they are, we don’t know what they’re doing — the American people are looking at us and think we’re lying to them because they think how could you not have answers to drones flying over some of the most critical airspace in the country?” he said.

Mr. Smith said he was visiting with authorities Monday. One sheriff said a deputy spotted 50 drones flying in over the shore on a recent night. And a Coast Guard officer said one of his boats was followed by “between 12 and 30 of these drones.”

“I said what’s the rules of engagement,” Mr. Smith said. “He said, ‘We don’t know. We don’t have any.’”

Paul Schwennesen, co-director of the Global Strategy Decisions Group, said he thinks authorities are “frozen with fear” of the ramifications if they did take down a drone and there was collateral damage such as debris hitting a house.

“People are acting out of a sense of self-restraint here, which is being promoted by our policy environment,” he told lawmakers.

Even with eyes on New Jersey, experts said there are ongoing threats elsewhere.

At the U.S.-Mexico border, Customs and Border Protection said during a recent six-week period, they detected 6,900 flights near the boundary. Keith Jones, a top official at CBP, said they can’t be certain of the intent of each of them but said a “large percent” are nefarious.

He said the risk is “increasingly rapidly.”

“We’re already seeing drug cartels in Mexico use drones to attack the military, police and their rivals,” Mr. Jones said.

For the U.S., he said those are potential future dangers, but the more current threat is that smuggling operations use drones as surveillance platforms. They track U.S. assets and spot holes in border defenses so they know when to send over high-risk contraband.

Mr. Jones said they have managed to “mitigate” some flights, though only ones that cross into U.S. airspace. Much of the surveillance happens from drones flown over Mexico but that have eyes into America.

Drone flights have also disrupted operations at U.S. airports and major sporting events.

Lawmakers seemed comfortable with the powers the federal government already has to track and take down drones — though they said that authority needs to be extended and enhanced.

The bigger hole in policy, they said, was at the state and local level, where most drone incidents are handled.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.

• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.