A weary New Jersey sheriff said he tried to track down the mysterious drones that were taking over the skies above his county – but they “easily” escaped the effort.

The Ocean County Sheriff’s Office sent its own “industrial grade” drone into the air Thursday in an effort to track one of 50 unmanned aerial vehicles that a local cop saw “rising out of the ocean said Sheriff Michael Mastronardy.

The officer alerted state police, the FBI and the U.S. Coast Guard. Coast Guard officials then reported that 13 drones, with a wingspan of eight feet, were following one of their ships.

The mysterious drones, which don’t emit heat like more typical versions, quickly emerged from their clutches, Mastronardy told News Nation reporter Rich McHugh.

Do you have drone footage in the skies of New Jersey or New York? Send it to The Post at [email protected].

McHugh told the story Friday night to feature Elizabeth Vargas, explaining that he originally thought the drone hysteria might be the result of “pranksters” until he saw them himself.

“If it’s not our military, then it’s even scarier,” McHugh said. “These objects appear to be fixed-wing and they have multiple lights. I don’t really know how to process what I saw last night. The photographer and I were pretty stunned.

The unidentified SUV-sized plane created a buzz in New Jersey and panicked residents since November 18.

Theories about where drones come from varysome thinking they might have been sent by foreign adversaries.

On Friday, White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said there was nothing to worry about and people might be imagining things. He said most reports likely involved cases where manned aircraft had been mistaken for drones.

Since then, drones have been seen in at least 12 New Jersey counties as well as parts of eastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York.