It’s the story everyone in America is talking about. No, not the story of Luigi Mangione, who allegedly murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, sparking a national debate about health insurance in the United States and who benefits from Americans being denied daily care. We’re talking about drones. Specifically, those mysterious drones that have launched a million conspiracy theories online about what they could be.
Drones have been reported every night in New Jersey since Nov. 18, according to NBC News, except for one day when they were not seen in the state: Thanksgiving. This is strange, of course, but not as strange as the fact that everyone seems to be confused about what these UFOs are.
Most of the viral videos seem to show planes that are just ordinary commercial planes. But there is much that cannot be easily explained. Supposed “drones” have been spotted Other parts From the country too, like Southern Californiaalthough nothing on the West Coast looked quite like the videos on the East Coast. Elected leaders are calling for serious action.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader for another month before Democrats lose control of the Senate, has called for the use of recently declassified drone detection technology to find out what these flying objects are.
“Some drones are small. Some drone flight patterns are erratic,” Schumer said Sunday NBC News. “Flying multiple drones together can overwhelm a traditional radar system, which is why, once again, this new technology can give us the answers we need.”
With no easy answers yet, the Internet is abuzz with conspiracy theories. To be clear, we are not in a position to confirm or deny any of these theories at this time. Because politicians and ordinary people alike are still confused about what could happen. Is it mass hysteria? probably. But there are also videos that contain confusing elements that are difficult to explain. While we can usually say definitively that a conspiracy theory is patently ridiculous, we have to remain open to almost any absurd angle at this point. barely.
Arguably the most popular conspiracy theory to emerge over the weekend started with a TikTok from John Ferguson, CEO of Saxon Aerospace in Kansas. The video has been deleted from TikTok but sparked widespread conversation with clips being shared on all kinds of social media sites. And you can watch everything here.
The CEO of a drone manufacturer that has government contracts offers an interesting look at what’s happening in New Jersey. pic.twitter.com/tAbMdMETQC
– Kory Yeshua (@KoryYeshua) December 15, 2024
In short, this guy thinks the drones might be looking for some kind of chemical leak, or, more worryingly, maybe looking for a rogue nuclear weapon located somewhere in the United States. The man claims that a nuclear weapon that went missing from Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union somehow made its way onto US soil recently, and the US government is searching for it using these drones. Joe Rogan helped amplify the theory SundayAnd give it more attention.
There’s a team of people from the National Nuclear Safety Administration, under the Department of Energy, specifically tasked with looking for any rogue nuclear weapons. It was established in the 1970s after a bad spell Threats of nuclear blackmail against American cities, most of which were not credible and involved people just trying to get money from the government. But there have been some cases where people obtained real nuclear material and threatened to blow up people.
However, there is no evidence available at this point that we are dealing with government-sanctioned nuclear weapons hunters. There have been sensational claims on X in the wake of this video about missing nuclear materials. Right-wing influencer Penny Johnson The United States tried to make it look like a scandal on Monday when a report on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s website mentioned some radioactive material recently missing in New Jersey.
But this kind of thing happens all the time. And you’ll notice in the report that it’s clearly not a nuclear weapon. Radioactive materials are used in all types of scientific equipment, and this type of object is sometimes lost during transportation and must be reported to the authorities. This does not mean that anyone can make a nuclear bomb out of it.
As the community note notes in one of the alarming tweets, the amount of radiation a person could receive from the missing material, in this case, would be roughly equal to CT scanProvided that you stand by him for a whole year.
🚨 BREAKING NEWS: Norwegian Refugee Council alerts public to ‘missing’ radioactive material
Less than Category 3, and possibly Category 4, radioactive material has been confirmed missing in New Jersey.
Do you realize what they are doing? This incident may prompt: Pseudoscience smells like… pic.twitter.com/m0zyCqq5NZ
– Jason AlbinO07 (@OmniRich88) December 16, 2024
Incoming President Donald Trump said the government knows what’s going on but won’t tell anyone. And while it’s entirely possible that he’s right, he also lies all the time and has plenty of motives to make it seem like the US government is currently incompetent and dishonest, something that will certainly be remedied when he takes power on January 20, 2025. .
“Look, our military knows where they took off from,” Trump said at a press conference. Monday. “If it’s a garage, they can go straight to that garage. They know where it came from and where it went. For some reason, they don’t want to comment.”
Then there were the people who insisted that the US government was planning an organized alien invasion to distract Americans, called Project Blue Beam. The conspiracy theory pushes the idea that a fake alien invasion will be used to justify a world government and then used to destroy Christianity and Judaism, replacing traditional religion with New Age beliefs. The idea was first called Project Blue Beam by Serge Monast, a Canadian conspiracy theorist in the 1990s. But it’s still very popular among characters like Alex Jones.
The InfoWars host insisted as early as Dec. 11 that this wave of drone sightings was about creating a new world order — a term he’s been obsessed with since it first appeared on local public television in Texas during the 1990s.
Researcher Dr. Stephen Greer accurately predicted the launch of Project Blue Beam that is happening now
Watch/share the X live stream here:https://t.co/iRbKT1cEXq pic.twitter.com/3n27ycFglz
– Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) December 11, 2024
This theory has also been pushed by right-wing figures, such as comedian Roseanne Barr. “Now you see why I mention Project Blue Beam every week on my podcast…” Barr tweeted December 14.
Trump wasn’t the only one who was spreading his own conspiracy theories about so-called drones. “It’s complete nonsense that no one knows what these things are,” said Marjorie Taylor Greene, a congresswoman from Georgia. Although Greene may be right, she has yet to provide any evidence for this assertion. Instead, she insists that once Trump is back in power, we will know everything.
It is a slap in the face that the Pentagon continues to tell the American people that it does not know who is flying the drones over New Jersey.
I think the Pentagon knows exactly that, but they’re full of crap.
If they don’t really know, these officials should resign in disgrace. pic.twitter.com/48jM7jAuxw
– Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) December 12, 2024
Eventually, Greene upped her tone, as she often does when there’s interest. By December 14, she was claiming that the US government not only knew what drones were, but controlled them.
“The government controls the drones and refuses to tell the American people what is going on. It’s really that bad,” Green said Written on X.
Then there are politicians like Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Republican congressman from New Jersey, who claims drones Actually of Iranian origin It is launched from a mother ship off the East Coast. There is no evidence for this and it is a claim denied by the Pentagon. But it’s not as if Rep. Van Drew is some random guy on the Internet. This is an elected official making this claim and saying he’s talking to people who know about it.
Republican Maryland Governor Larry Hogan also published his article Private video What he said were “dozens of drones” that were spotted over the state of Maryland.
“We’ve been told that neither the White House, the military, the FBI, or the Department of Homeland Security have any idea who they are, where they come from, or who released or controls them — and that they pose no threat.” books. “This response is completely unacceptable. I add my voice to a growing group of bipartisan leaders calling on the federal government to address this issue immediately. The American people deserve answers and action now.”
But the video is very shaky and at least some of the lights in the video appear to be just stars in the sky.
Last night, starting around 9:45 p.m., I personally saw (and videotaped) what looked like dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence in Davidsonville, Maryland (25 miles from our nation’s capital). I noticed the activity for about 45 minutes.
He loves… pic.twitter.com/Ipx8ctLmhs
– Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) December 13, 2024
This all brings us full circle. We don’t know what’s going on, but it really seems like no one does at this point. The vast majority of videos circulating online can be interpreted as ordinary planes or stars in the sky. The FBI issued a joint statement with the Department of Homeland Security on December 14, promising the public that both agencies would investigate.
“We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a threat to national security or public safety or have a foreign connection,” the statement read. He reads. “The FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and our federal partners, in close coordination with the New Jersey State Police, continue to deploy personnel and technology to investigate this situation and confirm whether the reported drone flights are in fact drones, manned aircraft, or inaccurate sightings. “.
The statement continued: “Historically, we have witnessed cases of mistaken identity, where reported drones were actually aircraft or manned facilities.” “We support local law enforcement in New Jersey with numerous detection methods but have not confirmed any of the reported visual sightings with electronic detection. On the contrary, after reviewing available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are in fact manned aircraft, operating Legal. “No drone sightings have been reported or confirmed in any restricted airspace.”
The statement ended by saying that the agencies saw no “malicious activity,” which is both encouraging and mysterious if you really think about what it means.
“We take very seriously the threat unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) can pose, which is why law enforcement and other agencies continue to support New Jersey and investigate reports,” the statement read. “To be clear, they have not detected such malicious activity or intent at this point. Although there is no known malicious activity in New Jersey, the reported sightings there highlight the inadequacy of current authorities.”
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