07 January 2025

The Washington Post: “In online drone panic, conspiracy thinking has gone mainstream”

Written by at 15:15

However, more than a million drones are lawfully registered with the FAA, including thousands of commercial, hobbyist and law enforcement drones lawfully in the sky on any given day, the joint statement said. With the technology landscape evolving, we expect that number to increase over time.

The Defense Department has said unidentified drones have long been a common problem close to military bases. In addition to perfectly legal drones, the sightings probably involve misidentified airplanes, other agencies have said.

Indeed, Nelson Delgado, the Newark FBI office’s acting special agent in charge, issued a video Monday warning of an increase in pilots of manned aircraft being hit in the eyes with lasers because people on the ground think they see a drone.

Even some politicians have been caught up in the online fervor. Former Maryland governor Larry Hogan (R) — who recently lost a campaign for U.S. Senate — posted a video on X last week showing what he said were drones flying over his house. They turned out to be stars in the constellation Orion, according to Washington Post meteorologist Matthew Cappucci.

Sen. Andy Kim (D-New Jersey) posted a long thread on X describing strange lights he saw during a ride-along with local police. A day later, he clarified that after further research, he’d concluded that what he saw was probably an airplane.

Tatum Hunter

Whenever online chatter about UFOs flares up, I chuckle to myself remembering how basically every time Venus becomes bright in the evening sky there’s renewed reports of people mistaking it for a UFO. My personal explanation (without invoking aliens or other unexplained phenomena, which are certainly possible, but overall unlikely) is that enough people are both sufficiently ignorant about their environment and self-absorbed to think that their first reaction is the real explanation of what they’re seeing and they need to instantly share it with others to prove their insight. A perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories.

A handful of bright lights against a dark sky with the sun setting in the distance.
The evening sky and points of light over Lebanon Township, New Jersey, on Dec. 5. Trisha Bushey/AP

The extent of the hysteria this time around has been considerably greater than previously. To be fair, in our technological society there are a lot more sources of light in the night sky, from drones to Starlink satellites, and it’s a lot harder to keep track of everything that’s happening around you. But having politicians and news outlets fuel the drama with badly focused videos for political gain or traffic has not helped. There’s a certain irony in Americans crying out for the government to do something about this fake issue, when they are usually so opposed to the government intervening in other areas of their lives, like healthcare. Come to think of it, maybe this is one of the reasons certain politicians are fanning the flames here: knowing full well that the problem is made-up, authorities don’t have any tangible measures to combat this, other than statements and reassurances, which in turn feeds the narrative of the impotent state and untrustworthy experts.

Labels: , ,

Post a Comment