Americans are falling prey to drone conspiracy theories. Trump isn’t helping

This is an adapted excerpt from the Dec. 16 episode of “The ReidOut.”

There’s a drone mystery gripping the Eastern Seaboard, with almost daily sightings over the past month. First spotted in New Jersey on Nov. 18, the drones appear to show up in the late hours of the night. 

There’s still a lot that we don’t know about them, like who is operating them or why. And it’s precisely what we don’t know that’s driving interest in them and demands that the federal government provide answers.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the federal government is sending high-tech drone detection resources to her state to investigate the phenomenon. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has also asked the White House for more federal resources to investigate the sightings. Former Maryland Gov.  Larry Hogan posted about what he saw over his house — although students of astronomy were quick to point out that most of what he filmed was the constellation Orion. 

The Biden administration has provided some insight into this mystery. The government agencies investigating the sightings — the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security — said they “have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”

But since they’ve been unable to say where these objects came from or what they’re doing, the people who’ve decided they know exactly what’s happening have filled the void. Like noted conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who flat out said in a post on X that the government is in control of the drones and refuses to tell the American people what is going on. Of course, there’s no evidence to suggest that whatsoever.

But she’s got plenty of company in the MAGA world believing that, all the way up to the highest levels. Donald Trump’s longtime ally Steve Bannon suggested the same thing at a New York Young Republicans Club event over the weekend. Last week, Trump called for the drones to be shot down and suggested that the government knows more than it’s telling. 

The president-elect doubled down on that claim at a news conference Monday. “The government knows what is happening,” Trump claimed without any evidence. 

“Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it’s a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason, they don’t want to comment. And I think they’d be better off saying what it is. our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense,” he continued. 

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What we know about the drone sightings across the northeast December 16, 2024 / 03:50

According to a joint statement released by the government agencies looking into the sightings, their assessment indicates that these drones are “a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.”

Now seems like a perfect time to remind you that America is one of the most conspiracy theory-prone countries in the world — it’s sort of in our DNA. It’s been part of our culture all the way back to the Salem witch trials and it’s only intensified with modern technology.

On the eve of Halloween in 1938, when Orson Welles went on the radio and inadvertently started a panic with his broadcast of “The War of the Worlds.” Those who didn’t hear the beginning thought Martians really had invaded New Jersey. That event spawned a cottage industry of alien invasion movies and television shows.

The propensity toward mass hysteria only intensified with the threat of the boogeyman of communism and the “Red Scare.” After American cities began putting fluoride into drinking water in the 1940s, the far-right John Birch Society opposed the move on the grounds that it was an involuntary mass medical treatment — part of a communist plot.

Of course, the granddaddy of them all for modern America is the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the only presidential assassination captured on film. It was followed by a slew of explanations that seemed to defy what people thought they saw, despite numerous investigations.

Years later, Watergate came along and brought with it the end of American innocence, a tacit admission that American politicians sometimes really were liars and crooks. 

In the 1990s, one of my favorite ever television shows, “The X Files,” became a cultural touchstone telling America simply: “The truth is out there.”

Add to that the rise of right-wing media and particularly right-wing talk radio. There, Rush Limbaugh pushed political conspiracies and led to the rise of ultra-conspiracists Glenn Beck and Alex Jones, who also happened to be key purveyors of some of the rampant conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama.

It was Beck who wondered aloud whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency under Obama was setting up “concentration camps” for conservatives — you know, just asking questions. In 2015, Jones turned military training exercises in Texas into fearmongering about martial law claiming that it was a plan to target the local population. Jones helped stir up enough fear about it that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott actually had the Texas State Guard monitor the military training.

Then, of course, there was the Obama conspiracy to end all conspiracies: birtherism, the racist idea that Obama was not born in the United States. That conspiracy was pushed, in part, by none other than Trump.

Since Trump made his entry into politics by peddling conspiracy theories, it’s no surprise we’re back to it. After all, Trump’s idea that he won the 2020 election is its own elaborate conspiracy theory.

But this time around, the incoming administration has a slew of conspiracy theorists on the team. I mean, why have a government that tries to keep people rational when you can potentially have a secretary of health and human services who questions whether chemicals in water can turn kids gay? Or a possible director of national intelligence who thinks there are secret U.S. biolabs in Ukraine developing weapons? Or a potential FBI director who has said supportive things about QAnon?

But that’s where we are. The question now is: How do we confront a world where America is run by them?

Allison Detzel contributed.