Why the unexplained drones are the mystery we didn’t know we needed

We’re all obsessed with UFOs again — except this time it’s 2024 and we’re talking about drones. It’s the perfect mystery for our divided times.

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Katie Notopoulos, Senior Correspondent covering technology and culture Lots of people have one conspiracy theory they kind of believe in. Ideally, this is more on the mild end of things, rather than something like the moon landing being faked. A little skepticism toward authority can be healthy. Which is why the mysterious drones that have been flying over New Jersey and the Northeast — which the federal government tells us are nothing to worry about — are a perfect thread for our conspiratorial minds to pull on. In this postelection time, the drones have united people across the political spectrum in a shared belief that something weird is going on and these clowns in government aren’t telling us the straight story. (For the record, there is no evidence that clowns in the government are, in fact, lying to us.) Over on the Facebook group “New Jersey Mystery Drones — let’s solve it,” which has more than 73,000 members, there’s a sharp sense of disillusionment with the local and national government response. There’s also a fair number of people who might not normally talk about believing in space aliens saying they think what we’re seeing is space aliens. And I think that’s a beautiful thing. We needed this. We may one day learn the Official Truth. Until then, the drones spotted over New Jersey and other places have become a perfect obsession: an unsolved mystery that has bonded communities and gotten people outside into the fresh December air. (I would like to give a disclaimer here that I cannot say with 100% certainty that this is not a military attack from Australia as vengeance for our mockery of its Olympic breakdancer. Or that space aliens are not about to invade and harvest our organs.) What we know about the apparent drones, so far, is that officials seem to agree that it’s neither of those threats. The Pentagon has also said they’re not drones from an “Iranian mothership.” And other officials say what people are seeing is just regular airplanes, helicopters, or stars. (If you want to get in on the action and check what’s flying in the sky above you, flight-tracking apps can help.) The drone mystery has been healing a wound in our divided nation. We needed something mildly silly but kind of wacky and slightly concerning to focus on collectively. Unexplained drone activity ticks a lot of boxes of things humans love: Best of all, discussing drone sightings has been hyperlocal — and has thrived on Facebook. Outside the drone phenomenon, Facebook Groups already had become the nation’s hub for suburban news. It’s where people go to ask for a plumber recommendation, complain about schools, post activities — and now discuss potential extraterrestrial activity. In my small town outside New York City, the local Facebook group was buzzing about drone sightings — people were thrilled to finally get in on the action after hearing about it in New Jersey for weeks. An offshoot group was started to discuss drone sightings in Connecticut. (It’s much smaller than the New Jersey one.) A recent post showed the vibe: “No sightings yet in Norwalk.” See, everyone wants in on the fun. There’s some history of silly panics in the headlines just before something big happens. A series of shark attacks — dubbed the “Summer of the Shark” — dominated the news in the late summer of 2001. Then there was the summer of clown sightings in 2016, right before Trump was elected president for the first time. Perhaps years from now, we’ll all look back at this as the funny moment where we all focused on drones right before [whatever] happened. Or, hey, maybe we’ll look back on this and think: “We should’ve fought off the alien brainsuckers sooner!” There’s so much for middle-aged suburbanites to argue about on the internet — property taxes, politics, Luigi. But for a brief moment, we’ve gotten to engage in extended Fox Mulder LARP. I hope the drones stick around a little longer. Jump to

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