Fact Check: No, Drones Reportedly Do Not Have Directed Energy Weapons That Cause ‘Plague’

In a meandering conspiracy video that included references to a “Luciferian” faction and “the simulation we live in,” one man claimed that drones that Americans are reporting seeing in the U.S. — including around the Capitol — are dangerous.

“What if I told you that these UFOs aren’t really the UFOs they’re talking about in the media?” he asked in the 1 minute 35 second video December 9 on Facebook. “They’re basically drones that have direct-action energy weapons with a space-based laser generation system that can create plague.”

He said frequencies from drones’ directed energy weapons could cause a “neurological misfire,” “manipulate your nervous system” and “make you depressed.” Recalling those physical and psychological side effects, he said, “So it’s no coincidence that the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was just dead,” using a euphemistic TikTok-inspired term for “killed.”

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(Screenshot from Facebook)

We have found no evidence that the reported drones, which officials say do not pose a threat to public safety and are not of foreign origin, have directed energy weapons that can “create plague.”

Directed Energy Weapons fire concentrated energy at the speed of light.

In an emailed statement Dec. 17, a Pentagon spokesman said the reported activity of the unmanned aerial vehicle system did not pose a physical threat to Defense Department personnel or adversely affect base operations. If authorities determine the drones are being operated by criminals or are involved in intelligence gathering, the department will take action to counter them, the statement said.

Ian Boyd, an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, told PolitiFact that while some directed energy weapons can cause physiological symptoms, they cannot cause a deadly epidemic. He also said it was unlikely that such a weapon would be equipped with a drone.

We reached out to the FBI and have not heard back.

What have officials said about the reported drones?

In a joint statement on Dec. 17, federal agencies that investigate drone reports said the objects do not pose a threat to public safety and that some “drones” have been mistakenly identified as manned aerial vehicles or stars.

“After carefully examining the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we believe that sightings to date include a combination of legitimate commercial drones, hobbyist drones and law enforcement drones, as well as mistakenly piloted planes, helicopters and stars. reported as drones,” the message reads statement from the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration, Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense.

Authorities have not “detected anything anomalous and do not assess activity to date that poses a threat to national or public security over civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the Northeast,” the statement said.

During a briefing on December 14, a representative of the Department of Internal Security said that when authorities used geospatial modeling to overlay drone and manned aircraft sightings, it showed that many of the reported drone sightings were misidentified manned aircraft.

A Department of Homeland Security official also said the agency has sent advanced drone radar and camera equipment to New Jersey, where drones are being reported. appeared for the first time in November — that can identify and track drones, determine the type of drone and assess whether it has a payload. The equipment did not detect anything abnormal, the official said.

After there were drones reported near US military bases, Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said On Dec. 16, the Federal Aviation Administration reports that more than 8,000 of the nation’s more than 1 million registered drones fly legally in the U.S. every day

“Flying drones is not illegal,” he said. Even when some drones fly near or over military bases, in most cases such drone activity is not unusual and does not pose a threat, he said.

“On any given day, an unauthorized car or truck can approach one of the base gates, usually by accident,” Ryder said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time these cars come back without incident.”

Security will respond if a vehicle enters the base illegally, but “unless there is a clear and present danger, which there usually isn’t, security personnel are not going to shoot at a vehicle as a first resort,” he said.

“We will continue to do everything we can to investigate reports of disturbing activity,” Ryder said. “But given how many drones are legally in our skies every day, we need to be careful to avoid malicious or malicious behavior.”

A drone operator helps retrieve a drone on April 29, 2018, after filming over Hart Island in New York. (AP)

Could drones have directed energy weapons that could “create the plague”?

Directed energy weapons include high-energy lasers and powerful electromagnetic radiation such as high-power microwave weapons, the Federal Government Accountability Office reported.

Since 2023, social media users have falsely claimed that the weapon caused unrelated incidents such as wildfires in Hawaii and Texas and bridge collapse in Baltimore. This time is no different.

The US and other governments there are exploring the use of directed energy weapons for military purposes, but there is no evidence that the reported drones have directed energy weapons that could cause a deadly epidemic.

According to Boyd of the University of Colorado, directed energy weapon systems are large, heavy and require a lot of electricity. “It took a large military drone to even think it was possible.”

Laser systems used in surgery “can burn biological tissue,” and microwaves can heat the skin. The directed energy microwave system was is considered “a candidate explanation for Havana syndrome” that refers to copies State Department diplomats in Cuba reported unexplained headaches, nausea, hearing loss, dizziness, and cognitive problems in 2016.

“But for a flying drone to cause any of these effects on people at relevant distances, very large systems (directed energy weapons) are required,” Boyd said. And none of these directed energy weapons systems “cause anything that could be described as a ‘plague’.”

Our decision

A Facebook video says recent drones reportedly flying over parts of the Northeast are carrying directed energy weapons that have a “space-based laser generation system capable of producing plague.”

Federal authorities said many of the mystery drones reported were legal commercial drones, hobbyist drones, law enforcement drones, manned aerial vehicles or drones that did not pose a threat to public or national security.

The expert said he knew of no evidence that the reported drones had directed-energy weapons — and that even directed-energy weapons, which can cause damage, could not cause a deadly outbreak.

We rate this statement as false.