If you’re halfway tuned into the news these days, you’ve no doubt noticed the buzz around New Jersey’s mystery drones. For weeks people have witnessed “SUV and bus-sized” flying machines zapping around the night skies, flying over sensitive military installations, neighborhoods, and rural areas. Videos surfaced of drones being chased by military helicopters, cruising low, and hovering for long periods of time. They aren’t showing up on civilian flight trackers. They’re only flying around in the dark. For fuck’s sake, they shut down Wright Patterson Airforce Base for an entire night!

Despite reports of it spreading to multiple states (including Colorado), our government and military seem unconcerned. They say they have no clue who they belong to or what they’re doing.

If you’re wondering what the hell is going on, you aren’t alone — and you’ve come to the right place for answers. This is not the first time this has happened, and it’s not our first time covering it. In 2020 Colorado witnessed a very similar “drone” flap. It started in December and sightings happened every night for over a month. And just like this one, the strange occurrence continued unexplained for weeks. Reports flooded local law enforcement. The crafts were described as having 6-foot wingspans and moving in formations of 10-15. 

Then, one day, it just stopped. The situation, which had gripped global media outlets, was memory-holed and forgotten. The media quickly moved on.

At least, the corporate news media did. However, here at Rooster, we had some hot back-channel, dark web, Deep Throat conspiracy leads. And this time around we aren’t letting this mystery go unanswered. 

One Big Distraction

The most benign explanation is that this is a red herring. These drones appear to be of terrestrial origin. They use rotors and have blinking FAA lights. One has to imagine that if they were Chinese or Russian, our government would try harder to resolve this. So perhaps our military is filling the skies with secret aircraft as a distraction from the increasing UFO sightings happening all over the world. Perhaps this is meant to delegitimize the real phenomenon and create an artificial human scapegoat explanation. 

Looking for Dirty Bombs

A more frightening theory: These drones are looking for something that poses such a threat, that they need to keep it secret. A dirty bomb or some other nuclear explosive would fit the bill. The military could be actively looking for some radioactive weapon that’s been smuggled into the country ahead of the forthcoming inauguration. Similarly, it could be a test of this technology to see how the public will react in the event they need to deploy this technology for a real dirty/nuclear bomb threat. 

China, Russia, Someone Else

Could it be one of America’s foreign adversaries, or some unknown megawealthy evil genius, harassing our military, invading restricted airspace, making us look like absolute fools, and altogether denying involvement? Yeah. Could be. But if that were the case, there would have been a plug in this story since the start and the threat would have been quickly resolved with advanced anti-drone technology. 

Return of the Airships

Late in 1896, Americans started reporting mysterious “airships” flying in the night over towns and cities across the country. It started in California and sightings moved eastward. Based on newspapers from the time, witness numbers may have exceeded 100,000. Perhaps this is an older phenomenon than we realize. Perhaps it’s happened before in America. It could be aliens. It could be a breakaway civilization that exists here on earth, hidden, visiting once in a while to check-in.  

Mass Hysteria

Sometimes, when a few people report seeing or experiencing something, others also start to see or experience it. It’s like infectious laughter. You aren’t just playing along. You aren’t faking it. It’s a real experience that spreads between people like a disease. It could be that a handful of actual “drone” sightings kicked off a cascade of imagined or misconstrued sightings. But then, what about all those videos and the subsequent classified congressional briefings?