What's stunning about most of the footage is the "blobsquatch" nature of it: digitally zoomed, out of focus. This is nearly always the case: it's always easier to attach mystery to blurry images; in-focus images are easily identified as non-mysterious things.
Some of the flying lights might well have been ... drones. Drones are not new; flying them at night is allowed. But some of the "drone panic" footage was clearly video of commercial aircraft taking off or landing at night. If I were trying to claim these lights were absolutely not airplanes, I wouldn't just say, "those are definitely not planes" (as they do in the News Nation special report). I would shoot nighttime take-offs and landings of commercial aircraft from a distance and document how my UAP footage was so vastly different.
But there's more going on here, and in the attention economy that the media exists in now, the New Jersey drones represented a potential ratings bonanza. The incentive structure3 demands fanning the flames and strictly prohibits debunking the phenomenon.
Crooked Media's podcast, "What A Day" ran an occasional series called "How We Got Here." That series has been discontinued, but its final episode was devoted to the 2024 New Jersey drone panic: "The New Jersey Drones Mass Delusion, Explained."
The well-researched episode includes references War of the Worlds, Havana Syndrome, evil clowns, and the Salem witch trials. Hosts Max Fisher and Erin Ryan have answers. And I have questions.
It's 2025, and podcasts are a thing. A big thing, and getting bigger. I've done many question sets for film and video presentations. This is my first question set for a podcast. I don't think it will be my last.
[The "What a Day" podcast series is given an "Explicit" rating. This episode merits a TV-14 rating at worst. It is safe for school.]
I added the "never forget" tag to the title because the typical pattern with these phenomena is that they fade quickly from public memory once something newer/shinier comes along. Those who absorb the lessons of the New Jersey Drone Panic of 2024 will find themselves less panicked when the next mass delusion arises.
I hope News Nation leaves their purely speculative conspiracy specials up for us to review for years to come. They're great examples of what it looks like when a media outlet manufactures a panic out of nothing. Military bases, check. Alien intelligence at work, check. "They" don't wasn't us to know, an absolute must! The "shoot 'em down" ethos is straight out of science fiction/American militarism Hollywood storyboards. Given that many of the "UFO drones" are commercial aircraft, do we want to imagine how that instinct would play out?
