All language subtitles for Conspiracies.and.Coverups.S01E02.Jersey.Drone.Panic.1080p.DISC.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

Wow...

There's so many things
in the sky right now.

Let's face it.

We live in a time
when fear and distrust

are at an all-time high.

There are so many
government conspiracies,

it can be hard to tell
what's real and what's not.

The drones off of New Jersey.

Are they Chinese?

Are they Russian?

Weather control.

The death of Jeffrey Epstein.

The list just goes on and on,

and nobody knows how to make
sense out of what's real...

and what's fake.

My name is Andrew Bustamante,

and I am a former covert
CIA intelligence officer,

and I'm here
to help you separate

fact from fiction.

Since leaving CIA,

I've made it
my mission to shed light

on the lies,
cover-ups, conspiracies,

and tactics
used to conceal them.

Now I'm going to pressure-test
the most sensational,

ripped-from-the-headlines
conspiracy theories out there,

and track down key experts,

eyewitnesses,
and whistleblowers.

I'll analyze
never-before-seen footage,

conduct eye-opening experiments.

These right here.

See the drone right there
overhead, you see it?

And demonstrations.

Sleeping all the way down
deeper and deeper.

It's just so fast.
It's just incredible.

Nobody thinks of hypnotism
as a weapon.

My mission is simple...

Is there a tunnel that connects
us to Cheyenne Mountain?

...to find the truth.

Epstein was reported to have
actually hung himself

from this side of the bed,

which is right here.

And arm you
with the tools you need

to determine
for yourself what is real

and what are you being
manipulated to believe is real.

What in the world is going on

in the skies over New Jersey?

New Jersey's
own Bruce Springsteen

once described
North Jersey's sky
with the line,

"The sun's just a red ball

rising over them
refinery towers,"

but now we need to add
had a few drones.

In November 2024,

the folks of New Jersey
started to look up

in the sky and see this.

What is that?

For nearly a month,
mysterious crafts were spotted

night after night.

They're just pacing back
and forth,

going very slow.

We've been looking
for the past hour.

We've seen about 40
or 50 of these drones.

In fact, there's one
over my shoulder right there.

With distinct running lights,

these craft were too small

to be fixed-wing aircraft
or helicopters.

Whatever that is,
is massive.

But they were also too large

to be standard
commercial drones.

There are SUV-sized drones
flying over my home,

and the government has no idea
what they are,

so I'm going
to make a cocktail.

Some were reported
to be flying in formation.

They're all going
the same direction.

Others were seen hovering
in place for hours.

Oh, my goodness.

And with residents on edge,

they were getting little
in terms of answers.

They have a responsibility,

the FBI and the FAA,

to brief the public
more thoroughly.

And in that government silence,

conspiracy theories
started to explode

all over the Internet
and in mainstream media.

Really want to know
what's going on in New Jersey?

Radioactive material
in New Jersey has gone missing.

Iran launched a mothership
probably about a month ago

that contains these drones.

The third option is--
it's non-human.

I mean, you said it yourself.

The New Jersey drones quickly
went from mystery to meme.

How are you, or should I say,
what are you?

OK, no,
we're not gonna do that.

See, I know what I am,

and I don't have to
explain myself to anyone.

But serious questions
still persist.

Why hasn't the government
provided a complete explanation,

even a full year later?

On this episode, I'm going
to apply my CIA background...

Becca, you got him?

Let's get creative here.

...to conduct the most
comprehensive investigation

of the New Jersey drone mystery
ever done.

This is taking what we do
to a whole new level.

Ho, ho, ho, ho.

With key interviews.

Maybe there's a unit
that's testing something out

that not everybody's aware of.

And real-world demonstrations.

Kivo 1 taking off.

So that we can separate
fact from fiction

and understand
what was really happening

in the skies over New Jersey
in the fall of 2024.

Drones used to be toys.

Holiday gifts we used to film
cool aerial shots of our homes

or our kids' soccer games.

Then they got useful.

They deliver packages.

They search for missing people.

They entertain us
with light shows.

Convenient, harmless,

until they weren't.

We all watched as small,
cheap drones became

terrifying weapons of war
in places like Ukraine.

So when unexplained drones

began to pop up
on the Eastern Seaboard,

people were concerned.

To dig deep into the mystery
of the New Jersey drones,

I am headed
to where it all started.

Northern New Jersey,

just across the Hudson River
from Manhattan.

Here in Bergen County,

one of the witnesses
who recorded

the most footage of these drones
in the sky is a woman

named Lisa Puluse.

Let's count the drones.

Right there, one, two,

three, four,

five, six, seven...

One of them literally went
right over my house

where you could just reach out
and touch it.

This one's right above us.

I didn't believe
that it could be something

that was gonna harm us,

but you would hear
other people talk.

Then you're like,
well, maybe-- what if?

What if?

So you're making up
your own stories,

and so is everybody else.

When I look at a map
of northern New Jersey,

the first thing I notice
is that Lisa and her neighbors

live only about five miles
outside of Picatinny Arsenal.

This is not
a typical military base.

It's the US Army's
main laboratory

for testing explosives,
weapons,

and advanced hardware,
like robots and drones.

Could there be a connection
between the base

and the sightings
in Lisa's town?

I'm heading over to meet
with the mayor of Mine Hill

to find out.

A lot of people
up in that area

started seeing them
up and over

around Picatinny.

There were airspace violations.

They then put restrictions in

and some of the drones
still violated that.

The one thing that got me
one night,

I got a call from a resident,

"Hey, mayor, the drones are
over the elementary school

and heading toward town hall."

The mayor even grabbed
his phone and shot

his own video
of the fleet of drones

that had residents on edge.

They were in formation,

they were kind of working
together-- a team.

People started seeing them
as weapons and asking questions.

I am literally freaking out
right now.

Myself and a whole group
of people

were trying to get real answers.

Whoever's doing this
is tiptoeing

right through the federal
and state laws.

Are these things up there
to harm us?

Are they Chinese?
Are they Russian?

But the feds wouldn't respond.
The FAA wouldn't respond.

The military wouldn't respond.

And when you leave people
hanging like that,

they're going to fill
in the blanks.

It was November 25th
when the FAA closed the airspace

above Picatinny Arsenal
and then extended

that restricted zone
over a golf club

owned by then President-Elect
Donald Trump.

They didn't provide
a reason why,

but you don't restrict
airspace without a reason.

The New York Post has been
on this story from day one,

so I reached out
to one of the first journalists

to report on the sightings

to find out if they believe
there could be any connection

between the drones
and the military base.

What was it like in the middle
of it all on the ground

like you were?
- It was total pandemonium.

No one really knew exactly
what the hell was going on.

There was several agencies
that all said,

"Everything is fine,
don't worry about it,

no problems."

It was like the vibes
of the mayor from "Jaws,"

where he tells you everything
at the beach is fine,

there's no sharks,
just so that everybody

can continue
swimming in peace, right?

It was incredibly frustrating.

The number-one question is,
"Why didn't Picatinny Arsenal

shoot down the drones that were
in their airspace

operating illegally?"

It seems to me that it wasn't
exactly just commercial drones

and miss-sightings that was
going on in New Jersey in 2024.

There was something else
going on.

If the government

wasn't shooting
down the aircraft

that were violating
the restricted zone,

you have to wonder,

did the government already know
what was going on?

We have footage of a formation
flight that's traveling

from one side
of Picatinny Arsenal

to the other side
of Picatinny Arsenal.

With so many sightings,
in such a small area,

it actually elevated
to the level

where the President himself

had to make comments.

Is there a chance
that this could be related

to some kind of secret
US government operation
at Picatinny?

It's an intriguing lead,

but we're getting ahead
of ourselves.

Before we jump to the conclusion

that these drones were part
of some kind of conspiracy

or cover up,

I want to start
with what my training taught me.

At CIA, we're taught to follow
very strict rules of analysis,

something called Razors.

And the first Razor
that we learn

is something called
Occam's Razor,

which states
that the simplest explanation

is oftentimes
the correct explanation.

So the question is, "Was there
something strange happening

"in the skies over New Jersey,

or were those lights nothing
out of the ordinary?"

To answer that question,
I've arranged a meeting

with a pilot from Skydio,
a company whose drones are used

by police departments
and first responders

all over the country.

- Hello.
- Hey, Andy, how's it going?

Ken Van Hese
is a former Navy SEAL

who flew drones
on classified missions

all over the world.

If anyone can help me try
and understand what was going on

over in New Jersey, he can.

I want to start by showing
you a video that I received

from a woman named Lisa.

Lisa lives on a hill
above Picatinny Arsenal.

Let's count how many drones--

we got, one, two...

three, four...

There's a lot more than
I thought it was going to be.

...six... there's seven...

And as she's counting these,

you can see that she's moving
her camera in one direction

- Yeah.
- Which suggests that all

the drones are going
in a predominant direction.

Would it be possible for us

to recreate what we just saw
in this video?

We can take a try
and see if we can do it.

- Let's do it.
- Awesome.

Matt and I will be

the multi-drone
remote flight deck operator.

Wes, you'll be covering down
on thermal.

- Let's do it.
- All right.

- All right.
- Kivo 1 taking off.

Some witnesses
said the crafts they saw

were much larger than these.

But what I wanted to recreate
wasn't the size,

it was the visual effect.

When multiple drones
move together at night,

it can trigger something called
perception bias,

where a few small lights
in the sky

suddenly look much bigger

and much more ominous
than they really are.

I never think of flying a drone
from a laptop.

I always think of it
from a control.

- The future is here.
- Holy smokes.

So now what we're gonna take
them is right across

the horizon and see if we can
recreate what she saw.

OK.

All right, three, two,
one, go.

Look at that.

That is exactly
what she sent us in the video.

Two, three, four.

She watched and counted them
in the sky.

You can count them right now
yourself as they move

across the horizon
from one point to another

in one predominant direction.

So then, Ken, what's your theory
about what was happening

in the skies over New Jersey?

And do you think any of it could
have been Skydio technology?

I think it could have
been Skydio.

We do have
law enforcement customers

in the New Jersey area,

so I think they could
have been flying a drone

as first-responder,
uh, missions.

I don't think
the average American recognizes

that police forces
fly drones at all.

They don't.
I think that's good for cops.

I think when people see drones
in the sky,

it keeps the person honest.

The tech is here,
and it's not going anywhere.

A police drone theory
might not be too far-fetched.

The Jersey sightings coincided

with one of the most shocking
events of 2024--

when UnitedHealthcare CEO
Brian Thompson was gunned down

in cold blood
on the streets of New York.

CEO Brian Thompson
was killed Wednesday morning.

This was a premeditated,

preplanned, brazen,
targeted attack.

And a massive hunt
for Luigi Mangione was underway.

After a frantic,
three-day manhunt,

tonight the NYPD now believes
the suspect who gunned down

UnitedHealthcare CEO
Brian Thompson

has escaped New York City.

Coming up--
could it be that simple?

Could the Jersey drone mystery
be explained by an increase

in police drones
patrolling our skies

that most people
are just not aware of?

2

Two weeks after
the initial drone sightings,

on December 4th, 2024,
everyone's attention shifted.

Federal authorities widened
the urgent manhunt for a killer.

The NYPD deploying drones.

Drones played a critical role

in the manhunt
for Luigi Mangione,

the suspect of the killing

of UnitedHealthcare
CEO Brian Thompson.

Law enforcement drones ran
grid searches over Central Park.

They helped locate
early physical evidence,

and then they fanned out
across the tri-state area

as he fled.

But here's the thing,

that manhunt happened
more than two weeks

after the initial sighting,
so that explanation falls apart.

Nevertheless,
drone pilot Ken Van Hese

told me he believes
the answer is police

and first-responder
drone activity

the public is just
noticing for the first time.

Ken's theory sparks
my curiosity.

So I decided to have
a little fun.

I want to see firsthand

what a drone tracking someone
looks like

with a test of how my CIA
evasion and escape techniques

stack up against the latest
police drone technology.

So I asked Ken
to set up a manhunt

with the local police
department,

the target-- me.

We're going to see how long
we can track and follow you.

My job is just to evade
for as long as possible

and try to escape detection.
- Exactly.

I had no idea that
over 1,400 police departments

fly drones every day
for all sorts of missions.

Check, maybe, Colorado
and Nevada.

I'm going to start using
my peripheral vision to try

to identify anything in the sky
that's looking for me.

This is nerve-wracking as hell.

In my seven years at CIA,

I spent much of it
operating overseas undercover.

I got used to people
trying to follow me.

Learning how
to shake surveillance

is basic tradecraft,
but losing a drone

in the in the sky,
that's a different game.

There's a very real instinct
to run when you know somebody

is on your tail.

But a professional
has to fight that instinct.

OK...

I saw the drone in the sky.
All right,

let's get creative here.

I have a real chance
of blending in with a crowd.

So all of these folks are
hanging out.

Can I walk in here
with you guys?

Alright.

Well, it's not easy
to get accomplices

for this kind of stuff.

But that's not
the only trick up my sleeve.

I need a place
where the drone can't see me

and what I'm doing.

I'm actually going to go
into an underground bar.

It's open.

We are now underground.

Um, it's
a very strange question.

Is there an exit other
than this from this building?

Alright.

We got our back exit
out of the bar.

So now the question is

whether or not
the drone's gonna find us.

OK, we are
underneath a canopy.

I hear a drone
passing overhead.

There it goes.

It's going towards
the opposite direction.

So we're going
to continue our walk.

Hopefully that means there's
a battery problem.

We are literally
feet away from a place

that might be my safe haven.

How you doing?
How you doing?

Ah!
Cheers!

I was able to beat the drone
by exploiting a weakness.

Even these expensive
police drones are small in scale

and have battery limits.

But many of the drones reported
over New Jersey

were seen flying for hours.

Police drones may have been
part of the puzzle,

but I'm not convinced that
they're the sole explanation,

which leads me to a number

of other wild
conspiracy theories

that exploded on social media.

One of the first conspiracy
theories to go viral

came from reality TV star
Bethenny Frankel.

There are many
different theories.

One, that the government,
our government,

is searching for something
that has been lost.

There have been many nuclear Ws

that were lost
during different wars.

Something could be disassembled
and then reassembled here.

Soon, people across
the tri-state area started

freaking out that the drones
were part of a search

for some kind of loose nuke.

There were over 80 nuclear
warheads

that were in Ukraine
that came up missing.

It's out there.

Nobody knows where it's at now.

And then rumors, of course,

come out on the Internet

that there may be
some dire situation.

They could very possibly be
sniffing out

something very dangerous.

How crazy was Bethenny's post?

Maybe not so much.

Before my time at CIA,

I was a US Air Force
nuclear missile officer.

So let's walk through
what would happen if there was

a dirty bomb in New Jersey.

You'd start quietly.

Radiation detection teams,
aircraft with sniffers.

These are systems
that already exist.

The public would in fact see
more aircraft in the skies.

Helicopters,
fixed-wing aircraft,

even drones flying
tight-grid search patterns.

What you wouldn't hear is,
"Good morning, there may be

a missing nuclear device
in your neighborhood."

So what people were seeing
could fit this pattern.

And a loose nuke
isn't science fiction.

In 1961,
a US Air Force B-52 bomber

broke apart over North Carolina

and dropped
two fully armed hydrogen bombs.

We call this a Broken Arrow.

One of them nearly went off.

The public didn't learn
how close that was

until decades later.

But in this case,
you're probably not surprised

to learn there was no missing
radiological weapon.

Energy agencies knocking down
an alarming theory

saying it's just not true.

Authorities even addressed
the rumor in time.

That statement goes on to say
that nuclear officials

are not currently conducting
any aerial operations

in that region.

What went missing was
a small amount

of radioactive material
that was used for testing.

It had nothing to do
with the drones,

but that didn't matter.

This is what happens
when national security anxiety

collides with social media,

and fear is rewarded
with clicks.

Speculation takes over,
and facts are forgotten.

And within days,

the New Jersey drone mystery
went from a dirty-bomb scare

to a full-on invasion.

Only this time,
it wasn't a real housewife

raising the alarm.
It was a police officer.

2
We don't have any video
from her,

but this isn't
a random person with a phone.

This is a 911 call
from a trained officer.

This was Ocean County,

about 100 miles
south of Mine Hill,

where civilian
and eyewitness Lisa Puluse was

first recording drones
above her home.

A 911 call that came
from a state park police officer

who wasn't sure
what she was seeing.

She described it
as a giant swarm of drones

coming in from over the ocean.

This sighting was one of many
that happened in the region,

and the sheriff down there
started to raise the alarm.

We have flight radar
mapping capabilities,

and we did not see anything
indicating it was a plane.

Obviously, they want us to know
they're there.

They put on their lights.

Uh, so, who it is,
I wish I could tell you,

but, you know, obviously,
there's a lot of tension

to this matter throughout.

What struck me when I heard
this 911 call

was the sheer number of drones

and that they seemed to be
coming from a ship offshore.

What did your office do?

We immediately contacted
the Coast Guard.

We reported back around 11:30
that night that there was

11 or 13 of them following
their Coast Guard cutter.

One drone that they documented,

it didn't give a heat signal

and it needed another type
of fuel source.

Nobody saw them
take off or land.

And that's interesting,
'cause at some point,

you would have to take off
or land.

So for us, the indication would
be that it's possibly coming

off the ocean
and possibly a submarine.

What the sheriff
went on to tell me

is really quite alarming.

A swarm of drones tracking
a Coast Guard Cutter.

The strange thing being that
they showed no heat signature,

which suggests that possibly
they were trying to cloak.

I mean, this sounds more

like advanced
military-grade technology.

And that's why
when a congressman went on TV

and made
the following announcement

it was a New Jersey resident's
worst nightmare.

I'm going to tell
you the real deal.

Um, Iran launched a mothership

probably about a month ago,

that contains these drones.

- That mothership is off--
- Really?

I'm going to tell you the deal.

It's off the east coast
of the United States of America.

They've launched drones.

It's everything
that we can see or hear,

and again,
these are from high sources.

I don't say this lightly.

Was there an Iranian mothership

launching an aerial invasion
near Atlantic City?

If anyone can help me separate
the facts from the fear

on this, it's my friend,
Trevor Fortner,

a former US Navy
counterterrorism
special operator.

- Thank you for coming, brother.
- It's great to see you, Andy.

What can I do for you?

So, I've been chewing
on this question

of the drone sightings
that happened in New Jersey

about a year ago.
- OK.

And there were all
these rumors circulating

about whether or not there was
an Iranian mothership

launching drones
into the mainland.

How would the United States

react to a foreign
naval threat like that?

I don't believe that we would
have allowed them to actually

get that close to the country.

So even though
it's international water,

it's not really free water
for anyone to just sail in?

Not from our perspective, no.
We have a nautical statute.

It's 15 nautical miles.

It becomes
international territory.

After that,
we're still monitoring that

and observing what's happening.

Had there been
a foreign threat,

what's your confidence level
the US military

would have neutralized
the threat before it even got

close enough to pose
direct harm?

- One hundred percent.
- That's where I am too, man,

'cause they would have been sunk
in the water.

I believe that 100%.

Also, what would be the intent
of Iran to send a mothership

so close to our shore and launch
drones into our airspace

that they know that we can
absolutely detect?

There's easier ways,
more efficient ways

to clandestinely sneak items
into the country.

Trevor's right.

A ship-based attack
isn't very likely.

Boats are slow and trackable.

The nightmare scenario

for every national security
professional I know

is a drone
attack launched from inside

our own borders

by a group of non-state actors
or terrorists.

So if it wasn't a foreign enemy,
we have to test

the domestic threat idea.

How fast could a drone swarm
go airborne?

And how hard would it be
to stop?

2
I'm in the middle
of a suburban area.

I have a white picket fence
right here.

I have a petroleum depot
just over there in the distance.

I have multiple schools
and churches

all within the area.

This is a fantastic place
to demonstrate the power

of a drone swarm.

A location like this
is what we call a soft target.

And that's what the sheriff
in Ocean County, New Jersey,

was so worried about
when an officer reported seeing

a swarm of 50 drones.

We tried to ascertain,
"Is this a government agency?

Is this the CIA?
Is this the federal government?"

Obviously, we're thinking
national security.

I'm going to talk to the guys
operating these drones

to understand if the threat
of a drone swarm

could be the key
to finally unraveling

the mystery
of the New Jersey drones.

That is an incredible display.

Yeah, just a little
80-drone demo

we put together.

We spent a lot of time out here
just testing out

different configurations
and fleet sizes.

We're operating
a giant fleet of drones.

These guys
aren't military contractors.

They're a private drone
entertainment company.

Everything they need to launch
their coordinated drone shows

fits in the back of a truck.

And with a single laptop,
one person can launch

and coordinate hundreds
of drones.

It's interesting to me that
you describe this as a "fleet,"

but when you have to sign up
for a waiver with the FAA,

it's considered a "swarm."

Is there a difference
in terminology?

We refer to it "a fleet"
because we have telemetry data

and communications
with everything individually.

So we can control everything.

"Swarm" is a little bit more
terrifying because it just

kind of speaks to,
like, controlled chaos.

You know, we're in a suburban
area right now.

There are some very interesting
soft targets.

If you look
at this very same community

through the eyes of a threat,

how easy would it
be for someone to take

a commercial drone and use it
for something nefarious?

- Very easy-- very easy.
- , yeah.

Yeah, very easy.
Could probably do it
in five minutes,

honestly, at least now.

- Scary.
- That is scary.

And that is what we're seeing

play out all over
the world right now.

Yeah, very prevalent
in Ukraine, for sure.

Very, very prevalent.

Drones have transformed
the battlefield,

no more so than in Ukraine...

...helping the smaller country
bog down

their Russian invaders
into a near stalemate.

And what terrifies my national
security friends most...

is an attack like this.

Tonight, the Kremlin's seeing
the biggest drone attack yet

inside Russia.

Back in 2025,

Ukrainian operators
hid armed drones

inside specially camouflaged
truck beds.

Then those trucks were driven

thousands of miles deep
into Russian territory.

The operators
remotely activated the drones,

and a coordinated swarm
lifted off,

striking multiple Russian
military airfields,

taking out scores of planes

before the Russians even
understood what was happening.

The lesson wasn't the drones.

The lesson was the tactic--

an attack that launched
from inside an enemy's homeland

that was nearly impossible
to stop.

So this is our new warehouse.

We just outgrew our last one.

Ho, ho, ho, ho.

This is our new system,
which is basically taking

what we do to a whole new level.

These drones will fly
out of the box,

do their whole show, finish,
and they'll land

exactly back inside of the spot
that they took out of.

I'd say out of 2,000 drones,
maybe one will miss their slot.

That's how accurate
these drones are.

Now, when I was in the military

and when I served at CIA,

the drones that we were
dealing with were gigantic.

They were the size
of a Volkswagen Beetle.

And they would carry out

reconnaissance missions,
surveillance missions.

They would drop missiles
from high altitude.

So this is
the whole motherboard.

This is what the brains are
of one of these drones.

This is it.
This is a drone.

They barely are heavy enough
to have to be registered

with the FAA.
That's how light they are.

When I see
the drone light shows

coming in,
especially from Asia.

I can't help but be intimidated
by what could be done

with a military grade drone.

Is there a one-to-one
correlation there?

A lot of the components
are the same.

Those are the same drones
that could be used

in a military application.

When you take all of this

and you apply it
to New Jersey...

It's not so much that we saw

some amazing
technological advancement

that we'd never seen before,

but I think it was more
that it was happening in a space

and in a pattern
that people had not seen before,

but I think there is
a weak point

in our airspace,
low altitude.

You know, we don't see
a lot of things

operate in that airspace.

You know,
zero to a thousand feet is,

maybe if you live near
an airport or a helipad,

you see activity,

but otherwise
you don't see anything.

Graham is right.

We've all seen the movies where
drug runners skim the ocean

to avoid Coast Guard radar.

So when it comes
to tiny five-pound drones

operating at treetop levels,

you can imagine
how hard it would be

to track these.

But remember,

a lot of the sightings
were craft

much larger than this.

What do you think
was happening in New Jersey

as experts in drones?

I go back and forth on whether
it was our own government,

you know,
maybe a radar detection,

jamming technology,

or maybe
it's even a social experiment.

Like, how are people going
to react to weird stuff

they start seeing
at low altitude?

I got one more thing
I want to show you.

The guys had something up
pretty crazy for you.

So why don't we step back
outside again?

Absolutely.

- Alright, let's go.
- Ready.

It's just incredible to think

that every one of those lights
in the sky

is being controlled
by one single operator,

somebody who's on our side.

But just imagine
what would happen

if somebody
with hostile intentions

took control
of those drones.

What kind of damage
could they inflict?

Russian drones were
spotted within NATO airspace,

this time in Romania.

If the government
was running exercises

to prepare for such an attack,

they'd keep it under wraps.

But before we jump
to this conclusion,

I need to pressure-test
a more otherworldly theory.

They're not just
like regular drones.

They're UAPs.

That's the UFO.

At Malmstrom Air Force Base,

ten of our nuclear ICBMs
were rendered inoperable.

At the same time,
a glowing red orb

was observed overhead.

Coming up, UFOs,
government preparedness tests,

or police drones?

We may finally get our answers
to the mysterious drones

flying over New Jersey.

2
Driving home,
I keep replaying it.

Takes a lot to scare me,
but the New Jersey...

- The rumors...
- Radioactive
material in New Jersey

has gone missing.
- ...the confusion.

Iran launched a mothership.

Weeks of theories about Iran,

missing weapons,
manhunts that spread

across New Jersey from
November into December 2024.

Right there.
Oh, my goodness.

Like Lisa Puluse
said at the beginning...

Nobody's giving us answers.

Your mind goes...

all over the place.

Residents
across the state were spiraling.

Bro, this is crazy man.

It even got to the point

where they were wondering
if it was human at all.

These drones are mysterious
and they're UAPs.

They're not just, like,
regular drones.

Are the drones being controlled

by an extraterrestrial
intelligence?

The idea that
the drones could have been UFOs

became one of the big memes.

That is a yes.

And once again,
officials were not denying it,

even though the drones
were using FAA running lights,

and showed no characteristics

of out-of-this-world
technology.

All of this got me thinking
about something at CIA

that we call
"narrative control."

In the intelligence world,
this means shaping how people

understand events.

Not deceiving people
or hiding secrets per se,

but steering perception
in the direction that you want.

There's no better example
of this than an incident

that happened 50 years ago

when a UFO story was used
to cover up a classified test.

In 1967, unidentified objects
were reported

over nuclear missile
control centers

at Malmstrom Air Force Base.

Around the same time,

multiple intercontinental
nuclear missiles

suddenly went offline.

Missileers on duty would later
go on to tell the story

of the day UFOs turned off
our launch capability

to anyone who would listen.

And that lived on
in UFO lore for decades.

At Malmstrom Air Force Base,

in which 10 of our nuclear ICBMs
were rendered inoperable.

At the same time,
a glowing red orb

was observed overhead.

But last year,
declassified documents

told a very different story.

The missiles being disabled
had nothing to do with aliens.

It was all
the result of a top-secret
US military test.

An electromagnetic
pulse experiment

designed to see whether an EMP

could knock
our own missiles offline.

It worked!

And because it worked so well,
the Pentagon stayed silent

because it didn't want
the Soviets

to know
what had really happened.

And the government allowed
the story about aliens

to go unchecked
for more than half a century.

What is that?

The government did not create
the Jersey UFO story,

but they did allow it to live.

The fact that
the federal agencies responsible

for briefing the public
have not come forward

in a clear way is unacceptable.

Why it is that they're
not being forthcoming

with this information
is confusing to me

and very frustrating.

It seemed like we
may never get an actual answer

to this mystery.

But then I get a major scoop.

The New York Post reports
that they may have the answer

to what was actually flying
in the skies in 2024.

A private company
with a government contract

was testing out
their newest tech,

a car-sized aircraft.

Does that ring a bell?

And residents
have compared some of them

to the size of a small car.

There are SUV-sized drones
flying over my home,

so I'm going to make a cocktail.

The reporter
who broke the story?

My man, Shane.

We got a tip from a source
who was former military

that some people were taking
credit for setting off

some of the scares over there
in New Jersey,

and they were debuting
this manned aerial craft

that was
about the size of a car.

This is from a company
called Pivotal,

and it's a BlackFly.

Now, on the record,
they said that they had

nothing to do with it,

but they did not
rule out the fact

that they could
have sold to somebody

on the East Coast.

So, Shane, what's
your net takeaway from all this?

I do think that I keep coming
back to, um, Picatinny Arsenal.

It could be, like,
a field experiment, essentially.

It doesn't solve
the whole mystery,

but it at least plugs
something in

so that we can figure it out.

Even if this eases fears
that what people were seeing

wasn't an invasion,

but rather advanced
car-sized aerial technology,

the question still
remains, why?

What is the government
not telling us?

But then I heard this

from the White House
press secretary.

After research and study,
the drones that were flying

over New Jersey
in large numbers

were authorized to be flown
by the FAA for research

and various other reasons.

"Research
and various other reasons."

Words that explain everything,
but say nothing.

Unless it wasn't just a test
of the technology,

but a test of us.

What is that?

Specifically, how we,
the public, would respond.

Of all the places to carry out
a test like this,

of course you would pick
a dense,

heavily populated,
urban location like New Jersey

to test what would happen,
how would people react,

how would the rumors spread,
how would authorities respond?

How would elected officials
speak out?

Dozens upon dozens,
every single night,

and nobody's doing anything.

It's plausible this test

was as much
from an offensive perspective

as defensive.

If you think
about the future of conflict,

it's going to be about reaching
people where they live,

where they feel safe.

And when you look
at how the public reacted

to these strange lights
in the sky,

their reaction went
from curiosity

to terror in an instant.

Holy crap.

What is going on in New Jersey?

Look at that.

Modern wars aren't won
by weapons alone.

They're won
by shaping perception.

The anxiety that people
are just feeling.

I don't know.
I don't know what to think.

Because the side

that can take control
of the narrative

doesn't have to win the fight

to win the war.

Cheers, everyone,
and stay safe out there.