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Conspiracies & Coverups Season 1 Episode 2
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00:06I'm one of the officers at Island Beach State Park.
00:09We have like 50 drones.
00:12They're coming off the ocean.
00:14They're doing things that normal drones can't do.
00:19They're going up very fast and far.
00:23Wow.
00:25There's so many things in the sky right now.
00:28Let's face it.
00:29We live in a time when fear and distrust are at an all-time high.
00:33There are so many government conspiracies, it can be hard to tell what's real and what's not.
00:39The drones off of New Jersey.
00:41Are they Chinese? Are they Russian?
00:43Weather control.
00:45The death of Jeffrey Epstein.
00:47The list just goes on and on, and nobody knows how to make sense out of what's real and what's
00:55fake.
00:57My name is Andrew Bustamante, and I am a former covert CIA intelligence officer, and I'm here to help you
01:03separate fact from fiction.
01:06Since leaving CIA, I've made it my mission to shed light on the lies, cover-ups, conspiracies, and tactics used
01:14to conceal them.
01:16Now I'm going to pressure test the most sensational, ripped-from-the-headlines conspiracy theories out there, and track down
01:24key experts, eyewitnesses, and whistleblowers.
01:28I'll analyze never-before-seen footage, conduct eye-opening experiments.
01:34He's right here.
01:35See the drone right there overhead, you see it?
01:37And demonstrations.
01:38Sweet, and all the way down deeper.
01:40And deeper.
01:41It's just so fast, it's just incredible.
01:44Nobody thinks of hypnotism as a weapon.
01:47My mission is simple.
01:48Is there a tunnel that connects us to Cheyenne?
01:51To find the truth.
01:54Epstein was reported to have actually hung himself from this side of the bed, which is right here.
02:00And arm you with the tools you need to determine for yourself what is real, and what are you being
02:06manipulated to believe is real.
02:19What in the world is going on in the skies over New Jersey?
02:23New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen once described North Jersey's sky with the line,
02:27The sun's just a red ball rising over them refinery towers.
02:31But now we need to add a few drones.
02:34In November 2024, the folks of New Jersey started to look up in the sky and see this.
02:47What is that?
02:49For nearly a month, mysterious craft were spotted night after night.
02:54They're just pacing back and forth, going very slow.
02:57We've been looking for the past hour.
02:59We've seen about 40 or 50 of these drones.
03:01In fact, there's one over my shoulder right there.
03:05With distinct running life, these craft were too small to be fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters.
03:11Whatever that is, is massive.
03:13But they were also too large to be standard commercial drones.
03:17There are SUV-sized drones flying over my home, and the government has no idea what they are, so I'm
03:23going to make a cocktail.
03:24Some were reported to be flying in formation.
03:26They're all going the same direction.
03:28Others were seen hovering in place for hours.
03:32Oh my goodness.
03:34And with residents on edge, they were getting little in terms of answers.
03:39They have a responsibility, the FBI and the FAA, to brief the public more thoroughly.
03:44And in that government silence, conspiracy theories started to explode all over the internet and in mainstream media.
03:52Really want to know what's going on in New Jersey?
03:55Radioactive material in New Jersey has gone missing.
03:58Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago that contains these drones.
04:03The third option is, it's non-human.
04:07I mean, you said it yourself.
04:09The New Jersey drones quickly went from mystery to mean.
04:12How are you, or should I say what are you?
04:15Okay, no, we're not going to do that.
04:17See, I know what I am, and I don't have to explain myself to anyone.
04:22But serious questions still persist.
04:25Why hasn't the government provided a complete explanation, even a full year later?
04:32On this episode, I'm going to apply my CIA background.
04:35Becca, you got him.
04:36Let's get creative here.
04:37To conduct the most comprehensive investigation of the New Jersey drone mystery ever done.
04:42This is taking what we do to a whole new level.
04:45Ho, ho, ho, ho.
04:46With key interviews.
04:47Maybe there's a unit that's testing something out that not everybody's aware of.
04:51And real world demonstrations.
04:53Keyboard one taken off.
04:55So that we can separate fact from fiction and understand what was really happening in the
04:59skies over New Jersey in the fall of 2024.
05:14Drones used to be toys.
05:16Holiday gifts we used to film cool aerial shots of our homes or our kids' soccer games.
05:21Then they got useful.
05:24They deliver packages.
05:25They search for missing people.
05:27They entertain us with light shows.
05:30Convenient, harmless, and so they weren't.
05:34We all watched as small, cheap drones became terrifying weapons of war in places like Ukraine.
05:43So when unexplained drones began to pop up on the eastern seaboard, people were concerned.
05:49To dig deep into the mystery of the New Jersey drones, I am headed to where it all started.
05:55Northern New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.
06:03Here in Bergen County, one of the witnesses who recorded the most footage of these drones in the sky
06:09is a woman named Lisa Palouse.
06:14Let's count the drones.
06:15Right there.
06:16One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
06:24One of them literally went right over in my house where you could just reach out and touch it.
06:35This one's right above us.
06:39I didn't believe that it could be something that was going to harm us, but you would hear other people
06:46talk.
06:46Then you're like, well, maybe.
06:48What if?
06:49What if?
06:50So you're making up your own stories, and so is everybody else.
06:56When I look at a map of northern New Jersey, the first thing I notice is that Lisa and her
07:01neighbors live only about five miles outside of Picatinny Arsenal.
07:06This is not a typical military base.
07:08It's the U.S. Army's main laboratory for testing explosives, weapons, and advanced hardware, like robots and drones.
07:18Could there be a connection between the base and the sightings in Lisa's town?
07:23I'm heading over to meet with the mayor of Mine Hill to find out.
07:27A lot of people up in that area started seeing them all up and over around Picatinny.
07:33There were airspace violations.
07:36They then put restrictions in, and some of the drones still violated that.
07:41The one thing that got me one night, I got a call from a resident.
07:44Hey, mayor, the drones are over the elementary school and heading toward town hall.
07:48The mayor even grabbed his phone and shot his own video of the fleet of drones that had residents on
07:54edge.
07:54They were in formation.
07:56They were kind of working together, a team.
07:58They're all going the same direction.
08:02People started seeing them as weapons and asking questions.
08:06I am literally freaking out right now.
08:08Holy crap, what is that?
08:11Myself and a whole group of people were trying to get real answers.
08:15Whoever's doing this is tiptoeing right through the federal and state laws.
08:20Are these things up there to harm us?
08:22Are they Chinese? Are they Russian?
08:24But the feds wouldn't respond.
08:26The FAA wouldn't respond.
08:27The military wouldn't respond.
08:29And when you leave people hanging like that, they're going to fill in the blanks.
08:44It was November 25th when the FAA closed the airspace above Picatinny Arsenal and then extended that restricted zone over
08:51a golf club owned by then president-elect Donald Trump.
08:55They didn't provide a reason why.
08:57But you don't restrict airspace without a reason.
09:01The New York Post has been on this story from day one.
09:04So I reached out to one of the first journalists to report on the sightings to find out if they
09:08believe there could be any connection between the drones and the military base.
09:12What was it like in the middle of it all, on the ground like you were?
09:16It was total pandemonium.
09:18No one really knew exactly what the hell was going on.
09:21There was several agencies that all said everything is fine.
09:24Don't worry about it.
09:25No problems.
09:26It was like the vibes of the mayor from Jaws where he tells you everything at the beach is fine.
09:32There's no sharks.
09:33Just so that everybody can continue swimming in peace.
09:36Right.
09:37It was incredibly frustrating.
09:39The number one question is, why didn't Picatinny Arsenal shoot down the drones that were in their airspace operating illegally?
09:46It seems to me that it wasn't exactly just commercial drones and missed sightings that was going on in New
09:52Jersey in 2024.
09:53There was something else going on.
09:57If the government wasn't shooting down the aircraft that were violating the restricted zone, you have to wonder, did the
10:03government already know what was going on?
10:05We have footage of a formation flight that's traveling from one side of Picatinny Arsenal to the other side of
10:12Picatinny Arsenal.
10:13With so many sightings in such a small area, it actually elevated to the level where the president himself had
10:18to make comments.
10:20There's nothing nefarious apparently.
10:22There's a lot of drones authorized to be up there.
10:25Is there a chance that this could be related to some kind of secret U.S. government operation at Picatinny?
10:31It's an intriguing lead, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
10:43Before we jump to the conclusion that these drones were part of some kind of conspiracy or cover-up, I
10:49want to start with what my training taught me.
10:51At CIA, we're taught to follow very strict rules of analysis, something called razors.
10:57And the first razor that we learn is something called Occam's razor, which states that the simplest explanation is oftentimes
11:03the correct explanation.
11:05So the question is, was there something strange happening in the skies over New Jersey, or were those lights nothing
11:12out of the ordinary?
11:14To answer that question, I've arranged a meeting with a pilot from Skydio, a company whose drones are used by
11:20police departments and first responders all over the country.
11:23Hey, Andy, how's it going?
11:25Ken Van Heese is a former Navy SEAL who flew drones on classified missions all over the world.
11:30If anyone can help me try and understand what was going on over New Jersey, he can.
11:35I want to start by showing you a video that I received from a woman named Lisa.
11:39Lisa lives on a hill above Picatinny Arsenal.
11:44Let's count how many drones we got.
11:45One, two, three, four, five, six, five, six, seven, eight, eight, eight, eight.
11:55And as she's counting these, you can see that she's moving her camera in one direction, which suggests that all
12:00the drones are going in a predominant direction.
12:02Would it be possible for us to recreate what we just saw in this video?
12:05We can take a try and see if we can do it.
12:07Let's do it.
12:08Awesome.
12:09Matt and I will be the multi-drone remote flight deck operators.
12:14Wes, you'll be covering down on thermal.
12:17Let's do it.
12:17All right.
12:19All right.
12:19Kilo one taken off.
12:25Some witnesses said the craft they saw were much larger than these, but what I wanted to recreate wasn't the
12:30size, it was the visual effect.
12:32When multiple drones move together at night, it can trigger something called perception bias, where a few small lights in
12:39the sky suddenly look much bigger and much more ominous than they really are.
12:43I never think of flying a drone from a laptop.
12:47I always think of it from a control.
12:49The future is here.
12:50Holy smokes.
12:52So now what we're going to take him is right across the horizon and see if we can recreate what
12:56she saw.
12:57Okay.
12:59All right.
12:59Three, two, one, go.
13:06Look at that.
13:07That is exactly what she sent us in the video.
13:12Two, three, four.
13:14She watched and counted them in the sky.
13:16You can count them right now yourself as they move across the horizon from one point to another in one
13:22predominant direction.
13:32So then, Ken, what's your theory about what was happening in the skies over in New Jersey?
13:35And do you think any of it could have been Skydio technology?
13:38I think it could have been Skydio.
13:39We do have law enforcement customers in the New Jersey area, so I think they could have been flying drones
13:44as first responder missions.
13:47I don't think the average American recognizes that police forces fly drones at all.
13:51They don't.
13:52I think that's good for cops.
13:53I think when people see drones in the sky, it keeps the person honest.
13:57The tech is here, and it's not going anywhere.
14:00A police drone theory might not be too far-fetched.
14:04The Jersey sightings coincided with one of the most shocking events of 2024,
14:09when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down in cold blood on the streets of New York.
14:16CEO Brian Thompson was killed Wednesday morning.
14:19This was a premeditated, preplanned, brazen, targeted attack.
14:25And a massive hunt for Luigi Mangione was underway.
14:30After a frantic three-day manhunt, tonight the NYPD now believes the suspect who gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
14:37has escaped New York City.
14:39Coming up, could it be that simple?
14:42Could the Jersey drone mystery be explained by an increase in police drones patrolling our skies that most people are
14:48just not aware of?
14:57Oh, there's another in the distance.
15:00Two weeks after the initial drone sightings, on December 4th, 2024, everyone's attention shifted.
15:08Several authorities widened the urgent manhunt for a killer.
15:11The NYPD deploying drones.
15:13Drones played a critical role in the manhunt for Luigi Mangione, the suspect of the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian
15:20Thompson.
15:21Law enforcement drones ran grid searches over Central Park.
15:25They helped locate early physical evidence, and then they fanned out across the tri-state area as he fled.
15:31But here's the thing.
15:32That manhunt happened more than two weeks after the initial sighting, so that explanation falls apart.
15:40Nevertheless, drone pilot Ken Van Heese told me he believes the answer is police and first responder drone activity the
15:46public is just noticing for the first time.
15:50Ken's theory sparked my curiosity, so I decided to have a little fun.
15:55I want to see firsthand what a drone tracking someone looks like, with a test of how my CIA evasion
16:02and escape techniques stack up against the latest police drone technology.
16:06So I asked Ken to set up a manhunt with the local police department.
16:10The target, me.
16:12We're going to see how long we can track and follow you.
16:15My job is just to evade for as long as possible and try to escape detection.
16:19Exactly.
16:20I had no idea that over 1,400 police departments fly drones every day for all sorts of missions.
16:27You guys ready over there?
16:29It's time to roll.
16:36I'm going to check maybe Colorado and Nevada.
16:40I'm going to start using my peripheral vision to try to identify anything in the sky that's looking for me.
16:50Becca, where are you at?
16:52I'm purchasing around now.
16:54Okay.
16:55This is nerve-wracking as hell.
16:56In my seven years at CIA, I spent much of it operating overseas undercover.
17:02I got used to people trying to follow me.
17:05Learning how to shake surveillance is basic tradecraft.
17:08But losing a drone in the sky?
17:10That's a different game.
17:14There's a very real instinct to run when you know somebody is on your tail.
17:19But a professional has to fight that instinct.
17:22Becca, you got him?
17:24There you go.
17:24Oh, yeah, that's him from the back.
17:26Hit C.
17:27Subject track.
17:28Enable.
17:30Yep.
17:30Click him.
17:31There you go.
17:33I saw the drone in the sky.
17:35All right.
17:36Let's get creative here.
17:37Do you have him?
17:39He just turned a corner, so he's heading north.
17:41I have a real chance of blending in with a crowd.
17:44So, all of these folks are hanging out.
17:47Can I walk in here with you guys?
17:49I'm all right.
17:50All right.
17:50Well, it's not easy to get accomplices for this kind of stuff.
17:54But that's not the only trick up my sleeve.
17:57I need a place where the drone can't see me and what I'm doing.
18:00I'm actually going to go into an underground bar.
18:04It's open.
18:05We are now underground.
18:07He just went down into the rabbit hole.
18:10If he's still in there, he's just doing a ruse on us.
18:12We'll go get him.
18:13Because we know we have him there, now is a really good time to get a fresh battery.
18:19Um, it's a very strange question.
18:21Is there an exit other than this from this building?
18:25Go up this way and then close the door.
18:28All right.
18:29We got our back exit out of the bar.
18:33So now, the question is whether or not the drone is going to find us.
18:40Okay, we are underneath a canopy.
18:43I hear a drone passing overhead.
18:45There it goes.
18:47It's going towards the opposite direction.
18:48So we're going to continue our walk.
18:50Hopefully, that means there's a battery problem.
18:53Are you guys able to clear downstairs?
18:57Yeah, it's the back door.
18:58We're going to keep that.
19:01We are literally feet away from a place that might be my safe haven.
19:11How are you doing?
19:12How are you doing?
19:14Where did we go?
19:17We might need to do a missing persons report now.
19:21Ah, cheers!
19:25I was able to beat the drone by exploiting a weakness.
19:29Even these expensive police drones are small in scale and have battery limits.
19:33But many of the drones reported over New Jersey were seen flying for hours.
19:39Police drones may have been part of the puzzle, but I'm not convinced that they're the sole explanation.
19:44Which leads me to a number of other wild conspiracy theories that exploded on social media.
19:50One of the first conspiracy theories to go viral came from reality TV star Bethany Frankel.
19:56There are many different theories.
19:58One, that the government, our government, is searching for something that has been lost.
20:04There have been many nuclear W's that were lost during different wars.
20:08Something could be disassembled and then reassembled here.
20:11Soon, people across the tri-state area started freaking out that the drones were part of a search for some
20:18kind of loose nuke.
20:21There were over 80 nuclear warheads that were in Ukraine that came up missing.
20:27It's out there.
20:28Nobody knows where it's at now.
20:29And then rumors, of course, come out on the internet that there may be some dire situation.
20:35They could very possibly be sniffing out something very dangerous.
20:41How crazy was Bethany's post?
20:44Maybe not so much.
20:46Before my time at CIA, I was a U.S. Air Force nuclear missile officer.
20:51So let's walk through what would happen if there was a dirty bomb in New Jersey.
20:55You'd start quietly.
20:58Radiation detection teams, aircraft with sniffers.
21:00These are systems that already exist.
21:03The public would, in fact, see more aircraft in the skies.
21:07Helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, even drones flying tight-grid search patterns.
21:13What you wouldn't hear is,
21:15Good morning.
21:15There may be a missing nuclear device in your neighborhood.
21:18So what people were seeing could fit this pattern.
21:22And a loose nuke isn't science fiction.
21:26In 1961, a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber broke apart over North Carolina and dropped two fully-armed
21:35hydrogen bombs.
21:36We call this a broken arrow.
21:38One of them nearly went off.
21:40The public didn't learn how close that was until decades later.
21:46But in this case, you're probably not surprised to learn there was no missing radiological weapon.
21:52Energy agencies knocking down an alarming theory saying it's just not true.
21:57Authorities even addressed the rumor in time.
21:59That statement goes on to say that nuclear officials are not currently conducting any aerial operations in that region.
22:06What went missing was a small amount of radioactive material that was used for testing.
22:11It had nothing to do with the drones.
22:14But that didn't matter.
22:15This is what happens when national security anxiety collides with social media.
22:20And fear is rewarded with clicks.
22:22Speculation takes over and facts are forgotten.
22:26And within days, the New Jersey drone mystery went from a dirty bomb scare to a full-on invasion.
22:33Only this time, it wasn't a real housewife raising the alarm.
22:36It was a police officer.
22:41This is one of the officers at Island Beach State Park.
22:45We have like 50 drones coming off the ocean.
22:48They're like the size of cars.
23:10We don't have any video from her, but this isn't a random person with a phone.
23:15This is a 911 call from a trained officer.
23:17They're doing things that normal drones can't do.
23:21They're going up very fast and far.
23:25And there's these two big boats you can see out of the water.
23:30I don't know if those two boats have anything to do with that.
23:33This was Ocean County, about 100 miles south of Mine Hill,
23:37where civilian and eyewitness Lisa Palouse was first recording drones above her home.
23:42A 911 call that came from a State Park police officer who wasn't sure what she was seeing.
23:48She described it as a giant swarm of drones coming in from over the ocean.
23:53This sighting was one of many that happened in the region,
23:56and the sheriff down there started to raise the alarm.
23:58We have flight radar mapping capabilities,
24:03and we did not see anything on indicating it was a plane.
24:07Obviously, they want us to know they're there.
24:09They put on their lights.
24:11So who it is, I wish I could tell you.
24:13But, you know, obviously there's a lot of tension to this matter throughout.
24:16What struck me when I heard this 911 call was the sheer number of drones
24:21and that they seemed to be coming from a ship offshore.
24:24What did your office do?
24:26We immediately contacted the Coast Guard.
24:28We pointed back around 11.30 that night
24:31that there was 11 or 13 of them following their Coast Guard cutter.
24:37One drone that they documented, it didn't give a heat signal.
24:40It needed another type of fuel source.
24:43Nobody saw them take off or land, and that's interesting
24:46because at some point, you would have to take off or land.
24:49So for us, the indication would be that it's possibly coming off the ocean
24:53and possibly a submarine.
24:56What the sheriff went on to tell me is really quite alarming.
24:59A swarm of drones tracking a Coast Guard cutter.
25:03The strange thing being that they showed no heat signature,
25:06which suggests that possibly they were trying to cloak.
25:09I mean, this sounds more like advanced military-grade technology.
25:14And that's why when a congressman went on TV
25:16and made the following announcement,
25:18it was a New Jersey resident's worst nightmare.
25:21I'm going to tell you the real deal.
25:23Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago
25:27that contains these drones.
25:29That mothership is off...
25:31I'm going to tell you the deal.
25:32It's off the East Coast of the United States of America.
25:35They've launched drones.
25:37It's everything that we can see or hear.
25:39And again, these are from high sources.
25:40I don't say this lightly.
25:45Was there an Iranian mothership
25:47launching an aerial invasion near Atlantic City?
25:50If anyone can help me separate the facts from the fear on this,
25:54it's my friend Trevor Fortner,
25:56a former U.S. Navy counterterrorism special operator.
26:00Thank you for coming, brother.
26:02It's great to see you, Andy.
26:04What can I do for you?
26:05So I've been chewing on this question of the drone sightings
26:08that happened in New Jersey about a year ago.
26:10And there were all these rumors circulating
26:13about whether or not there was an Iranian mothership
26:15launching drones into the mainland.
26:17How would the United States react to a foreign naval threat like that?
26:20I don't believe that we would have allowed them
26:22to actually get that close to the country.
26:24So even though it's international water,
26:27it's not really free water for anyone to just sail in?
26:30Not from our perspective, no.
26:32We have a nautical statue.
26:33It's 15 nautical miles.
26:35It becomes international territory.
26:37After that, we're still monitoring that
26:39and observing what's happening.
26:41Had there been a foreign threat,
26:42what's your confidence level that U.S. military
26:44would have neutralized the threat
26:45before it even got close enough to pose direct harm?
26:48100%.
26:49That's where I am too, man,
26:51because they would have been sunk in the water.
26:53I believe that 100%.
26:56Also, what would be the intent of Iran
26:59to send a mothership so close to our shore
27:02and launch drones into our airspace
27:04that they know that we can absolutely detect?
27:07There's easier ways, more efficient ways,
27:10to clandestinely sneak items into the country.
27:18Trevor is right.
27:19A ship-based attack isn't very likely.
27:22Boats are slow and trackable.
27:24The nightmare scenario
27:25for every national security professional I know
27:28is a drone attack launched from inside our own borders
27:32by a group of non-state actors or terrorists.
27:36So if it wasn't a foreign enemy,
27:38we have to test the domestic threat idea.
27:41How fast could a drone swarm go airborne?
27:45And how hard would it be to stop?
27:58I'm in the middle of a suburban area.
28:00I have a white picket fence right here.
28:03I have a petroleum depot just over there in the distance.
28:06I have multiple schools and churches all within the area.
28:09This is a fantastic place
28:12to demonstrate the power of a drone swarm.
28:16A location like this is what we call a soft target.
28:20And that's what the sheriff in Ocean County, New Jersey,
28:22was so worried about
28:23when an officer reported seeing a swarm of 50 drones.
28:27We tried to ascertain,
28:29is this a government agency?
28:30Is this the CIA?
28:32Is this the federal government?
28:33Obviously, we're thinking national security.
28:36I'm going to talk to the guys operating these drones
28:39to understand if the threat of a drone swarm
28:42could be the key to finally unraveling
28:44the mystery of the New Jersey drones.
28:46That is an incredible display.
28:49Yeah, just a little 80-drone demo that we put together.
28:52We spent a lot of time out here
28:54just testing out different configurations and fleet sizes.
28:58We're operating a giant fleet of drones.
29:00These guys aren't military contractors.
29:04They're a private drone entertainment company.
29:06Everything they need to launch their coordinated drone shows
29:09fits in the back of a truck.
29:11And with a single laptop,
29:13one person can launch and coordinate hundreds of drones.
29:17It's interesting to me that you describe this as a fleet,
29:20but when you have to sign up for a waiver with the FAA,
29:23it's considered a swarm.
29:25Is there a difference in terminology?
29:27We refer to it a fleet
29:28because we have telemetry data
29:30and communications with everything individually
29:32so we can control everything.
29:33Swarm is a little bit more terrifying
29:35because it just kind of speaks to, like, controlled chaos.
29:39You know, we're in a suburban area right now.
29:41There are some very interesting soft targets.
29:44If you were to look at this very same community
29:46through the eyes of a threat,
29:48how easy would it be for someone to take a commercial drone
29:51and use it for something nefarious?
29:54Very easy.
29:55Very easy?
29:56Yeah, very easy.
29:57We could probably do it in five minutes.
29:59Honestly, at least, you know, scary.
30:01That is scary.
30:02And that is what we're seeing play out all over the world right now.
30:05Yeah, it's very prevalent in Ukraine, for sure.
30:07Very, very prevalent.
30:09Drones have transformed the battlefield,
30:11no more so than in Ukraine,
30:14helping the smaller country bog down their Russian invaders
30:17into a near stalemate.
30:18And what terrifies my national security friends most
30:21is an attack like this.
30:24Tonight, the Kremlin's seeing the biggest drone attack yet inside Russia.
30:28Back in 2025, Ukrainian operators hid armed drones
30:32inside specially camouflaged truck beds.
30:34Then, those trucks were driven thousands of miles
30:37deep into Russian territory.
30:39The operators remotely activated the drones,
30:42and a coordinated swarm lifted off,
30:46striking multiple Russian military airfields,
30:48taking out scores of planes
30:50before the Russians even understood what was happening.
30:53The lesson wasn't the drones.
30:55The lesson was the tactic,
30:57an attack that launched from inside an enemy's homeland
31:00that was nearly impossible to stop.
31:04So, this is our new warehouse.
31:06We just outgrew our last one.
31:09Ho, ho, ho, ho.
31:10This is our new system,
31:11which is basically taking what we do to a whole new level.
31:16These drones will fly out of the box,
31:19do their whole show, finish,
31:21and they'll land exactly back inside of the spot
31:24that they took out of.
31:25I'd say out of 2,000 drones,
31:28maybe one will miss their slot.
31:30That's how accurate these drones are.
31:32Now, when I was in the military,
31:34when I served at CIA,
31:35the drones that we were dealing with were gigantic.
31:38They were the size of a Volkswagen Beetle,
31:40and they would carry out reconnaissance missions,
31:42surveillance missions.
31:43They would drop missiles from high altitude.
31:45So, this is the whole motherboard.
31:48This is what the brains are of one of these drones.
31:52This is it.
31:53This is a drone.
31:53They barely are heavy enough
31:55to have to be registered with the FAA.
31:57That's how light they are.
31:58When I see the drone light shows coming in,
32:01especially from Asia,
32:03I can't help but be intimidated
32:05by what could be done with a military-grade drone.
32:08Is there a one-to-one correlation there?
32:11A lot of the components are the same.
32:12Those are the same drones that could be used
32:15in a military application.
32:17When you take all of this
32:18and you apply it to New Jersey...
32:20It's not so much that we saw
32:21some amazing technological advancement
32:24that we'd never seen before,
32:26but I think it was more that was happening in a space
32:29and in a pattern that people had not seen before.
32:32But I think there is a weak point in our airspace,
32:36low altitude.
32:37You know, we don't see a lot of things operate
32:39in that airspace.
32:40You know, zero to 1,000 feet is...
32:42Maybe if you live near an airport or a helipad,
32:44you see activity,
32:46but otherwise, you don't see anything.
32:49Graham is right.
32:50We've all seen the movies
32:51where drug runners skim the ocean
32:53to avoid Coast Guard radar.
32:55So when it comes to tiny,
32:57five-pound drones operating at treetop levels,
32:59you can imagine how hard it would be to track these.
33:03But remember,
33:04a lot of the sightings were craft much larger than this.
33:07What do you think was happening in New Jersey
33:09as experts in drones?
33:10I go back and forth on whether it was our own government.
33:12You know, maybe a radar detection,
33:15jamming technology,
33:17or maybe it's even a social experiment.
33:19Like, how are people going to react to weird stuff
33:22they start seeing at low altitude?
33:24I got one more thing I want to show you.
33:26The guys had something up pretty crazy for you,
33:28so why don't we step back outside again?
33:31Absolutely.
33:32All right, let's go.
33:33Ready.
33:47It's just incredible to think
33:48that every one of those lights in the sky
33:50is being controlled by one single operator,
33:54somebody who's on our side.
33:56But just imagine what would happen
33:57if somebody with hostile intentions
34:00took control of those drones.
34:01What kind of damage could they inflict?
34:05Russian drones were spotted within NATO airspace,
34:08this time in Romania.
34:11If the government was running exercises
34:13to prepare for such an attack,
34:15they'd keep it under wraps.
34:16But before we jump to this conclusion,
34:19I need to pressure test a more otherworldly theory.
34:22They're not just like regular drones.
34:25They're UAPs.
34:26That's a UFO.
34:27At Malmstrom Air Force Base,
34:2910 of our nuclear ICBMs were rendered inoperable.
34:32At the same time,
34:33a glowing red orb was observed overhead.
34:35Coming up, UFOs, government preparedness tests,
34:39or police drones.
34:40We may finally get our answers
34:42to the mysterious drones flying over New Jersey.
34:53Driving home, I keep replaying it.
34:55It takes a lot to scare me,
34:56but the New Jersey...
34:57The rumors.
34:58Radioactive material in New Jersey has gone missing.
35:00The confusion.
35:01Iran launched a mothership.
35:03Weeks of theories about Iran,
35:05missing weapons,
35:06manhunts that spread across New Jersey
35:08from November into December 2024.
35:11Right there.
35:12Oh my goodness.
35:14Like Lisa Palouse said at the beginning.
35:17Nobody's giving us answers.
35:19Your mind goes all over the place.
35:23Residents across the state were spiraling.
35:25Bro, this is crazy, man.
35:27It even got to the point
35:28where they were wondering
35:29if it was human at all.
35:32These drones are mysterious
35:34and they're UAPs.
35:35They're not just like regular drones.
35:37Are the drones being controlled
35:39by an extraterrestrial intelligence?
35:42The idea that the drones
35:43could have been UFOs
35:45became one of the big memes.
35:46That is a yes.
35:50And once again,
35:51officials were not denying it,
35:53even though the drones
35:54were using FAA running lights
35:56and showed no characteristics
35:58of out-of-this-world technology.
36:01All of this got me thinking
36:03about something at CIA
36:04that we call narrative control.
36:06In the intelligence world,
36:07this means shaping
36:08how people understand events.
36:11Not deceiving people
36:12or hiding secrets per se,
36:14but steering perception
36:16in the direction that you want.
36:18There's no better example of this
36:19than an incident that happened
36:2150 years ago
36:22when a UFO story was used
36:24to cover up a classified test.
36:27In 1967,
36:29unidentified objects
36:30were reported
36:30over nuclear missile control centers
36:32at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
36:34Around the same time,
36:36multiple intercontinental nuclear missiles
36:38suddenly went offline.
36:40Missiliers on duty
36:41would later go on
36:42to tell the story
36:43of the day UFOs
36:44turned off our launch capability
36:45to anyone who would listen.
36:48And that lived on
36:50in UFO lore for decades.
36:51At Malmstrom Air Force Base,
36:54in which 10 of our nuclear ICBMs
36:55were rendered inoperable,
36:56at the same time,
36:58a glowing red orb
36:58was observed overhead.
37:00But last year,
37:00declassified documents
37:01told a very different story.
37:03The missiles being disabled
37:04had nothing to do with aliens.
37:07It was all the result
37:08of a top-secret U.S. military test,
37:11an electromagnetic pulse experiment
37:13designed to see whether an EMP
37:15could knock our own missiles offline.
37:20It worked.
37:21And because it worked so well,
37:23the Pentagon stayed silent
37:25because it didn't want the Soviets
37:27to know what had really happened.
37:28And the government
37:29allowed the story about aliens
37:31to go unchecked
37:32for more than half a century.
37:34What is that?
37:36The government did not create
37:37the Jersey UFO story,
37:39but they did allow it to live.
37:41The fact that the federal agencies
37:43responsible for briefing the public
37:46have not come forward
37:47in a clearer way
37:48is unacceptable.
37:50Why it is that they're not
37:51being forthcoming
37:51with this information
37:52is confusing to me
37:54and very frustrating.
38:00It seemed like we may never get
38:02an actual answer to this mystery.
38:08But then I get a major scoop.
38:11The New York Post reports
38:13that they may have the answer
38:15to what was actually flying
38:16in the skies in 2024.
38:19A private company
38:20with a government contract
38:22was testing out their newest tech,
38:24a car-sized aircraft.
38:26Does that ring a bell?
38:28Residents have compared some of them
38:30to the size of a small car.
38:32There are SUV-sized drones
38:34flying over my home,
38:36so I'm going to make a cocktail.
38:37The reporter who broke the story?
38:39My man, Shane.
38:42We got a tip from a source
38:44who was former military
38:45that some people were taking credit
38:48for setting off some of the scares
38:49over there in New Jersey,
38:51and they were debuting
38:52this manned aerial craft
38:54that was about the size of a car.
38:56This is from a company
38:57called Pivotal,
38:58and it's a black fly.
39:00You know, on the record,
39:01they said that they had
39:02nothing to do with it,
39:03but they did not rule out
39:05the fact that they could have
39:06sold to somebody
39:07on the East Coast.
39:08So, Shane,
39:09what's your net takeaway
39:10from all this?
39:11I do think that I keep coming back
39:13to Picatinny Arsenal.
39:15It could be like a field experiment,
39:18essentially.
39:18It doesn't solve the whole mystery,
39:20but it at least plugs something in
39:22so that we can figure it out.
39:25Even if this eases fears
39:26that what people were seeing
39:27wasn't an invasion,
39:29but rather advanced
39:31car-sized aerial technology,
39:33the question still remains why.
39:35What is the government
39:37not telling us?
39:39But then I heard this
39:40from the White House press secretary.
39:43After research and study,
39:45the drones that were flying
39:46over New Jersey in large numbers
39:48were authorized to be flown
39:50by the FAA for research
39:52and various other reasons.
39:54Research and various other reasons.
39:57Words that explain everything,
40:00but say nothing.
40:02Unless it wasn't just
40:04a test of the technology,
40:07but a test of us.
40:10What is that?
40:13Specifically,
40:14how we, the public,
40:16would respond.
40:17Of all the places
40:18to carry out a test like this,
40:20of course you would pick
40:21a dense, heavily populated,
40:23urban location like New Jersey
40:26to test what would happen,
40:28how would people react,
40:29how would the rumors spread,
40:31how would authorities respond,
40:32how would elected officials
40:33speak out?
40:34Dozens upon dozens,
40:36every single night,
40:37and nobody's doing anything.
40:39It's plausible this test
40:40was as much from an offensive
40:42perspective as defensive.
40:44If you think about
40:45the future of conflict,
40:46it's going to be about
40:46reaching people where they live,
40:49where they feel safe.
40:51And when you look at
40:52how the public reacted
40:53to these strange lights
40:55in the sky,
40:56their reaction went
40:57from curiosity
40:58to terror
41:00in an instant.
41:03Holy crap.
41:04What is going on
41:05in New Jersey?
41:06Look at that.
41:07Modern wars aren't won
41:08by weapons alone.
41:11They're won by shaping perception.
41:13The anxiety that people
41:15are just feeling.
41:16I don't know.
41:17I don't know what to think.
41:18Because the side
41:19that can take control
41:21of the narrative
41:21doesn't have to win the fight
41:25to win the war.
41:28Cheers, everyone,
41:29and stay safe out there.
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