(press play for ambiance^{1 2})

For the last month or so, random creepy drones, some reportedly the size of SUVs, have been appearing in the skies above New Jersey, and have started fanning out across the mid-Atlantic. Answers have been non-existent, and people have been, understandably, not pleased.

Naturally, some people are proposing the American-est solution possible: shooting the shit out of them. Which is illegal and also it seems not great to have SUV-sized anything freefalling from the sky? But I’m not a professor of cities or whatever, so what do I know? White House national security shill and folksy fucking ghoul John Kirby says it’s no big deal, y’all, you’re probably not seeing what you think you’re seeing. He may have a point, but that’s also pretty much what he says about war crimes in Gaza, so it’s hard to tell.

Here are some theories that have been floated³:

• They’re coming from an‘Iranian mothership’, which I can only assume means some sort of Persian Funkadelic situation.
• It’s the American military. Any plausibility there went out the window once drones appearing over Philadelphia; any American would know better than to try that shit⁴.
• It’s China. In fairness, I didn’t actually see someone specifically blaming China, but you know someone is.
• Some sort of Jersey devil population boom.
• Someone told Bruce Springsteen about viral marketing and it went really sideways, but now he’s in too deep to come clean about it.

Pentagon spokesperson and Don’t Roll Your Eyes Regional Champion Sabrina Singh has said it’s neither foreign actors nor the American military. Personally I’m hoping for the Jersey Devils; look at this cutie!

Will we get answers soon? In the second most surprising development in this whole saga⁵, there seems to be a fairly bipartisan Congressional support for getting some goddamn answers. By definition, though, ‘bipartisan’ is going to include a lot of disingenuous shitbirding by Republicans, so we’ll see how it goes.

Let’s have a great day, non-testy day out there in the Disqus trenches! Be nice to each other, thank a mod today, and take care of yourselves.

1. This is how you spell ‘ambiance,’ huh? It does not look right. ↩︎
2. Wait, you can spell it ‘ambience!’ Damn spell check. ↩︎
3. Pun not intended but I absolutely wish it was. ↩︎
4. I think technically it’s also illegal to throw batteries at a drone, but there’s got to be a Philadelphia exception, right? What, are you gonna ask a fish not to swim? ↩︎
5. The first, of course, being that none of the theories Marjorie Taylor Greene has advanced has been explicitly antisemitic. Yet. ↩︎