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Mass hysteria hits the USA

People around the USA have fallen victim to a media-led hysteria.

I've already mentioned the rash of drone sightings that were reported in the night skies over Morris County in the USA a week or so ago.

Well it's turned into a plague, with serious numbers of people now reporting that drones "the size of a car" have been seen hovering over their houses once the sun sets.

Despite all these reports, authorities remain powerless to explain this sudden rash of drone reports and the media continues to report "reliable witnesses", including police officers and even a pilot or two offering their stories.

But you know what?

This is a media-led frenzy that has convinced regular folk that they're seeing drones when, in fact, all they're seeing is regular manned aircraft -- mainly passenger jets.

The media's role in this is outrageous and a clear indicator of why you must now always view any report on any subject by the mainstream media with huge skepticism.

I'm sure TV and internet news publishers are reaping rich rewards from the mass hysteria they've created, with people clicking on anything that could provide more evidence that the USA is under surveilance by the drones of a foreign power.

The FBI has been called in to investigate and I'm pretty sure the FAA will have become involved but so far... not a peep from them. That kind of makes them both look rather stupid, or perhaps they have their own reasons for wanting this hysteria to continue.

The media has gone so far as to deliberately fudge their reports. I watched one video where a TV news channel (with its expensive broadcast-quality video camera) told viewers they had to use a smartphone to get the images that were being shown because it was "easier" than using their bigger cameras.

Ah... NO!

They used their smartphones because if they had used a better camera it would have become abundantly clear that what they were filming was actually a passenger jet, complete with its FAA-mandated navigation and landing lights shining.

None of the video clips I've seen pass the commonsense test.

Most claim to show large drones just hundreds of feet away, at night. Yet, they all show significant atmospheric distortion. That's because they are actually huge airliners that are miles away. Film the neighbour's house, just a hundred feet away and you get a pretty clear, stable, crisp image, even at night -- so why is it that the video of these drones is all wobbly and distorted?

Yeah, it's the effect of light passing through various temperature differences in the air over the many thousands of metres between the craft and the observer. This is further compounded by the effects of the tiny sensor used in smartphone cameras and the high noise-levels that small sensor creates in low-light conditions.

It is also abundantly clear, if you compare these clips with the official FAA guidance on navigation lights, that they are a perfect match for modern passenger jet aircraft.

To make things even worse, a great many of these reports are now coming from areas near airports with witnesses also claiming that the drones sound just like regular jet aircraft. I think it's time Occam's Razor was applied in such cases.

If this wasn't such a tragic example of how we've lost the ability for critical thinking it would be funny.

Humans, as a species and Americans, as a society, really need to take a step backwards and ask themselves what the hell is going on.

I very much fear that those in authority will be closely analysing the situation and smiling from ear to ear when they see just how easily a dim-witted public can be duped into believing stuff that is clearly nonsensical. The ability to shape the perception of the public in such an incredible way represents enormous power.

I fear for our future.

Carpe Diem folks!

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