The Great Drone Panic of 2024...and 1914

Guest columnist Robert Bartholomew, one of the world’s leading scholars of mass hysterias and social panics, considers the panic over the recent drone sightings in the skies over New Jersey

Today we bring you this analysis of the great drone panic of 2024—the media frenzy over unidentified flying objects over the skies of New Jersey in December—by the great sociologist and scholar of mass hysterias and social and moral panics, Dr. Robert Bartholomew, who reminds us that this is not the first (and likely not the last) time masses of people see something mysterious in the skies above their heads that reflects ongoing social and political anxieties.

To my eyes, this is another classic case of patternicity: the tendency to see meaningful patterns in meaningful and meaningless noise. Here the fact that photographs and videos of the objects are almost all taken at night, are grainy and blurry, makes the phenomena ripe for people filling in whatever their imagination conjurs. As one is wont to do on social media, I posted a cheeky comment on X about the matter, given that so many of the “mysterious drones” are obviously planes, but to be fair, a number of them are not obviously planes, so what are they, and what is it that people are seeing? In the fullness of time we will hopefully find out, but in the meantime Dr. Bartholomew offers some insights in his analysis below. —MS

Dr. Robert Bartholomew is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He has written numerous books on the margins of science covering UFOs, haunted houses, Bigfoot, lake monsters—all from a perspective of mainstream science. He has lived with the Malay people in Malaysia, and Aborigines in Central Australia. He is the co-author of two seminal books: Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior with Hilary Evans (Anomalist Books, 2009), Havana Syndrome with Robert W. Baloh (Copernicus Books, 2020), and Social Panics & Phantom Attackers: A Study of Imaginary Assailants (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2024).

The Great Drone Panic of 2024…and 1914

By Robert E. Bartholomew

Mysterious lights—seemingly under intelligent control—are spotted hovering in the skies over New Jersey and across the northeastern United States, sparking fear and anxiety. Sometimes they are reported above military installations, prompting concern that they may be the work of a hostile foreign government engaged in spying or worse.

The current drone scare?

No, this is a description of the great drone panic over eastern seaboard of the United States over a century ago. A series of similar scares back then coincided with the fear of Germans and the began shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914.[1] Based on an analysis of the reported times and sky locations of the sightings, most corresponded with the appearance of celestial objects such as Venus.[2] Others were later determined to have been prompted by tissue balloons which resembled modern-day Chinese lanterns.[3] They were powered by candles attached to the base and made buoyant by the generation of heat.

One of the more far-fetched explanations for the current scare is that a Chinese or Iranian vessel is stationed off the east coast and is launching the drones to spy on our military bases, or even launch a terrorist attack with explosives. A knowledge of history and psychology can help to illuminate this affair.

First, some witnesses report that the drones are the size of a small car or even an SUV. While this is theoretically possible, based on an analysis of online footage, Department of Homeland Security officials believe that some “drones” are actually small aircraft (some images show a cylindrical tube with two large wings up front and two small wings in the back and lights blinking in a pattern resembling that of planes).[4] Other reports could be of small drones because as psychologists, police, and trial lawyers know all too well, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. (Many people have been convicted of crimes and either executed or sent to prison for decades using visual evidence alone, only to be later exonerated by DNA.) Size estimates are also notorious for their unreliability, and likely account for modern day sightings of Thunderbirds with alleged 20-foot wing-spans across north America.

Social panics are triggered by fear and uncertainty. It is the job of the researcher to examine the background and identify the anxieties that are driving it. In this instance, current geopolitical tensions between the United States and Russia, China, and Iran, appear to have contributed to a sense of distrust and vulnerability. Another factor may be a distrust of our own government, levels of which are at all time highs. Humans also tend to project their beliefs and fears onto ambiguous stimuli. As a result, the sky becomes a Rorschach Ink Blot Test where people often see what they expect to see.

The Ghosts of Panics Past

The current drone scare reflects two moral panics that are currently rife in America—the exaggerated fear over the danger posed by undocumented migrants, and concerns about new technologies. The drone panic is an example of history repeating itself. In early 1915, amid rumors that German Americans sympathetic to Berlin were about to launch an aeroplane raid on Ottawa from a secret base in northern New York State, residents living on the American side of the border near Brockville, began to scan the skies, and on the night of February 14^th thought they saw hostile planes on their way to bomb the capital in Ottawa.

The Canadian Government immediately declared a state of emergency and posted sentries and aeroplane spotters on buildings in and around Parliament. Like today, the media stoked the scare as evidenced by the following banner headline in the Toronto Globe the morning after the scare: “Ottawa in Darkness Awaits Aeroplane Raid. Several Aeroplanes Make a Raid into the Dominion of Canada. Entire City of Ottawa in Darkness, Fearing Bomb-Droppers.” The scare quickly died down when it became evident that there were no planes and no attack had taken place.

In Parliament, Prime Minister Robert Borden, when questioned about the “attack,” referred further questions to his Chief of Police. The Toronto Globe, embarrassed by their rash headline, blamed the affair on “hysterical” residents in Brockville, where by now the charred remains of two large toy balloons had been found. Brockville residents, in turn, pinned the blame on young boys from a nearby town for lighting tissue balloons that had been mistaken for aeroplanes.[5]

History Repeating

Just as mysterious lights over New Jersey and surrounding states were once attributed to German spies in aeroplanes, today's sightings are shaped by similar fears of espionage and new technologies. These panics may have occurred over one hundred years apart, but they are rooted in the same anxieties and driven by mass communications. Once the news media and social media sound the alarm as to the presence of mysterious, menacing lights in the night sky, people are motivated to scan the heavens for confirming evidence. Drones have been a part of American life for many years now. Ordinarily, people don’t pay much attention to their presence, but with more people staring at the sky for longer periods, they are more likely to notice objects they previously hadn’t noticed or paid attention to.

Historically, waves of UFOs tend to spread over weeks or months before they eventually subside. Given the immense publicity that surrounds the current panic, it would not be surprising to see reports appear on a wider geographical scale in a sporadic fashion for several more months.

There is one aspect of the drone scare that is refreshing: for once we are dealing with a UFO wave that is being attributed to a foreign power instead of aliens. This is reminiscent of the “flying saucer” wave over the U.S. during the summer of 1947 that was triggered by Kenneth Arnold’s sighting on June 24^th. Within two months, a Gallup Poll about the “flying discs” revealed that less than one percent considered the likelihood that they were extraterrestrial in origin, which wasn’t even one of the choices given, but was instead listed under “Other.” In contrast, 16 percent attributed them to an American or Russian secret weapon.[6]

History repeats itself once again.

References

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[1]. Bartholomew, Robert E., and Weatherhead, Paul (2024). Social Panics and Phantom Attackers: A study of Imaginary Assailants. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.

[2]. Bartholomew, Robert E., and Howard, George S. (1998). UFOs & Alien Contact: Two Centuries of Mystery. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. Pp. 138-162.

[3]. Bartholomew, Robert E. (1998). “Phantom German Air Raids on Canada: War Hysteria in Quebec and Ontario during World War I.” Canadian Military History 7(4):29-36 (Autumn 1998)

[4]. Duffy, Clare (2024). “Mysterious aircraft are flying over New Jersey. Here’s what big drones are made for.” CNN News, December 13.

[5]. "Were toy balloons and not aeroplanes! Brockville's latest on Sunday night's scare ..... Toronto Globe, February 16, 1915, p. 1; "Air raid from the states improbable … "Toronto Globe, February 16, 1915, p. 7.

[6]. Gallup, George (1947). “Nine out of Ten Heard of Flying Saucers.” Public Opinion News Service, Princeton, N.J., August 15, 1947.