Late-night hosts talk about the drone sightings over New Jersey, which has spiraled into conspiracy theories.
Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers was primarily concerned with one topic on Monday’s Late Night: the drones allegedly spotted in the New Jersey night sky this weekend, causing a rash of news coverage and videos on social media.
At least one of the videos, posted by the former governor of Maryland Larry Hogan was debunked as showing recognized constellations of stars. “This whole drone freakout is turning us into prehistoric neanderthals,” Meyers remarked. “Don’t let these people anywhere near the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade next year.”
That hasn’t stopped people from assuming the worst. “Amid the national freakout, officials are trying to reassure the public that nothing nefarious is going on,” Meyers explained. As Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, told CNN: “There very well may be drones in the sky, but of course those are commercially available. One can go to a convenience store and buy a small drone. There are also commercial drones, as well.”
“It’s true, did anyone think we’d start selling drones at convenience stores in America and there wouldn’t come a day where people would scream ‘there’s too many goddamn drones?’” Meyers wondered. “By the way, the more you complain about the drones, the more people in New Jersey are going to send drones up into the sky.
“The most likely answer is that there probably are some commercially available drones in the sky, along with airplanes and stars that are, you know, always there,” he added.
Or, at least according to Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey congressman, his state was under attack from Iran. The Pentagon quickly issued a statement debunking that theory, “but that didn’t stop online wackos from running wild,” said Meyers. “And by online wackos, I of course mean the incoming president of the United States.”
In a short post to Truth Social on Saturday, Donald Trump remarked: “Mystery Drone sightings all over the Country. Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge. I don think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shot them down!!!”
“That post is so crazy, we don’t even have time to dwell on the fact that he misspelled the words ‘don’t’ and ‘shoot’,” Meyers laughed. “Personally, I don’t think you should have the authority to order the military to shoot something down if you can’t even spell the word shoot.”
Stephen Colbert
This weekend, said Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, all everyone could talk about were the drones. “The drones are coming. The drones are here,” he joked. “No one can stop the drones. No one knows where the drones are from. Everyone you love is now a drone.”
The “ominous sky visitors” were spotted over New Jersey this weekend. “But since then, the drones have done what everyone in Jersey does: go somewhere else,” Cobert said, as by Monday, drones sightings were reported in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio. “Which can mean only one thing: the drones are visiting colleges,” Colbert quipped.
“With so many unrelated drone sightings, Americans have reasonable questions,” he continued. “Where are they coming from? What are they doing up there? And will they interfere with the chemtrails that are turning our livestock bi-curious?”
One New Jersey politician proposed a bill giving local law enforcement the same capability as the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security – permission to shoot down the drones. “He wants local police to shoot at anything in the sky in December,” Colbert laughed. “Santa, I hope you have a Kevlar sleigh, and don’t forget to take the battery out of Rudolph’s nose.
“We will have more on this story as we continue to learn nothing about it,” he added.
