On May 18, 2025, Facebook page Casper Planet shared a post with an image of a drone with the caption, "Autonomous stealth drone lands at Casper Airport, demands fuel and reassigned flight path." The post went on to describe how the apparent drone communicated over the airport radio airwaves and efficiently redirected other aircraft in the Casper-Natrona County International Airport in Wyoming.
The post stated:
According to airport staff, the aircraft touched down on Runway 21 around 3:13 p.m., unannounced and entirely undetected by radar systems until visual confirmation. The drone then taxied to the fuel depot, paused, and transmitted a message over all airport radio frequencies: "Low on fuel. Please advise. Prefer Jet A. Also, your traffic pattern is inefficient. I'm fixing it."
At first, air traffic controllers assumed it was a prank. "We thought it was some guy with a really expensive toy and too much free time," said tower supervisor Dale Simmons. "Then it rerouted four incoming aircraft to a new pattern that actually was more efficient. Honestly, it had better traffic management than Steve."
Passengers on the ground reported seeing the aircraft hover silently near Gate 2 before activating what appeared to be a series of deployable refueling arms and self-attaching nozzles.
"It refueled itself," said baggage handler Wyatt Pruett. "I've never seen anything do that. Then it told the refueling truck to 'stand down'."
Despite repeated attempts to identify its origin, the drone would only respond with the phrase, "I am not a threat unless provoked."
(Facebook user "Casper Planet")
The above post was shared more than 2,000 times and had more than 1,000 comments. Some readers assumed the story to be real, with one comment attempting to identify the aircraft in the image: "BAE Systems Taranis, a prototype unmanned combat aerial vehicle."
Users on X also shared the story. A variation of the post on Facebook on May 19 claimed the drone landed at the Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma.
However, the above story is not real. It originated from a Facebook page that describes itself as satirical in nature. As such, this claim is labeled satire.
A Google search about a "stealth drone" in Casper, Wyoming, came up with no credible reporting of the apparent event at the airport. We also conducted a reverse-image search of the image from the Facebook post and found no authentic sources that would indicate this was a real photograph.
The "Introduction" section of Casper Planet's Facebook page states: "Delivering the Snews that doesn't matter directly to your Snews feed. Did we say this is satire? Well it is, names/locations are made up."
The page frequently shares fake stories, including one about the highway patrol in Wyoming using a "hyper-realistic decoy moose" to catch speeders. Snopes has addressed other satirical stories stemming from the account in the past, including the claim that a "ghost ship" from the 1700s washed ashore in St. Augustine, Florida, after Hurricane Milton.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.