The final weeks of 2024 featured a number of alleged U.S. drone sightings of purportedly mysterious origins, primarily in the skies over New Jersey.
One politician — Republican Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano — shared a statement on Dec. 16 that struck a serious tone about the rumors of "unidentified drones." In posts on his official senatorial Facebook (archived) and X (archived) accounts, Mastriano said, in part, "It is inconceivable that the federal government has no answers nor has taken any action to get to the bottom of the unidentified drones." His statement also mentioned the "fecklessness" of U.S. President Joe Biden's administration for waiting to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon in early 2023, and anticipated President-elect Donald Trump's upcoming inauguration. "January 20th can't come soon enough," he said.
Under the statement, his post featured an image of a spacecraft strapped to a truck. The image also included a caption of its own, reading, "Breaking News: Crashed drone in Orange Beach retrieved from water, and taken to undisclosed location for further investigation."
As some readers likely gathered, the spacecraft strapped to the truck was actually a replica of a "Star Wars" TIE fighter, not an "unidentified" or "crashed drone." The fictional imperial starfighter first appeared in the original 1977 "Star Wars" movie, "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope."
According to a reverse-image search with TinEye.com, the oldest-known online records displaying the picture of the TIE fighter replica on the truck originated either in a Feb. 26, 2023, Imgur post or a TikTok post created the same day. The Imgur caption read, "Who ordered the TIE Fighter!?" Reddit users also subsequently shared the same photo in the hours that followed. Meanwhile, the text portion of the screenshot relaying "breaking news" of a "crashed drone" possibly originated in a Dec. 15, 2024, post (archived) in the humor-centric Facebook group The Gulf Coast Blog.
One of many users who shared Mastriano's post on X said, in part, "Pennsylvania state Senator Doug Mastriano tweets image of a 'crashed drone.' It's just a Star Wars Tie fighter prop/replica. We've really lost our minds with this drone hysteria."
Mastriano Comments on TIE Fighter Post
On Dec. 17 — just one day after Mastriano's initial post — he shared on his official senatorial Facebook page (archived) and X (archived), "I posted a statement about the drones and used an obvious Star Wars prop as a meme. The Philadelphia Inquirer just called asking if I knew it was a prop. Hilarious. Modern day 'journalism.'"
Mastriano also edited his original Facebook post (archived), adding responses to journalists and publishers who purportedly asked for comment about his initial post. His updated post read, "And yo. Katie Bernard of the Philadelphia Inquirer. And Newsweek. This is a Star Wars prop. Not a drone."
The gist of Mastriano's response to journalists was that he knowingly and purposely used an obvious picture of a "Star Wars" prop labeled "Crashed drone in Orange Beach" to illustrate a serious post accusing the federal government of not having any answers or taking any action "to get to the bottom of the unidentified drones."
Meanwhile, a quartet of federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense issued a joint statement saying, "We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast."