MAGA Official Makes the Dumbest Claim About the Drones Yet

Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano became the latest MAGA Republican to launch into hysterics about recent drone sightings over the United States, and as evidence for his claim, he shared a photo of an iconic movie prop from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away …

In the post on X Monday, Mastriano included a screenshot of a familiar-looking large metal object sitting on a trailer in the back of a car, captioned, “Breaking News: Crashed drone in Orange Beach retrieved from water, and taken to undisclosed location for further investigation.”

“It is inconceivable that the federal government has no answers nor has taken any action to get to the bottom of the unidentified drones,” Mastriano wrote.

Of course, the object wasn’t recognizable as one of the mass of drones. In reality, it was a TIE fighter, the iconic symbol of the Imperial fleet in the classic space opera movie series Star Wars.

“The fecklessness of this administration was on display last year when a Chinese surveillance balloon was allowed to fly over the entire continental United States before being shot down,” Mastrinao continued.

“Such should be viewed as a threat to our nation and citizens and action is long overdue. We have recourses [sic] and assets in our arsenal to get answers, but I suppose Ukraine is more important to the White House. January 20th can’t come soon enough.”

Online, some found Mastriano’s lack of movie knowledge disturbing.

CNN’s Jake Tapper pointed out that these were not the drones that Mastriano was looking for. “I take the actual drone story seriously but re the below, I’m pretty sure Red Leader Garven Dreis shot down that TIE fighter in ep IV A New Hope,” he wrote in a post on X.

The Texas Observer’s Steven Monacelli lamented that “our nation is facing a crisis of information literacy.”

Mastriano isn’t the first Republican to post drone drivel. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed that the government was behind the drones, while former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan begged the government to do something about the lights he’d seen floating in the sky, which a meteorologist quickly pointed out was a constellation.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told CNN Monday that the drones spotted over New Jersey and other states on the eastern seaboard “represent lawful, legal, commercial [and] hobbyist drones—even law enforcement drones,” and were not a threat to public safety.