Deadly Fires in Hawaii Caused by ‘Laser Beams’? This fake news has been highlighted on social networks by reports disproving the role of climate change in certain disasters.
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Posts mentioning high energy lasers or claiming that the fires on the island of Maui that have killed more than 110 people and destroyed the city of Lahaina were intentionally created to build green cities have featured on platforms like X ( ex-Twitter) received millions of engagements.
“Only a directed energy weapon (AED) can cause this kind of destruction,” far-right radio host Stew Peters said on that network.
These reports illustrate a trend observed by disinformation experts: extreme weather events have coincided with a boom in conspiratorial claims aimed at denying scientific studies into the role of climate change.
“Whenever there are events like this and calls for stronger action on global warming, there are usually parallel actions to discredit science, deny any connection to climate change and blame someone else,” explains Arunima Krishna , a professor at Boston University and a specialist in climate disinformation.
“This time,” she said, “it’s the directed energy weapons.”
X and other networks are teeming with messages purporting to show photos and videos of Hawaii allegedly being attacked by systems using concentrated electromagnetic energy that are under development, particularly in the United States or France.
AFP has revealed that some news stories in multiple languages actually used images of a SpaceX rocket launch, flames from a refinery in Ohio, sparks from power lines in Louisiana, or a transformer explosion in Chile.
“Conspiracy Universe”
Other reports claim that the fact that the fire spared some trees is evidence of the use of lasers.
Iain Boyd, an expert on directed energy weapons at the University of Colorado, tells AFP that this conspiracy theory is far from reality, especially because a laser powerful enough to ignite these fires would come from a “huge” would have to be fired from ship, navy or air, which could not go unnoticed.
The origin of the Maui fires remains unknown, but authorities have launched an investigation.
The Weather Service had warned that a hurricane’s strong winds off the archipelago and dry vegetation could create favorable conditions. American media have also hypothesized that fallen power lines may have played a role.
AFP
According to Jennie King, a climate researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London, misinformation about wildfires has developed in recent years.
In 2018, US MP Marjorie Taylor Greene, a supporter of Donald Trump, suggested that a beam of light from space could have caused the fires that raged in California that summer.
According to Ms. King, the following year the tendency was to shift the blame to suspected arsonists. The Black Lives Matter movement has often been used as a scapegoat.
More recently, Jennie King argues, claims that authorities are using lasers to destroy cities in order to rebuild green cities instead still serve the same narrative, that of insignificant climate change.
“They are also part of a more global movement represented by proponents of QAnon and other conspiracy universes where a global cabal, a new world order, or elites lurking in the shadows are trying to impose their point of view,” the analyst says again.
For Mike Rothschild, conspiracy specialist and author of the book Jewish Space Lasers, “It’s easy to use these images (of lasers) as ‘evidence’ of what ‘they’ are doing to us to further their agenda for space “Climate or the Control of Society”.
“People looking for answers prefer to believe in space weapons rather than the reality of the climate crisis,” he notes.