Directed energy weapon conspiracy theories resurface after Texas wildfires

"Texas. DEW. In 10 minutes time on different places," says a February 28, 2024 post, using an acronym for directed energy weapons being developed for military operations.

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Screenshot from X taken February 29, 2024

The post was one of several attempting to link such systems to the Smokehouse Creek Fire, which by February 29 had killed at least one person and swelled to become the largest blaze in Texas's history, covering more than a million acres and prompting evacuations in the flat, northern region of the state known as the panhandle.

The claims proliferated in multiple languages on X, where disinformation has accelerated since billionaire Elon Musk's 2022 takeover. One post suggests a "cabal" set the flames to "divert resources from border protection." Others have revived debunked allegations about lasers sparking the inferno that burned through Maui, Hawaii in August 2023.

Ex-president Donald Trump's former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, also amplified a post mentioning directed energy weapons. "Wild," he wrote.

Directed energy weapons use concentrated electromagnetic energy fired at the speed of light, and they are being developed in the United States for drone and missile defense.

But while the causes of the wildfires torching the Texas panhandle remained under investigation as of February 29 -- with the Smokehouse Creek Fire listed as just 3 percent contained -- there is no evidence such military technologies were involved.

"There is no indication that these claims are true," said Erin O'Connor, public information officer for the Texas A&M Forest Service.

'Red flag' conditions

A high-energy laser fired at vegetation could in theory cause a fire, but doing so would require a tremendous amount of power and an enormous air carrier that could not go unnoticed, Iain Boyd, director of the University of Colorado's Center for National Security Initiatives and an expert on directed energy weapons, told AFP in a February 28 email.

"A large aircraft carrying a high-power laser weapon would be needed and would have been seen by someone," he said. "There appears to be no evidence that the Texas wildfires were caused by directed energy."

More likely culprits include human carelessness with outdoor fires and cigarettes, downed power lines or lightning strikes, Boyd said, adding that there may have been more than one source of ignition.

Conditions in Texas's panhandle enabled the flames to spread rapidly -- as the National Weather Service (NWS) warned could happen.

The NWS issued a red flag alert on February 26 for the area where the fires started, cautioning in advance that a conflux of harsh winds, low humidity and warm temperatures would "create favorable weather for rapid fire growth and spread" (archived here).

Two fires started that day as heavy winds hit ranch land areas with grass fields and rough terrain, NWS spokesperson Maureen O'Leary said in a February 28 email. By the next day, the fires continued, the wind picked up, and several new blazes started.

O'Leary said this is an example of an exceptionally dangerous weather phenomenon known as a Southern Plains Wildfire Outbreak, which can hit environments with dry vegetation and other features.

"Fires spread rapidly in dry grasses," said Michael Gollner, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California-Berkeley who researches fire dynamics and wildland fire. "In fact, these are often the most deadly fires."

Gollner told AFP in a February 28 email that a combination of dry conditions, shifting weather and unfortunate timing -- in February -- are "what really made this fire explode in size."

"Already there were hot, dry, windy conditions blowing the fire along a narrow west-east oriented path," Gollner said. "Suddenly, a cold front blew in with strong winds and shifted the fire spread 90 degrees.

"Rather than starting a fire from a single point, imagine drawing a line so many miles long and it suddenly spreads along the entire line very fast. This quickly envelops a huge area."

Biden's roof remarks

The directed energy weapon conspiracy theories exploded further online after Joe Biden addressed the situation during a February 29, 2024 address near the US-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas.

A prominent promoter of QAnon and others falsely claimed the US president admitted to blasting Texas with directed energy weapons that spared blue structures when he noted that certain homes with "the right roof" had survived the flames that destroyed others.

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Screenshot from X taken March 1, 2024

But the posts cut Biden's remarks out of context, omitting that he was talking about the need to rebuild homes with "up-to-date standards and building codes" so they could better withstand natural disasters.

Similar conspiracy theories about blue objects followed the wildfires in Maui. Experts dismissed them as "really crazy" and explained that as fires burn, it is common to find some structures left relatively unscathed due to their distance from fuel sources or ability to sustain high temperatures.

"They are saying that blue objects are not susceptible to fire, which we all know is not true," Boyd said at the time.

AFP previously debunked posts faulting directed energy weapons for the wildfires that devastated Hawaii, including here, here and here.