Tech

Did a CIA Predator Drone Really Level Homes in Indianapolis?

By Brian Anderson

The theories swirling around a mysterious, deadly explosion in Indianapolis over the weekend sound like the recipe for a futuristic Tom Clancy thriller or a dystopian video game.

“It was just mass chaos,” Dan Able, a Southside Indianapolis resident, told the Indianapolis Star. “You can’t even imagine how bad it was.” Dan wasn’t the only one who witnessed the destruction from the mysterious explosion that officials are still struggling to explain. The horrific event left at least two dead, obliterated two homes, damaged 18 others, rendered another 27 temporarily uninhabitable, and briefly displaced some 200 residents.

At first, the explosion looked like the result of a freakish gas leak, like the one that leveled part of a California neighborhood two years ago. But the NTSB, which investigates pipeline problems, plane crashes, and other mass transit accidents, found no evidence of a gas-line leak at the scene.

Now the internet is lighting up with rumors that the nighttime blast was the work of a CIA Predator drone that for unclear reasons had been programmed to take out two Indianapolis-based US military resource and payroll offices. Only the drone’s missiles deviated from their flight courses, striking the homes off of Fieldfare Way, instead.

There’s just one catch: Sorcha Faal forwarded the details. She is an anonymous blogger known for spreading conspiracy-theory reports through the website whatdoesitmean.com. In this case, her source is a “chilling report” supposedly circulating inside the Kremlin.

“That’s a pretty far-fetched rumor,” Rita Burris, a spokesperson for the Indianapolis fire department, told me. “I haven’t heard that one, yet.”

Read the rest over at Motherboard.