SURPRISE!

Watch dozens of drones fall out of the sky for your daily dystopia fix

The incident occurred only minutes after two hundred drones were sent into the air.

Hamburg, Germany - September 09, 2021: Close up of Camera Drone Dji Mini 2 on the blue sky -   View ...
deepblue4you/iStock Unreleased/Getty Images

Now we know what an alien invasion might look like. A video shared on YouTube by the South China Morning Post shows people scrambling as dozens of drones fell from the sky during a light show in Zhengzhou, China. It’s too bad they need a controller, or else you’d get a free drone.

Attack of the drones — The chaotic scene, with people panicking as drones fell onto a packed street, happened only about three minutes after two hundred drones were sent into the air. It’s unclear what exactly caused the drones to suddenly fall, but the manager of the show was quoted as saying emergency landings were triggered due to “human error.”

Another angle shows a beautiful, if eery, constellation of blue light in the sky, created by the drones, and you can clearly see a succession of drones falling. The manager apparently said that only ten drones fell, but the video suggests otherwise.

Light shows — A user on Twitter reported that the drones fell because a rival drone operator jammed the frequencies used to control them as retaliation for losing a bid to manage the event. There’s no evidence to support that claim, however.

The light show looks pretty spectacular otherwise, and drone light shows are actually quite popular in China, something of a replacement to fireworks shows. Several years ago, a light show in China achieved a Guinness World Record when 1,374 illuminated drones performed a choreographed dance.