What was claimed
A recent video shows drones spraying American citizens.
Our verdict
The video dates back to at least 2022, and was likely filmed in China.
Video showing drones spraying liquid is not recent
A video circulating on social media with the caption “Now the Drones have started spraying American citizens like bugs” includes a clip that dates back to at least 2022, and was likely filmed in China during the coronavirus pandemic.
The footage shows drones in a built-up area spraying some kind of mist. Using the TikTok handle in the video’s watermark, Full Fact traced the footage back to a post dated 28 November 2022, which was captioned “Drones spraying who knows what down on the streets in China #chinaprotest".
Further research on the Chinese social media network Weibo uncovered a post containing the same video which was uploaded on 21 November 2022. The caption (translated from Chinese by Google) reads: “Air disinfection, great, where can you escape to, virus, hahaha, determined to eliminate it.”
Using Google Lens, Full Fact found another two examples of the same video posted on YouTube in November 2022. These videos both claim it shows drones spraying chemicals in China as part of efforts to disinfect public spaces during the coronavirus outbreak.
A drone news website also posted an article with the video in December 2022, describing “mysterious agricultural drones spraying chemicals in a Chinese city at night”.
The video is therefore not recent. It was also likely filmed in China, not America, but Full Fact has not been able to independently verify the location.
Several organisations reported that China used drones to spray disinfectant during the coronavirus pandemic.
In recent weeks, there have been reports of drones flying over different areas of the United States. A joint statement on 17 December from multiple US agencies (the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense and Federal Aviation Administration) said the FBI had received more than “5,000 reported drone sightings in the last few weeks” and was investigating around 100 leads with support from state and local officials.
The statement said the agencies had not identified “anything anomalous” and that the drone activity to date did not “present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast”.
Misinformation can spread quickly online following significant breaking news events like this. It’s important to consider whether information comes from a credible source before sharing it online. For more advice, read our toolkit.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because the clip dates back to at least 2022, and was likely filmed in China.