No, this video doesn’t show directed energy weapons being used amid the Los Angeles wildfires

As wildfires ravage California, a familiar chorus is swelling on social media. 

“Was that a direct energy weapon or a UFO that we just saw live on Fox News as they were covering the Eaton Fire?!!!” a Jan. 7 X post said, referring to a clip of Fox News coverage about the Eaton Fire that shows a bright object traveling across the skyline amid smoke and fire.

“Look closely at this Fox News clip,” a Jan. 8 post sharing the same footage said. “Looks like a direct energy weapon.”

The footage, which Fox News aired Jan. 7, is authentic. Directed energy weapons are also real and use energy fired at light speed — high-energy lasers and high-powered microwave weapons that use concentrated electromagnetic energy. Countries including the United States have researched the use of these weapons, and we’ve previously fact-checked and rated false claims that they were responsible for recent wildfires in places such as Hawaii. 

The cause of the Eaton Fire, in Los Angeles County, is still under investigation, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a Jan. 9 status update. 

The county’s fire department didn’t immediately respond to PolitiFact’s questions about the X posts. 

We don’t know what the footage precisely shows, but the Fox News report — coverage of the wildfires in the Los Angeles area — doesn’t mention directed energy weapons. We found no stories on Fox News’ website connecting such weapons to wildfires, though the network reported Jan. 9 that some celebrities are speculating that an arsonist is responsible. 

Scott Savitz, a senior engineer at Rand Corp., a global policy think tank, told PolitiFact that claims that the news footage is evidence that directed energy weapons are connected to the California fires “is nonsense.”

“This is a latter-day version of claiming that a natural disaster is the result of your neighbor dabbling in witchcraft,” Savitz said. “Nothing from what was shown suggested any kind of a weapon. Fire is a very complex phenomenon and there will be burning materials self-distributing in various ways particularly in high winds.”

Arnaud Trouvé, who chairs  the University of Maryland’s fire protection engineering department, also said there’s no evidence of directed energy weapons starting the fires. 

“I think that those questions are distractions from the real problem posed by the increased risk of uncontrollable and destructive fire spread in urban communities under conditions of high wind with plenty of dry vegetation fuel,” Trouvé wrote in an email. “The questions of whether weapons started the fire have us focus on ignition but ignition of wildland fires or building fires occur on a regular basis due to natural phenomena (lighting) or human activities (domestic use of flames, hot work, failure of engineering systems — like power lines, negligence, or arson).”

We rate claims this video is evidence directed energy weapons were used to cause the fires in California False.