No, This Video Doesn’t Show a ‘Directed Energy Weapon’ Attack on Maui

A conspiracy theory that went viral during the Maui wildfires in August 2023 that devastated parts of the Hawaiian island and killed at least 90 people posited that the fires were purposely started using directed energy weapons (“space lasers,” basically), which were also a favorite conspiracist bogeyman during the California wildfires of 2021.

Any number of existing photographs and videos were misrepresented in social media posts as “evidence” that such military weaponry was responsible for these fires, including a video shot five years earlier in Kenner, Louisiana, showing a dramatic series…