Sheeple Blinders: When ‘Just Asking Questions’ Threatens Weather Radars

I like to follow the news—part civic duty, part masochistic tendency. Yet sometimes I come across an article so mind bogglingly bonkers, it makes me weep for our future. We had one of those recently. 

Here’s the headline: A militarized conspiracy theorist group believes radars are ‘weather weapons’ and is trying to destroy them. So yeah, that’s where we’re at these days. 

The group behind the threats is called Veterans on Patrol, which is both offensive and ironic: offensive because I’m a future veteran and don’t want my identity associated with this sort of nonsense, and ironic because the founder isn’t even a veteran. 

You may be surprised to hear that the original purpose of the group was not to patrol for nefarious government weather weapons. Actually, it was quite noble—raising awareness for the plight of veteran suicide, which is an actual issue. Somewhere along the way, though, things appear to have taken a hard turn. I’m not sure what linkage exists between veteran suicide awareness and weather weapons, but apparently they found it. 

From Noble Beginnings to Weather Weapons

This story resonated with me. My core professional interest is information operations (IO), especially understanding the how’s and why’s of influencing people. Having spent a few years of my life planning and analyzing information campaigns, seeing it live in the wild like this both intrigues and terrifies me. I find the mechanics of misinformation and disinformation (yes, there’s a difference) fascinating, and this event speaks to what happens when things go wrong. Or, depending on where you’re standing, very very right. 

The weather weapons posing such an existential threat to freedom loving, gun toting, cheeseburger slamming Americans everywhere are actually NEXRAD weather radars. They’ve been used since the 1990s for getting accurate data on severe storms, helping NOAA provide lifesaving early warnings to American citizens. They also augment FAA and Air Force radar capabilities that watch our nation’s skies. All in all, these are highly useful and ultimately quite boring capabilities that operate in the background to make your life safer. 

Enter the conspiracy theory. Like most of these ‘theories’, it’s heavy on insinuation and light on facts. Apparently, these aren’t weather radars at all—instead, they’re doomsday weather weapons bent on poisoning our skies because reasons. Exactly what they do or how they do it doesn’t matter, because that would require inconvenient stuff like evidence. 

The lack of evidence hasn’t stopped the militia group from becoming a threat. The group has publicly directed its members to find weaknesses in these sites, with their leader—again, not an actual veteran—claiming they will take down as many as possible. Because why not disrupt the system that tells us where hurricanes are heading right as we enter hurricane season?

The situation would be comical if it wasn’t so serious. Not only would attacking these sites potentially injure or kill the weather wizards who predict storm patterns, but even a slight disruption to that capability would mean hundreds or thousands of needless deaths from people who otherwise would have been warned their homes stood in the path of Zeus’s wrath. 

As tempting as it is to write off these folks as crackpots and mock them from our high towers, that doesn’t work. In fact, that tactic works about as well as convincing a toddler to eat veggies by lecturing them on nutritional science—it frustrates both parties and now there are condiments dripping from the ceiling. What we have here is a situation that calls for a meaningful response. It breaks down into three parts: understand, empathize, develop. 

The Psychology of Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

It’s depressing how often we condemn without making even a paltry effort to understand. I’m not saying we need to understand the conspiracy theories themselves—those are generally loonier than the fact the US military has lost at least six nuclear bombs to date. We need to do better understanding why people fall into these rabbit holes in the first place. 

First, we need to understand that most conspiracists start their journey with legitimate grievances. You rarely find the person with everything in life going their way trolling through Illuminati fan boy message boards at three in the morning. Instead, these beliefs—and the organizations that push them—prey on the vulnerable. 

It’s the man who lost his job to outsourcing overseas and thinks the system is rigged. It’s the mom who reads about how the government has done secret medical tests on US citizens and wonders what else they’re up to. It’s the boy on the cusp of adulthood who has no community institutions or social support structures to help him transition into the wider world and feels alone and abandoned. It’s people looking for a simple answer to a maelstrom of complex situations.

Once someone is primed like that, there are a host of psychological effects that suck people in like 90’s-era cartoon quicksand. Let’s just list a few of them:

• Proportionality bias – belief that big events must have big causes
• Pattern recognition short circuit – the brain finding patterns where none exist
• Agency detection – tendency to attribute effects to intentional action instead of chance or systemic factors 
• Dunning-Kruger effect – overestimating our own knowledge on a topic outside our expertise 
• Confirmation bias – seeking and prioritizing information that confirms existing beliefs
• Backfire effect – when correcting information reinforces incorrect beliefs 
• Identity protection – when beliefs get tied to who you think you are as a person, ensuring you defend those beliefs even if they’re wrong 

These vulnerabilities are precisely what an information operations campaign target. In my professional experience, effective IO campaigns don’t create grievances from nothing—they identify fault lines and apply pressure. The most pervasive conspiracy theories naturally use amplification techniques I’ve studied, like narrative layering and credibility building through partial truths.

When you see it laid out, it’s a wonder we aren’t all conspiracists. Then again, the artist formally known as the History Channel makes its money off reruns of a show about how aliens built the pyramids, so maybe we aren’t as enlightened as we’d hope. 

The Hotel California Effect

Once someone gets roped into a conspiracy, there’s a better than decent chance they’re stuck. Like the proverbial Hotel California, you can check out anytime you like, but you’ll find yourself as an ostracized hermit if you leave. 

A conspiracy theory community is first and foremost a community. It’s a group of people with a shared belief that informs both their values and their identities. This is the sort of thing religious congregations and social clubs provided before the majority of people abandoned them. 

The thing is, though, we need those connections. So if the old guard of social organization falls apart, something will fill the gap. For some, that’s depression. For others, it’s getting together with other people that think Denver’s airport is a speakeasy for lizard people and mole men. 

This becomes a self-reinforcing condition. As one goes deeper into a conspiracy, it stresses relationships with non-believers. That encourages further integration with other believers, which causes even more stress with non-believers. Rinse and repeat until the only people left in a conspiracist’s life are others who share their belief. And that makes it almost impossible to leave, because where would you go?

Sheeple Blinders: How Conspiracists Close Their Minds

There’s another side to this, one that blends psychological quicksand with social bindings. Conspiracists love to point the finger at others and label them as government/corporation/local PTA stooges, but for folks that claim to have opened their eyes, they have remarkably closed minds. 

This narrowing of perspectives is called ‘audience isolation’—an IO technique where targets are gradually separated from contradictory information sources. It’s particularly effective because once established, the target maintains their isolation for you by actively avoiding outside perspectives.

I call this effect sheeple blinders. The word ‘sheeple’ is the best part of conspiracy theories, hands down. I love this word—it rolls off the tongue well and has a nice heat to it. Even the Russian judge gives it high marks. Why should we let the conspiracists own it? No, I’m taking it back and it starts here. 

Conspiracists put on progressively narrower sheeple blinders as they get further wrapped up in their beliefs. Concepts mentioned earlier like confirmation bias and identity protection create an environment where contradicting information is a threat to be avoided. 

The problem is that with conspiracy theories, almost all the information out there—along with all the facts—tend to be contradicting information to the conspiracy in question. So what’s the solution? As a friend of mine used to say, “admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations.”

Any evidence contrary to their belief must be a threat. Anyone who disagrees with them must be a shill. Any sign of doubt must be purged. The sheeple blinders are broad, opaque, and relentless. 

Finding the Human Beneath the Conspiracy

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of what goes into making a conspiracist. That’s crucial for the next step: empathizing with them. 

Right up front, let me say there’s a difference between empathizing and accepting. Just because I’m willing to extend a hand of friendship and mercy to someone who got tricked into believing something doesn’t mean I’m good with them blowing up weather radars. Actions have consequences, and harmful consequences deserve an appropriate response. 

That said, there is a difference between dangerous actions and confused thinking. The latter tends to lead to the former, so it’s the latter we should focus on. We already covered why people might get sucked into a conspiracy, but let’s take it a step further. 

We are social creatures. Stick us in a room with no social contact for an extended period, and you’ll have us trying to emulate Jackson Pollock with our feces on the wall before long. It’s hardwired into our brains to seek companionship and acceptance from the tribe, because that’s what enables us to survive as a species. 

When you look at the average conspiracist, it’s hard not to just see a crackpot raving about how contrails are poison clouds the government uses to control us. What we need to see, however, is the human being underneath the confusion, anger, and helplessness. 

Beyond social needs, we all also crave meaning and control in our lives. Sadly, life isn’t too keen on offering much in the way of those externally. Meaning and control come from within, but that’s a different Wandering altogether. 

I guarantee that at some point in your life, you’ve felt like you’ve lost control. Like you weren’t sure what the meaning of it all was. Now imagine at that at your lowest point, someone came to you claiming to have all the answers, and offered you a community of fellow believers that knew what it all meant. Tempting proposition, no?

That’s what happens to conspiracists. It’s truly a “there but for the grace of God, go I” situation. Any of us could find ourselves there had the cards been dealt just a little different. So maybe we should try a little harder to see ourselves in those that weren’t so lucky. 

The Critical Thinking Crisis

Unlike what the vast majority of conspiracy theories claim, there are no easy solutions to complex problems. In the case of deprogramming conspiracists and preventing others from putting on sheeple blinders, that’s doubly true for one reason: we’re actively making the situation worse. 

I speak, of course, about the state of critical thinking in the United States. It’s as though we are actively opposed to both the critical part and the thinking part, which would be impressive if it wasn’t so depressing. 

For example, can you think of any class you took K-12 that the main objective was to learn critical thinking? Or was your education like mine, where “critical thinking” got sprinkled on as an afterthought in every syllabus, like a teenager making minimum wage at a froyo shop adding my cookie dough chunks.

We don’t prioritize critical thinking, and the evidence is all around us. Look at our media landscape. It’s the least trusted it’s ever been, largely because most outlets cater to specific audiences as opposed to the truth. At this point, I’d say The Onion might be the sole remaining city on a hill. 

How did it get that way? Because people stopped caring about the truth versus having their sweet, sweet confirmation bias fix. Sound familiar? That’s right, baby—we all have sheeple blinders on!

Critical thinking implies looking past the headline to find truth. It means acknowledging our biases and preferences, determine how to overcome them, and accepting reality as it is, not as we want it to be. 

How do we fix this? No clue. Obviously, some sort of educational campaign for youth is a good place to start, but it doesn’t do much for those of us who have already done our time in the public education system. Naming and shaming doesn’t work either (that pesky identity defense system and the Dunning-Kruger effect would like a word). Like I said earlier, complex issues don’t have simple answers. 

Maybe we start by recognizing we all have these tendencies. If there’s one facet to a solution that might trump all the others, it’s embracing humility. There are few forces more powerful for advancing the greater good than an ability to acknowledge when we’re wrong. If only it was easier to swallow. 

‘Just Asking Questions’ and Other Deflections

There are those that would defend conspiracy theories and those that hawk them with high-minded ideals. These fine folks are ‘just asking questions’ or are ‘free speech advocates.’ Balderdash, I say! 

Let’s start with the ‘just asking questions’ bit. Questions are great. They lead to things like finding that item at the store I wasted 30 minutes looking for because social interaction terrifies me, or clarifying with my loving wife that no, she would rather I not send our toddler to daycare painted like an extra from Braveheart. 

The difference between these questions and ‘just asking questions’ is that only one of them involves wanting to hear the answer. If the average conspiracist actually cared about the truth, they’d listen with an open mind to the overwhelming evidence that they’ve been misled. Instead, the sheeple blinders come on and only the answers they want to hear make it through. 

The ‘just asking questions’ technique has a technical name in information operations: implied falsehood insertion. It’s when you create a misleading impression through a technically true statement, omissions, or implications. In this instance, it moves the burden of defense on the listener, allowing the ‘questioner’ to throw up their hands behind a thin veneer of plausible deniability.

More often than not, anyone saying they’re ‘just asking questions’ is either ‘just wanting attention’ or ‘just deflecting your justifiable outrage that I’m claiming the government made up a school shooting.’

As for free speech, I’m also a fan. It’s why I can write ridiculous blog posts on the internet with virtually zero consequences. When conspiracists cower behind it, however, they’re twisting something noble to ugly ends. 

First, free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. All it means is the government can’t censor you. There’s nothing that says companies can’t kick you off their platform, people can’t call you an idiot, or house pets can’t look at you with shame in their eyes. Consequences are like gravity—if you don’t prepare for them, certain situations will end poorly for you. 

Second, conspiracists will cry about free speech when someone does something unimaginable like fact checking them. Again, this isn’t how free speech works. This is how dialogue operates in a functional society. If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen of ideas. 

Finally, conspiracists use the claim of free speech like a reverse uno card. Instead of providing actual proof of their claims, they just yell “free speech” like a magician mumbling in Latin, acting like it somehow protects them. 

Oh, one final thought on conspiracists: if you know what you’re peddling is false and do it anyways for personal gain, you are a garbage human being. People like Alex Jones that push excrement like how the Sandy Hook mass shooting was fake then have the gall to claim in court that they’re just entertainers are evil, sadistic cowards. They are parasites with the aesthetic appeal and backbone of an Amazonian river leech, and that’s not a fair comparison to the leech. 

Building Bridges, not Barricades: Moving Forward Together

Weather radars that save lives are good. That there’s a group threatening to destroy them for outlandish reasons with zero evidence is bad. The people who believe such things are neither good nor bad, they’re just confused. 

This fight is in desperate need of more empathy. When we vilify those that have pulled sheeple blinders over their eyes, we make the problem worse. Nobody ever mocked their way into a positive relationship, and all yelling at each other does is drive up the stock price of whoever makes ibuprofen. 

If there’s someone in your life who has put on sheeple blinders, trying to rip them off won’t work. You have to convince them to take them off themselves. Resist the urge to ridicule. Ask genuine questions about how they came to believe this information. Create safe spaces for doubt by acknowledging your own ignorance. But most importantly, practice some humility—none of us are immune to mis- and disinformation.

Let’s work to think more clearly. Let’s work to make a shared understanding of reality. But most importantly, let’s work to treat each other like human beings.