‘Jewish space lasers’ type of conspiracies have come to Kerrville after floods | Opinion
There’s a journalism maxim I try to follow as best I can: Don’t print lies in the newspaper (or post lies on a website). Allow me this exception.
I want you to understand a fast-spreading conspiracy about the central Texas floods that blames the deaths, at least 134 as of this writing, on a greedy cabal unleashing a weather modification technique to destroy whatever or whomever they please. The best way to understand is to read the prose in its fullness so you can grasp the extent to which people will contort reality in the service of producing a simple enemy to our greatest tragedies.
“THEY WANT THE LAND - SO NOW KERRVILLE’S UNDERWATER
Kerrville approves a $175 million gas power plant.
Months later? Biblical floods swallow the town.
This isn’t weather.
It’s war by water.
Greenlight the project.
Drown the locals.
Build over the wreckage.
Same playbook as Maui.
Same playbook as Asheville.
Now it’s Texas.
They don’t need to buy you out.
They wash you out, then break ground.”
I’ve seen these exact words parroted across Threads (Meta’s answer to Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok, racking up views and shares. But you don’t need to peruse the bleakest corners of social media to find whoever is initiating a “war by water.” Just take a stroll to Capitol Hill.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said she plans to introduce a hearing on geomodification and make it a felony to “inject, release, or disperse chemicals into the atmosphere for the purpose of altering weather, climate, temperature, or sunlight.” No surprise. The congresswoman has been kicking these invisible tires for years.
Back in 2018, Greene infamously blamed California’s devastating Camp Fire on “space based solar generators,” which she said resembled “lasers,” burning land owned by energy provider Pacific Gas & Electric and earmarked for a $77 billion light rail project. In her efforts to make two plus two equal fish, she introduced numerous tenuous connections between the fire, space lasers, energy provider Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and the Rothschild family, founders of a Jewish-owned investment bank who have, since the 19th century, been blamed for the ills of the world by those interested in that sort of explanation.
“Could that cause a fire? Hmmm, I don’t know. I hope not! That wouldn’t look so good for PG&E, Rothschild Inc,” Greene wrote. She would eventually say she “didn’t find out until recently that the Rothschilds were Jewish,” a claim about as ridiculous as not knowing the Knowles-Carters are Black.
Greene’s comments epitomized the rising trend of accusing Jewish people of unleashing secret technology to influence weather-related catastrophes to profit off land for their gain. Mike Rothschild (no relation, seriously), author of “Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories,” told me that tree-burning space lasers and storm-building cloud seeding are both descendants of the notion that Jewish people wield secretive technology for their financial gain.
For those unfamiliar with this topic, it is worth noting that cloud seeding is a real tool used by the state to help reduce drought. But the idea that it could have been responsible for the recent floods has been thoroughly debunked.
“The ‘$175 million gas power plant’ is another version of the ‘Jewish Space Lasers’ theory,” said Rothschild. “Like the re-purposing of old theories in the ‘gas plant flood’ theory, the idea of Jewish power brokers scheming to control the weather, and therefore the population, is very appealing to a certain type of mindset. Indeed, one of the commenters on the post blamed it explicitly on “globalists jew$”.
As Rothschild sees it, these types of conspiracies are functionally telling the same story: “Nothing happens on accident (or because of climate change, in the case of disasters), and it’s all part of the secret war between good and evil playing out in the politics and culture of the times.”
Weather conspiracies extend beyond the fringe
To borrow language from the cryptic social media post I mentioned earlier, the “playbook” that followed the fires in Maui and the floods in Asheville, North Carolina, is spreading through Texas, and is extending well past the fringe.
For instance, The Blaze’s Sara Gonzales, a widely followed content creator, is now one of the most prominent promoters of the ever-evolving weather modification conspiracy.
“I wanna get to the bottom of whatever happened in Hawaii, because there are a lot of weather events that happened that I just want answers for,” said Gonzales during her July 7 podcast, “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.” “They use silver iodide for cloud seeding. They have rain enhancement projects,” continued Gonzales, highlighting recent weather modification activity in the central Texas region. “I want answers to this.” Patriot Mobile has also sponsored multiple conferences that featured Greene as a speaker.
Patriot Mobile, the Grapevine-based “Christian conservative wireless provider” with an influential PAC, currently sponsors Gonzales’ show. When I asked Patriot Mobile’s chief communication officer Leigh Wambsganss, who is also launching a Dan Patrick-endorsed state Senate bid, about whether the company would continue to sponsor speakers pushing these conspiracies, Wambsganss condemned the ongoing conspiracy theorization but asked me to “de-link anything regarding my political campaign from Patriot Mobile as they are two separate entities.”
Minutes later, Patriot Mobile chief operating officer Jenny Story emailed me a statement defending the company’s continued investment in conservative leaders and institutions, even as said parties push conspiracy theories about how those children died and who killed them.
“Patriot Mobile supports hundreds of conservative programs where individuals express their personal views. We do not police or censure their speech. Just like the opinions expressed in your columns do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the [Fort Worth Star-Telegram],” Story wrote. “Patriot Mobile’s focus during this tragedy from day one, is how we can help. We have sent help in many forms both directly by driving requested items to the area and through charities we contribute to, that are on the ground helping. We are deeply disappointed the Star Telegram is choosing politics over people experiencing such tragedy and grief in these media pieces.”
Donors play role in spread of deceptive thinking
One of extremism’s many ironies and contradictions: paranoid and deceptive thinking about secretive cabals are often only made possible by a well-funded network of deep-pocketed ideological donors. Every accusation is a confession.
“These influencers have made careers out of creating plots and schemes out of nothing, then selling them the cure,” said Rothschild. “And they do it for every disaster, no matter the human cost.”
Not everyone who is intrigued or even concerned about cloud seeding thinks Jewish people or some other scapegoat are the cause of all our problems. But, as Shane Burley and Ben Lorber wrote in their book, “Safety through Solidarity,” “antisemitism allows someone to direct their rage at the simplified, and comforting, image of a demonic cabal nestled at the top of it all, pulling the strings.”
I’d rather my rage be more productive, and that starts by confronting the truth. In Kerrville, where the soil is dry and already prone to fast-rising floods, no amount of cloud seeding can compete with climate change in inducing dangerous downpours. And we know that human use of fossil fuels drives the warming planet. We can name what it is and fight it with proven strategies that reduce our dependence, and eventually, our role in damaging the planet. Hopefully, we choose that path sometime before the next generation of campers gets swept away.
This story was originally published July 16, 2025 at 11:26 AM with the headline "‘Jewish space lasers’ type of conspiracies have come to Kerrville after floods | Opinion."
