Militia fueled by bizarre conspiracy theory brings down weather radars

A militia known as the "Veterans on Patrol" aims to dismantle weather radars, and KWTV News 9 has discovered that it's part of a larger conspiracy theory surrounding weather manipulation.

Amid false conspiracies about the floods in Texas being part of a kind of cloud seeding attack, organization founder Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer confirmed to News 9 that they were "absolutely" working to target Oklahoma radars.

The comments come "days after an individual vandalized News 9’s weather radar," the report said.

A sign they found posted near one Oklahoma weather radar claims that Doppler radars are being targeted "by victims of U.S. military weather experimentation." The militia calls it "Operation Leaning Tower."

The Southern Poverty Law Center classified VoP as an “anti-government militia,” which also promotes "anti-immigrant ideas," as well as "anti-Indigenous, antisemitic, anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon falsehoods."

"They can embed their technology and civilian infrastructure in every home and every household utilizing the phones and their network towers to not only control the weather, modify the weather, but they can [target] individuals,” Meyer, a Christian Nationalist, told News9.

Last year, Meyer was part of an effort in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene for posing as an aid worker to encourage locals to tear down cell towers and attack the military.

"When the military plays God with the weather, they're mocking our Heavenly Father by calling one of his most favorite instruments a 'weather weapon,'" Meyer added.

When asked whether VoP is responsible for bringing down the News 9 weather radar, Meyer responded, "Veterans On Patrol is responsible for a lot more than that."

News 9’s Chief Meteorologist David Payne fact-checked the claims, explaining that weather radars have no weaponry.

“We have one of the most powerful live radars in Oklahoma, and one of the most powerful live radars in the country, but we cannot do any weather modification at all,” he said.

When those radars are damaged, “We cannot track severe weather. We cannot track tornadoes, and it basically becomes instantly obsolete," he added.

Payne said he wished that he could use radars like that to help save lives.

“I wish we could turn it on and say, 'oh, let's make that tornado go away,' but our weather radar and all of the weather radars in the U.S. are built strictly to inform and warn the public, and to keep the public safe -- and that's exactly why we have our live radar," Payne said.

Oklahoma is no stranger to domestic terrorism. In 1995, anti-government terrorist Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. It killed 168 people and injured 680 others.

Read the full report here.