Does a video on TikTok show a directed energy weapon (DEW) in the form of a mysterious moving energy beam of artificial origin that strikes different locations in a city? No, that's not true: The footage of a slow-moving light accompanied by explosions does not show a DEW but an electrical incident from 2018 that caused cascading electrical explosions along power lines in Louisiana.
The claim appeared in a video on TikTok (archived here) by @plovdiv24.bg on October 24, 2023.
The caption (translated from Bulgarian text to English by Lead Stories staff) reads:
Have you seen anything like this?!
One thing is certain, and that is that THIS IS NOT A NATURAL phenomenon.
It's OVER A MINUTE of continuous hitting on a city from what appears to be a DEW-directed energy weapon. You can even see what appears to be an energy beam moving in real-time as it strategically hits different locations.🤨
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Nov 14 07:48:44 2023 UTC)
A reverse image search of a still from the TikTok video on Google Lens on November 14, 2023, (archived here) found that the footage is from December 27, 2018. According to the description of the videos found, the not-so-strategic event occurred in Kenner, Louisiana, and was described as cascading electrical explosions.
The video can be traced to a WWL-TV video on YouTube from December 27, 2018, and to a page on the website of The Associated Press, where the same video was published on December 28, 2018, with better quality. According to the description, it is an amateur video captured by Giovanni Bommarito that shows "transformer electrical explosions along power lines" in Kenner.
