UK conspiracy theorists are vandalizing traffic lights: Who are 'Blade Runners' and what do they believe?

A group of conspiracy theorists in the United Kingdom are vandalizing traffic light sensors, claiming that they are "electronic assault weapons." The group, which calls itself "Blade Runners", believes that traffic light sensors are used to place these weapons on city streets. Several incidents of vandalism of traffic lights have come to light lately.

In a video that recently surfaced on social media and has been viewed tens of thousands of times, a woman appears to be tampering with equipment connected to a traffic signal in Ilfracombe, an English town. The "Ilfracombe Blade Runners" claimed in an online message that the sensors installed at the town's pedestrian crossings pose an "imminent threat to life."

Cambridgeshire County Council said that about 200 sensor units had been vandalized at some 50 sites across the UK, the London Daily News reported. Most of those incidents took place in Cambridge, though other locations were also hit.

What is the conspiracy theory?

For most people, traffic lights are helpful tools that keep roads and pavements safe. But to the so-called Blade Runners, traffic scanners conceal a dark purpose: to install "phased array electronic assault weapons." They say that these "weapons" can perform mass surveillance and even cause serious diseases such as cancer and dementia, or even sudden death.

Other similar attacks

Other activists who have claimed affiliation to the movement have targeted Ulez cameras in London, angry about their surveillance and the resulting emission zone charges. Sporadic attacks on 5G mobile network towers have also been reported, inspired by various conspiracy theories that include the suggestion that they spread the coronavirus (Covid).

Expert weighs in

Susan Grant-Muller, a professor of technologies and informatics at the University of Leeds’s Institute for Transport Studies in England, said that attacks on traffic scanners is puzzling as the technology "in its most basic form, has been around since the late 70s." The cameras "aren’t recording faces or any details about the car. They just detect that there is something there, a car or person, and the length of the queue that people are waiting in," Grant-Muller told The Guardian newspaper.