Belgium is nervous again.
And as tradition dictates, when Belgians get nervous, they look up.
The last time Brussels panicked about mysterious objects in the sky, the country at least had the courtesy to blame extraterrestrials. Today? The aliens have apparently rebranded. They’re Russian now. E.T. phone Motherland.
What follows is not so much a security crisis as a pan-European tragicomedy — the kind you get when Cold War nostalgia meets modern EU bureaucracy and a defence establishment with a talent for slapstick.
🎪 Welcome Back to the Belgian UFO Circuit
The Belgian UFO wave of 1989–1990 was legendary: strange triangles, night-sky sightings, frantic military interceptions. The spectacle had everything except an actual explanation. But at least back then no one tried to pin it on the Kremlin.
Fast-forward 35 years.
The new “UFOs” over Belgium are drones — or “hybrid warfare platforms,” depending on how caffeinated Belgian officials are when they brief the press.
The script practically writes itself:
If there is an unidentified flying object above Europe, it must be Putin. Obviously.
EU officials have been hinting for years that Russia will be physically in Western Europe by 2030. Best to start the panic early.
So airports close. Press conferences erupt. And the Belgian government sprints into emergency mode, summoning the National Security Council to reassure a public that — frankly — has known for decades their leaders would be useless in an actual crisis.
🛩️ “Advanced Systems,” Same Old Comedy
Belgium’s defence minister, Theo Francken, warns that the drones might be spying on U.S. nuclear weapons at the Kleine Brogel air base — as if catching America “in the shower” is a realistic espionage technique.
But nothing screams “secret Russian intelligence mission” quite like hovering lazily over an airport and disrupting European air traffic.
And then comes déjà vu.
In the 1990s, Belgium scrambled F-16s to intercept what they thought were alien craft. In the confusion, one jet locked onto another Belgian jet — almost shooting down their own aircraft. They blamed neither aliens nor the Soviets. They simply let the public speculate.
Today, such restraint is gone.
Authorities leap to reassure the nation like overprotective babysitters. They promise the army will shoot drones down “when necessary and possible” — though they apparently still need to devise the actual protocol. Belgium has seen this movie before. It ends like Top Gun, if Maverick were Belgian and nearly shot Goose by accident.
💥 Cold War Nostalgia, Now With Extra Hysteria
During the late Cold War, even at its tensest, no one suggested the Soviets were behind the UFOs. Mostly because there was no evidence.
But today?
“The evidence points in the direction of Moscow,” anonymous officials tell Le Monde.
Of course it does. In EU politics, all roads lead to Moscow.
The Belgian defence ministry is already using the drone incidents to push for a “national air security centre” and new detection and jamming systems. Convenient timing for bigger budgets.
This from the same minister who recently sounded like he’d spent too long inhaling waffle-house maple syrup fumes and warned that NATO would “wipe Moscow off the map” if Russia ever attacked — followed by some rhetorical burping and wobbling home through the streets of Brussels.
👽 Casting Joaquin Phoenix in a Slapstick Comedy
The whole affair suffers from a casting issue. Belgian officials are not built for this genre. Watching them in a geopolitical thriller is like watching Joaquin Phoenix in a banana-peel comedy skit — intense eyes, Oscar-worthy seriousness, all while slipping on metaphorical fruit.
Meanwhile, somewhere above Belgium, a hypothetical Russian drone pilot salutes alien classmates from cosmonaut school:
“Season two, comrades. Let’s begin.”
And below, the Belgian public stares up into the night sky, wondering why — out of all countries — Putin’s alleged interstellar reconnaissance convoy would choose them as the chosen ones.
Maybe Belgium should take it as a compliment.
Not every nation gets to be the protagonist of its own sci-fi satire.