An online tracker is drawing attention for monitoring private jet activity as a potential signal of major global events, including a possible nuclear apocalypse.
The “Apocalypse Early Warning System,” created by artist and developer Kyle McDonald, tracks real-time flight data from about 11,000 business jets, military aircraft, and planes with obscured identifiers, and flags unusual spikes in activity.
“In the event of an imminent nuclear apocalypse, we suspect that many people who have access to private jets will immediately take to the skies and escape city centers. This site tracks this indicator in realtime,” the website says.
McDonald told Straight Arrow News he created the system after noticing unusual spikes in private jet activity on April 7, following President Donald Trump’s threat to wipe out a “whole civilization” and after reading about traders placing more than $1 billion in unusually well-timed prediction-market bets that oil prices would fall, an outcome that ultimately proved correct.
He realized that if government insiders or the ultra-wealthy receive advance notice of major military actions, a sudden surge in private jet activity could serve as a potential signal of something significant unfolding.
The system draws on data from the Federal Aviation Administration and ADS-B Exchange, which collects publicly broadcast aircraft signals known as ADS-B. These signals include location, speed and heading information used for air traffic monitoring.
The site assigns an “emergency level” from 1 to 5 based on deviations from normal flight patterns.
“Level 5 means the current count is an extreme positive outlier under this model,” the website says. “It can still be caused by holidays, major sporting or political events, data artifacts, or cohort mistakes. The archive is included so those historical false positives are visible.”
McDonald has added text message and email alerts for users who want real-time notifications of any significant spikes in private jet activity. So far, the tracker has not faced criticisms.
McDonald told Straight Arrow News that the silence suggests that his “project does not actually disturb the comfortable.”
