I Found Jesus at a Drone Show

我在无人机表演中遇见了耶稣

2025年9月的一个夜晚，圣婴耶稣那发光的面容出现在梵蒂冈上空——清晰、真实，数万人亲眼见证了这一幕。这距离《启示录》中约翰的末日异象预言“看哪，他驾云降临，众目要看见他”已经过去了约两千年。很快，这幅图像幻化成了已故教皇方济各的面容。在这场既神圣又充满赛博朋克感的奇观中，那张在罗马夜空闪耀的教皇脸庞是像素化的——它并非由神圣的光芒组成，而是由无人机编队构成。

Accompanying the apparition wasn’t a seraphic choir but two earthbound mortals, hundreds of feet below, singing “Amazing Grace”: the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and, bejeweled in gold chains and cross pendants, the face-tattooed American Teddy Swims. Later to appear above the basilica was a pointillistic rendering of a colossal Pietà, which soon reassembled into the two outstretched fingers of Michelangelo’s famous fresco. Some members of the crowd packed into St. Peter’s Square for “Grace for the World”—the first concert ever held on this holy ground—wept.

伴随这一显现的并非天使唱诗班，而是下方数百英尺处两位凡人在演唱《奇异恩典》：意大利男高音安德烈·波切利，以及佩戴着金链和十字架吊坠、满脸纹身的美国歌手泰迪·斯威姆斯（Teddy Swims）。随后，大教堂上方出现了一幅点彩画风格的巨型《圣殇》像，它很快又重组成米开朗基罗名画中那两根伸出的手指。在圣彼得广场参加“世界恩典”（Grace for the World）音乐会——这是在这片圣地上举办的首场音乐会——的部分观众流下了眼泪。

The drone show in the Vatican sky was produced by Nova Sky Stories, a company owned by Kimbal Musk, younger brother of Elon (who, in a sense, owns the rest of the sky with his rockets and satellites). One recent afternoon in San Francisco, Kimbal recounted that night to me. “In a world where all the religious people are fighting each other, it was really a powerful message,” he said. Kimbal is the folksier Musk, with his signature cowboy hat and air of a small-town mayor. He found it surreal to be in a WhatsApp thread where Vatican officials and representatives for Pharrell debated artistic direction.

梵蒂冈上空的这场无人机表演由 Nova Sky Stories 公司制作，该公司由埃隆·马斯克的弟弟金巴尔·马斯克（Kimbal Musk）拥有（埃隆则凭借其火箭和卫星，在某种意义上拥有了其余的天空）。最近在旧金山的一个下午，金巴尔向我讲述了那个夜晚。“在一个所有宗教信徒都在互相争斗的世界里，这确实是一个强有力的信息，”他说。金巴尔是马斯克家族中更具亲和力的一位，他总是戴着标志性的牛仔帽，散发着一种小镇镇长的气质。他觉得能在一个有梵蒂冈官员和法瑞尔（Pharrell）代表参与的 WhatsApp 群组里讨论艺术方向，是一件非常超现实的事情。

You could say that the unlikely crossover between drones and the papacy has its origins, as these things do, at Burning Man. In 2021, when the event was canceled due to the pandemic, Kimbal convinced longtime burners to join him in Black Rock Desert for an unofficial gathering that became known as the Free Burn. Typically, Burning Man ends with the torching of a massive human-shaped effigy—the eponymous Man—but that year, the US Bureau of Land Management forbade desert-goers from lighting anything on fire.

你可以说，无人机与教皇权之间这种不可思议的跨界，正如许多事物一样，起源于“火人节”（Burning Man）。2021年，当该活动因疫情取消时，金巴尔说服了资深的“火人节”参与者们与他在黑岩沙漠进行了一次非官方聚会，后来被称为“自由燃烧”（Free Burn）。通常，“火人节”以焚烧一个巨大的人形雕像——即同名的“火人”——作为结束，但那一年，美国土地管理局禁止沙漠游客点燃任何东西。

Present at the Free Burn was Ralph Nauta, a Dutch artist who works with light and technology. Kimbal asked if he could perform a fireless spectacle for the final night, and Nauta obliged. A crowd gathered on the playa as Nauta released a swarm of drones that floated over the earth for a few minutes before snapping into the dotted contour of the Man. The crowd gasped, then roared. The figure slowly raised its arms, turned flame-red, and vanished. “Everyone, including me, we were just in tears, absolute tears,” Kimbal said. “It was one of the most emotionally powerful moments of my life.”

出席“自由燃烧”活动的还有荷兰艺术家拉尔夫·诺塔（Ralph Nauta），他擅长利用光影和技术进行创作。金巴尔问他是否能在最后一晚表演一场无火的奇观，诺塔答应了。当诺塔释放出一群无人机时，人群聚集在干湖滩上，无人机在地面上空盘旋了几分钟，然后迅速排列成“火人”的点状轮廓。人群先是惊叹，随后爆发出欢呼。那个形象缓缓举起双臂，变成火焰般的红色，然后消失了。“每个人，包括我在内，都泪流满面，完全是泪流满面，”金巴尔说，“那是我一生中最具情感冲击力的时刻之一。”

A year later, Kimbal founded Nova Sky Stories; investors in the company’s latest $50 million round included the Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, who joined the board after witnessing a drone show in 2022 at—where else?—Burning Man. A drone show has transformative properties, Kimbal said: “The cynic in you goes away. It’s like a mainline to the spiritual center.” He told me that Pope Leo, who watched the Vatican show from a nearby apartment, passed him a note afterward. “His words,” Kimbal said, “were that I made Michelangelo proud.”

一年后，金巴尔创立了 Nova Sky Stories；该公司最新一轮 5000 万美元融资的投资者包括好莱坞大亨杰弗里·卡森伯格（Jeffrey Katzenberg），他在 2022 年于——还能是哪儿呢？——“火人节”上亲眼目睹了一场无人机表演后加入了董事会。金巴尔说，无人机表演具有某种转化特质：“你内心的愤世嫉俗会消失。它就像是通往精神中心的一条主线。”他告诉我，在附近公寓观看梵蒂冈表演的教皇利奥（Pope Leo）事后递给他一张纸条。“他的原话是，”金巴尔说，“我让米开朗基罗感到骄傲。”

Although robotics researchers and independent artists had been playing with drones for years (Nauta started experimenting back in 2008), the drone show as we know it began in earnest in 2025. That’s when Intel, with 100 drones, set the first Guinness World Record for “Most Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Airborne Simultaneously,” upping the ante for performances to come. In 2017, hundreds of drones were flown as a backdrop to Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl halftime show, and today they’re summoned by the thousands at theme parks and Netflix premieres. In 2025, the Rose Bowl replaced its long-running July Fourth fireworks show with a drone show, as Napa and Salt Lake City had done in years prior. It’s safe to say that this year’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday will feature more drone shows than ever.

尽管机器人研究人员和独立艺术家多年来一直在尝试无人机（诺塔早在 2008 年就开始了实验），但我们所熟知的无人机表演真正开始于 2015 年。当时，英特尔公司利用 100 架无人机创下了“同时升空无人机数量最多”的吉尼斯世界纪录，提高了未来表演的门槛。2017 年，数百架无人机作为 Lady Gaga 超级碗中场秀的背景升空；如今，在主题公园和 Netflix 的首映式上，成千上万架无人机被召唤出来。2025 年，玫瑰碗体育场用无人机表演取代了举办已久的 7 月 4 日烟花秀，纳帕和盐湖城在几年前也已这样做。可以肯定的是，今年美国 250 周年国庆庆典上的无人机表演将比以往任何时候都多。

I came to the medium as many do: in enscreened form, on my iPhone’s 6-inch display. In the summer of 2025, Steph Curry was in China, where he witnessed a Godzilla-sized version of himself and a panda do a slo-mo high five over the skyline of Chongqing. “That’s the wildest thing I’ve seen in a while,” Curry told the Daily Mail. “5,000 drones going crazy right now.” As I watched the video on YouTube, I was baffled by contradictory emotions washing over me. My instinct was to shrug off what seemed like a newfangled technological gimmick, but I could hardly contain my glee. Next, I saw a video of the characters from KPop Demon Hunters materializing above Seoul, the city I grew up in. I messaged my parents. Had they seen this? Yes, they said. Have you not seen a drone show?

我和许多人一样接触到这种媒介：通过屏幕，在我 iPhone 的 6 英寸显示屏上。2025 年夏天，斯蒂芬·库里（Steph Curry）在中国，他目睹了一个哥斯拉大小的自己与一只熊猫在重庆天际线上进行慢动作击掌。“这是我最近见过的最疯狂的事情，”库里告诉《每日邮报》，“现在有 5000 架无人机在疯狂表演。”当我在 YouTube 上观看这段视频时，我被内心涌现的矛盾情绪弄糊涂了。我的本能是对此嗤之以鼻，认为这不过是一种新奇的科技噱头，但我却难以抑制内心的喜悦。接着，我看到一段视频，韩国流行音乐组合“恶魔猎手”（Demon Hunters）的角色出现在我长大的城市——首尔的上空。我给父母发了信息。他们看到了吗？他们说看到了。你还没看过无人机表演吗？

Even with an untrained eye, I could tell that quality varied. Some animations were clumsy and unimaginative—corporate logos, assemblages of geometric primitives. Others, however, were transcendent visuals, rendered with precision and pomp. There was a Guinness World Record–setting video from China (7,598 drones) featuring a dragon with shining, tessellated scales large enough to encircle a skyscraper. In Dubai, sky divers flew into a Red Bull can made of drones. Stranger Things’ Vecna crawled out of the Las Vegas Strip’s sky. A phoenix whose wings were composed of “pyrodrones”—fireworks attached to drones—released a waterfall of sparks. In Saudi Arabia, drones coalesced into the face of Mohammed bin Salman. Tetris was being played in the heavens. Nyan Cat was flying in the sky.

即使以非专业眼光来看，我也能看出质量参差不齐。有些动画笨拙且缺乏想象力——比如企业标志、几何图形的堆砌。然而，另一些则是超凡的视觉效果，渲染得精准而华丽。中国曾有一段创下吉尼斯世界纪录的视频（7598 架无人机），展示了一条拥有闪亮、镶嵌鳞片的巨龙，其体型大到足以环绕一座摩天大楼。在迪拜，跳伞运动员飞入了一个由无人机组成的红牛罐头中。《怪奇物语》中的威克那（Vecna）从拉斯维加斯大道的夜空中爬出。一只翅膀由“烟花无人机”（pyrodrones，即挂载烟花的无人机）组成的凤凰释放出瀑布般的火花。在沙特阿拉伯，无人机汇聚成了穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼的面孔。俄罗斯方块在天空中被玩了起来。彩虹猫（Nyan Cat）在天空中飞翔。