Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) railed against the "mental illness" of "transgenderism" and "furries" for nearly 20 minutes on the floor of the Senate Wednesday, but you'd never know it by reading the news headlines.

Instead, leftist media focused on one line from Tuberville's speech. Tuberville, now running for governor of Alabama, claimed that an unnamed furry group "touts ... many airline pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers" among its members.

'There is an ALARMING number of these DERANGED people working in our airline industry.'

"Lord, help us. It's terrifying when you think about this. When you walk onto a commercial flight, it's possible that the pilot flying your plane could have a deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal. You can't make this up," he added.

A Rolling Stone headline about the speech read, "GOP Senator Ahead of Midterms: Furry Airline Pilots Are 'Terrifying,'" while the headline from AL.com quoted a response from Tuberville's Democratic opponent: "Doug Jones: Tuberville’s furry pilot Senate floor speech is 'the strangest I have ever heard.'"

Strange though it may be, Tuberville was not wrong.

The Air Line Furries Association claims on its website that "many members of the furry community work[] in all aspects of aviation, including pilots, FAs, mechanics, ATC, CSAs, schedulers, dispatch, IT, and more."

Mallory Jaspers, the communications director for Tuberville's gubernatorial campaign, seemed to confirm that ALFA is the group Tuberville had in mind, noting in an email to Blaze News, "The Airline Furries Association International, while not affiliated with any airline and not an official union, is an online hub for people who work in the airline industry and are furries."

RELATED: Groomed for violence? The dark world of furries and transgenderism in America's classrooms

Andy Soloman/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Furries have seemingly infiltrated almost every industry and hobby group. The annual Furry Migration convention, held two weeks ago in Minneapolis, offered breakout sessions for K-pop music, live streamers, songwriting, and of course, aviation.

Shawn McHenry, a "Minnesota Furs Staff & Convention Conchair" who refers to himself as "Rico Raccoon" in his email signature, told Blaze News that he personally knows "that there's all sorts of other aviation professionals in the space," such as "mechanics, flight instructors, pilots, flight attendants, grounds crew, crew schedulers."

The number of aviation personnel who participate in furry culture while off the clock is difficult to estimate. McHenry guessed that about 30 people attended the aviation breakout session at the convention, but that number would have included aviation professionals as well as people with just an interest in aviation.

The ALFA group also appears to have little online reach and almost no activity. Though it promises "stories" and "news," it includes no stories and three news "articles" full of gibberish Latin. The last website update and the group's most recent X post both came in 2022.

Blaze News reached out to major pilot, flight attendant, and ATC unions to see whether their members had ever faced furry-related complaints or disciplinary issues, but did not receive any responses.

Of note, a clip of frequency chatter involving pilots at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport went viral back in April because the pilots were making animal sounds.

On the audio, the two pilots trade "meows" before a third male interjects: "You guys, uh, need to be professional pilots." The reprimand does not seem to have any effect, as the one pilot unleashes a string of "meows," while the other barks like a dog.

The FAA told NBC News at the time that it had opened an investigation into the incident. Blaze News followed up with the agency to see whether the pilots had ever been disciplined and whether the incident had been linked to furries, but the agency did not respond.

Tuberville seemed to connect the pilot-meowing to furries, tweeting on Thursday:

I know the deranged Democrats don’t like the fact that I called out the insane FURRY CULTURE this week. But the truth is, there is an ALARMING number of these DERANGED people working in our airline industry. Don’t believe me? Just a few months ago, PILOTS were MEOWING and BARKING at each other over the radio at DCA.

The tweet has since received a community note.

McHenry, a senior software engineer, does not see furry pilots as a problem.

"The furry pilots I know keep their personal interests separate from their work. They’re skilled professionals doing their jobs," he said.

"Treating the furry fandom itself as a safety issue unfairly casts suspicion on qualified professionals without evidence. They deserve to be judged by how they do their jobs, just like anyone else."

A correlation between transgenderism, furries, and violence has become a growing concern in recent years, especially following the murder of Charlie Kirk, allegedly by Tyler Robinson. When Robinson was arrested, his male romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, reportedly identified as transgender and professed to be transitioning to female.

Shortly after Kirk was assassinated, Blaze News compiled a list of four other incidents with furry perpetrators involving violence or the sexual abuse of minors. We also included a series of studies and news reports revealing that the furry culture is almost always grounded in deviant sex and sexual identity.

If Robinson is convicted, prosecutors intend to pursue the death penalty. He is scheduled to appear in court again on October 23.

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