The Walking Dead theory: Who are the helicopter group?

On last Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead, Jadis saved Rick’s life with help from the helicopter group, but…who are they? I think I have the answer.

For at least the last season or so of The Walking Dead, we’ve been seeing helicopters flying around Jadis’s junkyard, which is…odd. To see such a vehicle (Well, any vehicle) flying around in a post-apocalyptic world is curious.

The mystery deepened this season, when we discovered that Jadis was trading people to them, in exchange for supplies, and planned to give them Father Gabriel (Very much against his will) in exchange for a ride to their base, before ultimately changing her mind. This, initially, gave the impression that whatever the helicopter group did with the people they were given was nefarious in nature.

However, this all changed (For me, if nothing else) with the end to Sunday’s episode. As Jadis was, apparently, planning to ambush their pilot and force them to give her ride, Jadis spotted an unconscious Rick washed up on a riverbank and realized that, despite his injuries, he was still alive.

Thinking quickly, Jadis negotiated transport for herself and Rick, after getting assurance from the helicopter group that they had the ability to help Rick. The last thing we see of Jadis, Rick, and the helicopter people is Jadis assuring Rick that it was going to be okay.

This got me thinking: Who are the helicopter group?

I know I could have asked this when we first started seeing them, but, at the time I neither had any idea, and, even if I did, I had no evidence whatsoever to support it. This Sunday changed all of that.

Theory: The helicopter group…is the U.S. Government.

I know, I know: This is crazy. The government collapsed when the outbreak became too great to maintain, and they chose to enact Cobalt in a last-ditch attempt to stem the tide.

But…did it collapse?

Let’s look at what we know.

1) They have a lot of supplies in reserve.

This might not mean much at first, but, look at the communities in Rick’s area: In spite of how relatively large they were, they were still struggling to be able to supply themselves and one other community, The Sanctuary, with food, yet, the helicopter people had been supplying The Scavengers (who were a pretty big group) for possibly years.

Whoever they are, they have far more supplies at their disposal than any other group we’ve come across in the show thus far. This requires a lot of territory, resources, coordination, and manpower to have, yet, this didn’t seem to be a problem for them, as Jadis made it seem they’d been supplying her group for a long time.

2) They have the medical facilities necessary to save Rick’s life.

Now at first glance, some of you may be saying “Rick would have been okay if Siddiq got to him”, but, think about where Rick was wounded, how he was wounded, and how much he’d been bleeding. I don’t think this would have been a simple stitch job; Rick probably would have needed a blood transfusion to recoup the blood he’d lost, and, so far as we know, none of the communities had the means to do that.

So, if the helicopter people believed they could save Rick (Which, if Jadis said so, means they were confident enough in their abilities to tell her so in the first place), it also likely means they have the facilities and equipment necessary to perform surgery (And all that entails) on Rick.

Additionally, if they have such a facility, and they’re confident that they could fix Rick, they must also, it stands to reason, be confident in their ability to secure such a facility.

Now, who would have access to, apparently, tons of supplies, the kind of medical facility, personnel, and equipment necessary to heal Rick, and have the kind of security necessary to protect those things well enough to be as confident as they are? Hmm…

3) They ride around in friggin’ helicopters.

I could just leave this entry simply at its title and move on, but, you deserve more than that.

Let’s think about this for a moment: The communities are at a point where they can’t use cars anymore, because all the fuel in the area has been depleted, yet, the helicopter group have, apparently, been flying around since the apocalypse hit.

To do that, you need access to a large stockpile of fuel, and, again, need a lot of security to protect it from hostiles; The fact the helicopter group apparently have that is telling.

Not only that, but, the helicopters are clearly not stolen traffic copters, or medevac choppers, but, apparently, some sort of military helicopter, which means they were in a military facility, and if the other military safe zones we’ve known about were anything to go by, would not have been easy to get a hold of. Chances are, whoever owns these probably never had to go through the dead to get them in the first place.

Oh, and one other thing: Who was the last group of people we came across in The Walking Dead who were flying around in a helicopter? Oh, yeah…The National Guard. Hmm…

4) High-ranking government officials escaped the outbreak.

I asked at the beginning if the government really did collapse, and here is where I want to address that question in further detail.

Now, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that they did, I mean, clearly Dr. Jenner had had no communication with anyone further up the government food chain in some time when the group met him at the CDC, and that was 194 days after the outbreak began, and, the government clearly gave up trying to hold most of the country, as indicated by their initiation of Cobalt.

However, that doesn’t mean the government collapsed, at least, not completely.

Think about it: We know that at least some high-ranking government officials survived. How? Well, first of all, there’s Deanna, who was a member of Congress, who was taken to Alexandria along with her family for safety.

Secondly, we have what Carol learned about the events that happened in D.C. from Paula, who revealed that the reason she couldn’t escape the city was because important government personnel were being whisked out of the city. At no point in her story did Paula mention seeing Air Force One crash or Secret Service convoys being torn to shreds by a herd, those are the sort of things a person would remember.

So…what does that mean? Well, at the very least, it means some people high up in the U.S. Government survived the initial outbreak.

Now, here’s a thought: What if Alexandria wasn’t unique? What if there were other “Alexandrias” elsewhere in the country, and the government tried to distribute as many high-ranking officials as it could to these communities so that some vestige of the government still survived?

If this did happen, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that at least one had enough manpower (i.e. U.S. Military personnel) to control a relatively large area and maintain some of the government’s stockpile of emergency fuel and supplies.

If so, this would then make their whole “person exchange” make more sense. Such an area would require strong survivors to help maintain it, and, with so few people around, and apparently, so many supplies at their disposal, such survivors would be worth whatever supplies the helicopter people were giving out.

In the end, what does this all add up to? Well, it’s obvious at this point what I think: I believe that the helicopter people are the last remnants of the United States Government.

Who else would have helicopter pilots at their beck and call? Who else would have the stockpiles of fuel necessary to keep helicopters flying, when other regions have exhausted their available resources? Who else would have the doctors, and facilities, and equipment necessary to save Rick? Who else would have that much supplies to give Jadis over what seem to be years of the apocalypse? Who else would fly around in black helicopters collecting people, yet not, apparently, for sketchy purposes?

As far as I can tell…nobody.

But, what do you think? Do you think I’m right? Do you think I’m completely off my rocker? Who do you think the helicopter group might be? Let me know in the comments! And, if you want hear my theories on how to survive a zombie apocalypse in the real world, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also find it on Kindle here, and on iTunes here!