Yes, essentially. They have a way (as yet undescribed) where they can project minds into the past. But not physical objects. So, they just take control of people and use their bodies like remote control puppets and use them to influence events.

The way I was thinking about how this would work to avoid paradoxes they are picking people who are about to die so that anything they do will remain a mystery. Why did Jim suddenly jump in a car, drive half way across the country, and sucker punch a teenager sending the kid to the hospital? We'll never know because Jim died a few hours later in a house fire. That sort of thing. People who disappear or do weird stuff just before they die may have had a time traveler hijacking them.