Far-right commentators have declared Tuesday’s dramatic collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge a “black swan event”, a niche phrase that has recently captured the imaginations of “deep state” conspiracy theorists.
“Nothing is safe,” wrote “manosphere” influencer Andrew Tate on X, about six hours after a container ship collided with the bridge. “Black Swan Event imminent.”
“This is a BLACK SWAN event,” asserted Gen Mike Flynn, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, on X. Others, including Benny Johnson, Laura Loomer and some verified QAnon-affiliated accounts, also latched on to the “black swan event” language, many claiming that the collapse was terrorism related.
“Looks deliberate to me. A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started,” wrote Infowars’ Alex Jones on X.
Officials do not believe that the crash was terrorism-related or intentional; some theorized that the ship “lost propulsion”, causing it to veer off course.
As search-and-rescue teams continued looking for victims on Tuesday morning, “black swan event” trended on X, and Flynn appeared on Infowars to elaborate on his black swan theory.
The phrase “black swan event” was popularized in 2001 by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a Lebanese American statistician and essayist, to describe unforeseen happenings in the financial world with cascading consequences, such as the 2000 dotcom crash. He later extended his metaphor in the context of historical or significant national security events.
In recent months, conspiracy theorists have hijacked the concept and folded it into deep state narratives, which posit that a clandestine network of powerful individuals are secretly running the US government.
“Alex Jones has been talking about ‘engineered black swan events’ since at least 2021, and it’s been in overdrive since the beginning of the year,” said Mike Rothschild, conspiracy theory expert and author of Jewish Space Lasers.
Google Trends reflect growing interest in the phrase, showing several significant spikes in searches for “black swan event” since December.
Rothschild said that, according to conspiracy theorists, the deep state creates “black swan events” to distract the public from nefarious plots, such as disarming citizens en masse, stealing the election from Donald Trump, or enacting martial law. Essentially, black swan event in this context has been rendered meaningless, much like its better-known cousin, “the false flag”.
“If the deep state needs to do something to keep us distracted from something else, they toss out a black swan,” said Rothschild. “The black swan has become part of the cabal’s arsenal, used to advance their evil plan.”
Flynn started talking about black swan events last August, envisioning a scenario that “we don’t have an election in 2024” due to “some other black swan-type event”. He doubled down on this “prediction” earlier this month during an appearance on The Benny Show (hosted by rightwing commentator Benny Johnson).
“These people will decide, there’s no way they can win a legitimate, fair election so let’s not have one, so in order to not have one, how do they create the conditions that they don’t have one?” Flynn said. “They’re going to try and come up with things that are unknowable … they call them black swan events.”
Last week, former Republican congressman Ron Paul went on former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show and warned that Americans needed to prepare for some sort of black swan catastrophe – though he stopped short of claiming that the deep state would be behind such a catastrophe.
“I believe in the theory of the black swan. It’s going to pop up and it’s not going to be controllable,” Paul told Carlson. “You have to understand what’s happening, you have to know what’s coming, it’s very, very dangerous, and that’s why I love to see smaller units of government.”
Paul and Flynn’s comments galvanized online conspiracy circles. “Within the last 48 hours, both Ron Paul and General Flynn have warned of a coming ‘Black Swan event’,” wrote Jacob Creech, an influential figure in the QAnon community, on X. “The enemy will not roll over and allow Trump to win. They have something planned.”
The growing popularity of the black swan event concept among conspiracy theorists coincides with an uptick of the phrase’s usage in mainstream vernacular. Some security experts have name-checked it while discussing the possibility of a destabilizing national event creating additional turmoil during a contentious election year.
On CBS’s Face the Nation in December, veteran investigative reporter Catherine Herridge suggested that 2024 could see a black swan event, citing ongoing national security threat levels, conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, and continued polarization in the US. In January, Politico asked an array of experts, including technologists, historians and foreign policy analysts, to speculate on possible black swan events for the coming year.
Black swan event was just one conspiracy narrative that formed online on Tuesday. Fox host Maria Bartiromo tried to link the bridge collapse to “wide open borders”. A Republican candidate for Congress from Florida suggested that DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion hiring policies at the shipping company – was to blame.
On Wednesday, as wild speculation swirled online, officials continued to investigate possible failures that may have led to the collapse of the bridge, which Brandon M Scott, the mayor of Baltimore, has deemed “an unthinkable tragedy”. Pete Buttigieg, the US transportation secretary, said in a press conference Tuesday that the incident will have major impacts on supply chains and the road to rebuilding will be expensive and complex. Six people, all construction workers from Latin America, are feared dead.
• This story was amended on 27 March 2024. A previous version stated that search-and-rescue teams continued looking for victims on Wednesday, the same day Mike Flynn, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, appeared on Infowars. These events happened on Tuesday.
