ATF and FBI agents search the roof of a building for evidence following the Christmas Day bombing
When an RV exploded on Second Avenue North around 6:30 a.m. on Christmas Day outside an AT&T switch facility, the blast rendered two buildings unsalvageable, damaged many more and sent debris and numerous conspiracy theories scattering into the morning air. With smoke still rising from downtown Nashville, devotees of such theories either sought to claim the bomber as one of their own or held his act up as evidence of the nefarious web of lies they believe they’ve uncovered. Meanwhile, speculation abounded about what set of convoluted tales the bomber himself might have believed — was he obsessed with 5G technology and its possible use in government surveillance? Still others online began to circulate the theory that the bomber was in on the conspiracy himself, falsely asserting that he had targeted the AT&T building in order to destroy voting machines that were being audited there.
The bizarre details of the event only added fuel to those fires. Before it exploded, the RV broadcast a warning directing people to evacuate the area before playing a recording of Petula Clark’s rendition of “Downtown.” Police did manage to evacuate area residents before the explosion, and no one other than the bomber died when the RV detonated.
In the days that followed, law enforcement agencies identified 63-year-old Anthony Warner, a white Antioch resident, as the man they say blew up the RV and himself with it. Soon after that, more revelations about Warner drove the narrative right back into the conspiratorial fever swamps. On Jan. 4, NewsChannel 5 reported that an acquaintance of Warner’s received a package from the alleged bomber on New Year’s Day that was postmarked Dec. 23 and “contained at least nine typed pages and two Samsung thumb drives.” The station reported that the letters included long passages in which Warner detailed his belief in 9/11 and moon-landing conspiracies as well as aliens and “reptilians and lizard people that he believed control the earth and had tweaked human DNA.”
“They put a switch into the human brain so they could walk among us and appear human,” Warner wrote, according to the station.
The FBI has confirmed that the agency is aware Warner “sent materials which espoused his viewpoints to several acquaintances throughout the country,” though his motive in the bombing is still being investigated.
Warner, it seems, was himself a deep believer in a number of conspiracy theories, making it darkly fitting that his final act should inspire or be adopted into a number of such theories. Conspiracy theories, especially in the wake of shocking events, are nothing new of course. But their reach is, as is their durability.
“Newsletters kept conspiracy theories about Kennedy’s assassination alive,” says Mark Cheathem, a history professor at Cumberland University who teaches about conspiracy theories in American history, among other things. “Emails spread conspiracy theories about the number of people the Clintons allegedly murdered, and internet message boards helped to perpetuate anti-Islamic conspiracy theories following 9/11.”
Cheathem permitted the Scene to pick his brain about the theories surfaced by the Christmas Day bombing.
“Social media platforms have made it possible for conspiracy theories that used to have a limited audience of a few hundred or a few thousand people to reach billions,” Cheathem says via email. “Once a conspiracy theory enters the global ecosystem of information, it spreads fast and is almost impossible to disprove or refute.”
The notion that the bombing was connected to an ongoing audit of Dominion voting machines by AT&T has been thoroughly debunked by multiple outlets. In short, AT&T did not have a contract to audit voting machines and was not storing any such machines in a building on Second Avenue. To Cheathem’s point, while trustworthy reporting has diminished theorizing to that effect, it has not completely stamped it out. Certainly, election-related conspiracy theories continue to spread unabated.
It’s not yet clear what, if anything, Warner believed about AT&T or anything related to the communications networks his bombing knocked out across the Southeast. But there is that bit about the lizard people.
“As recently as 2013, 4 percent of Americans believed in this conspiracy theory,” Cheathem tells the Scene. “These reptilians are allegedly aliens who live in bases beneath the Earth and who control the world’s governments. Allegedly, many famous politicians and celebrities are reptilians. This conspiracy theory is also sometimes connected to the Illuminati.”
Cheathem notes he’s encountered the theory in some unexpected ways.
“Interestingly, the first time I taught a course on the history of American conspiracy theories, I asked the students to share the reason they were taking the class. One student said they wanted to learn more about reptilians. I thought they were just curious; turns out, they actually believed in them.”
As easy as it is to stigmatize people who believe in these bizarre theories, Cheathem notes the impulse can be quite natural.
“Humans generally crave order, so we try to detect patterns and bring order to disorder,” he says. “We also want to make sense of tragedy and understand the world around us.”
Reality, we learn again and again, can be much more mundane and frustrating.
On Dec. 29, as first reported by The Tennessean and subsequently confirmed at a press conference by Metro Police Chief John Drake, we learned that Metro police had been warned in August 2019 by Warner’s then-girlfriend that he was building a bomb. At the time, officers went to Warner’s home on Bakertown Road in Antioch. When the Scene visited the home in the days following the bombing, there were five “No Trespassing” signs and at least seven cameras in various places. The 2019 incident report says that officers knocked on his door and got no answer. They did not believe they had enough evidence to obtain a search warrant, according to Drake, and never spoke to Warner. The MNPD shared Warner’s name with the FBI.
During the 2019 visit, according to an incident report, officers noted what was parked inside the home’s fenced in backyard — an RV.
