On Christmas morning 2020 in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, a bomb inside a motor home detonated. Minutes earlier, the RV had been emitting a voice warning passersby to get away, because it would soon explode. When it did, Anthony Warner was inside and was killed instantly.
Police recovered a vehicle identification number from the debris and soon realized that the suspect was also the victim—that it was a suicide bombing. Public concerns and rumors to the contrary, authorities found no evidence that the incident or Warner were linked to terrorism, but the question of motive remained. Warner, age sixty-three, was an unmarried semi-recluse who worked as an information technology specialist.
There is nothing unusual about a man trying to take his own life; worldwide there are an estimated 10 to 20 million attempted suicides each year. About 30,000 people die by suicide each year in America; up until recently, it was the ninth leading cause of death in this country, and the suicide rate is higher than the homicide rate.
Public suicides have often been used as a medium for social protest. Frustrated political and social activists usually see self-immolation as a powerful tool to bring international attention to their plight. In the early 1960s, Buddhist monks in Vietnam famously set themselves on fire in political protest. Though rarer, the practice continues today; in 2018, prominent gay rights lawyer David Buckel set himself on fire in a Brooklyn park, hoping the media attention from his grisly suicide would draw attention to climate change.
According to Jordan Frieman of CBS News, several days before the bombing Warner sent packages to several acquaintances. They contained many typed pages and thumb drives containing conspiracy-related videos. “The knowledge I have gained is immeasurable. I now understand everything, and I mean everything from who/what we really are, to what the known universe really is.” Warner also opined that “everything is an illusion” and “there is no such thing as death.”
Warner embraced many wild conspiracy theories, asserting for example that extraterrestrials had been attacking Earth since September 2011, a month that “was supposed to be the end game for the planet.” The attacks were somehow thwarted but had continued; this is not widely known because, Warner asserted, the U.S. government and news media had conspired for years to cover up the attacks. As to why they would do that, his answer was simple: the world is run by a secret cabal of Reptilians, a race of lizard people. Drawing from a hodgepodge of pop culture sources ranging from the satirical sci-fi thriller They Live to conspiracy promoters Alex Jones and David Icke, Warner wrote that “They put a switch into the human brain so they could walk among us and appear human.” From 9/11 “Truther” conspiracies to moon landing hoaxes, Warner seems to have embraced a wide variety of bogus and discredited claims. The letter was signed with the name Julio, an alias Warner often used; he is believed to have had a dog by that name that may have also been killed in the blast.
Early speculation was that the bombing was tied to some terrorism plot or grievance against AT&T, the office building nearest the explosion, possibly linked to debunked 5G conspiracy claims. Investigation is ongoing, but as of early January, it seems likely that Warner wanted to publicize his conspiracy beliefs. He was well aware that his Christmas morning bomb would draw attention (a neighbor recalled Warner saying ominously that “Nashville and the world is never going to forget me”) and that the conspiracy-riddled manifestos he sent to people on December 23 would come to light.
Recognizing the media paradox of trying to report on Warner’s beliefs while not giving them undue attention, some news outlets decided to merely summarize Warner’s materials. Tennessee’s NewsChannel 5, for example, noted its “decision not to publish them in their entirety. We are attempting to balance shedding light on his mindset prior to the bombing with not giving him unnecessary notoriety.”
Warner is of course not the first conspiracy theorist to use a bomb to draw attention to his beliefs. In May 2002, six people were injured when eighteen pipe bombs left in mailboxes exploded in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Colorado, and Texas. Luke Helder, a twenty-one-year-old college student from Minnesota, was arrested for the bombings, which he described as “attention getters.” Helder combined virulent anti-government beliefs with rambling philosophical rants. In a six-page typed letter to a student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Helder discussed his belief in various conspiracy and paranormal topics. A friend of his was quoted by ABC News as saying that Helder “seemed really obsessed about New Age religion and death and the fact that death really doesn’t mean an end to existence.”
Helder, eerily echoed by Warner, wrote that each person can create his or her own reality, and that “once you begin to realize the potential you have as a consciousness/soul/spirit, you will begin to harness the abilities you have to produce realities. Because you are producing the reality entirely, you are not confined to the laws of physics.” Helder was explicit about the purpose of his serial bombings: he wanted to enlighten the world to his beliefs and revealed truths. “I’m doing this because I care … In the end you will know I was telling you the truth anyway. I’m taking very drastic measures in attempt to provide this information to you.”
Belief in conspiracy theories cannot be said to have directly caused either Warner’s or Helder’s attacks, though their belief systems surely played a role in these tragedies. Jared Loughner, the gunman who killed six people and injured fourteen others including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a 2011 Tucson shooting, also advocated conspiracy theories, as did Aaron Alexis, a government contractor who killed a dozen people and injured eight others at the Washington Navy Yard in September 2013; he told police that he had been harassed through a government mind control program.
Extreme acts of violence can seem to be a logical reaction to conspiracy beliefs. If one sincerely believes, for example, that a cabal of high-ranking Democrats are Satanic baby-eating pedophiles (see Stephanie Kemmerer’s article on QAnon in this issue)—then resorting to violence may seem reasonable and appropriate. This is especially true when conspiracy theories appeal to political extremists who already harbor a distrust of the government and a willingness to take up arms.
Of course, most violent people are not conspiracy theorists, most mentally ill people are not violent, and most conspiracy believers are not violent. Though conspiracy beliefs do not cause violence, they can give a name and form to generalized rage and helplessness and set the stage for violent actions.