On September 9, 2021, almond-colored smoke began to rise over San Antonio, Texas, specifically above the city’s Far West Side. The source of the smoke was a blazing cell tower, towering at 132 feet, located near an office park north of SeaWorld. A paramedic, one mile away, captured the scene and shared it on the r/sanantonio subreddit with the caption, “Cell tower on fire around 1604 and Culebra.”
The Reddit community responded with typical humor. Comments included quips such as, “Blazing 5G speeds,” and concerns about inhaling fumes leading to more potent Covid transmission due to 5G radiation, referencing a conspiracy theory linking the technology to the pandemic. Other jokes followed: “Can you hear me now?” and “Free hotspot!”
Among the commenters was Sean Aaron Smith, a 27-year-old man who had recently adopted an aggressive stance against 5G technology. Smith considered himself a part of a larger resistance against a perceived globalist agenda aimed at “zombifying” people. To combat this, he had, over the past five months, set cell towers across Texas on fire.
Smith’s actions represent a growing concern for U.S. national security. Just two weeks after the incident in San Antonio, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray addressed threats like Smith’s in a speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Wray identified “lone actors” as the primary terrorist threat, noting their tendency to radicalize quickly and act violently, often spurred by bizarre conspiracy theories.
Since Wray’s speech, incidents of political violence linked to conspiracy theories have escalated. Recent attacks have involved individuals convinced they are fighting against government oppression or secret organizations. Jonathan Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, emphasized that such theories now proliferate from credible public figures, rather than obscure online accounts. He noted the presence of influencers in political roles, claiming, “You’ve got Groypers running Department of Homeland Security Twitter accounts.”
Once convinced that violence is justified, these individuals often target critical infrastructure, which remains vulnerable despite its significance. In 2022, an individual attacked electrical substations in North Carolina, targeting a venue for a drag show. The following year, a Tennessee man was arrested for attempting to bomb Nashville’s power grid with drones to incite a race war. More recently, a militia member damaged an Oklahoma radar station, fueled by conspiracy theories about weather manipulation, while unknown perpetrators severed fiber-optic cables in California and Missouri.
Smith has proven to be notably aggressive in his campaign, having set his seventh tower on fire in 2021 at the SeaWorld site. Over the subsequent seven months, he would ignite another 15 towers. In efforts to understand the motivations behind such violent actions, extensive interviews were conducted with Smith to delve into his anti-5G crusade and examine the underlying factors that entice individuals to disrupt essential technological infrastructure.
