Despite the U.S. Justice Department’s claim in a new court filing that there is “overwhelming evidence” of a Virginia man’s guilt in the D.C. pipe-bomb case, his location and movements on Jan. 5, 2021, do not appear to be as clear-cut as the FBI’s cellphone evidence implies.

When the FBI arrested Brian Jerome Cole Jr. Dec. 4 at his mother’s home in Woodbridge, Va., agents filed a federal court affidavit that relied heavily on pings from Cole’s cell phone. Those pings placed him in a variety of general areas on Capitol Hill the night of Jan. 5. The FBI said the pings were “consistent with” the phone being in certain tower sectors where the hoodie suspect was known to be.

‘No way. The kid doesn’t walk like that.’

Experts say cell-tower ping analysis is an imprecise method when trying to define a phone’s geographic location. The FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team field guide says a phone ping only indicates the device is somewhere within one of the three 120-degree sectors that radiate from the tower, which can reach a large area, depending on how far away the next closest tower is.

What’s coming Tuesday

Cole was charged in a criminal complaint with planting pipe bombs at the Democratic National Committee building and behind the Capitol Hill Club near the Republican National Committee building between 7:54 and 8:16 p.m. Jan. 5. The DOJ has charged the crime as an act of terrorism.

Cole will be in federal court in Washington, D.C., Tuesday afternoon for a detention hearing and a preliminary hearing. There, the government is expected to present enough of its case to establish probable cause that Cole committed the crimes with which he is charged.

Cole’s defense team filed a motion to ensure the preliminary hearing takes place Tuesday in addition to a hearing on whether Cole will remain jailed until trial. If for any reason the DOJ is not ready to proceed with the preliminary hearing, Cole would have to be released from federal custody, defense attorney John Shoreman wrote in a filing Monday.

The government’s case includes Cole’s reported confession that he didn’t have a side in the partisan divide, but “something just snapped” and, inspired by the IRA in Northern Ireland and video games, he decided to place bombs at both political parties’ headquarters at night and hoped they wouldn’t hurt anyone.

The FBI also cited alleged credit card purchases for bomb materials, Cole frequently wiping his cellphone data since mid-2022, cellphone pings and a license plate reader allegedly placing Cole at the crime scenes.

Location, location

The first ping the FBI describes in its evidence against Cole happened at 7:39 p.m., when his phone interacted with Tower 59323, located atop an apartment building at 103 G St. SW in Washington, D.C. The sector associated with Tower 59323 faces southeast, with an azimuth of approximately 120 degrees.

“Sector depictions represent a general antenna orientation and do not define precise or exclusive coverage boundaries,” said a retired FBI supervisory special agent who has worked with the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team. He reviewed the ping evidence in the case for Blaze News.

The FBI said Cole’s phone also pinged off Tower 126187, which faces east from its location at 200 Independence Ave. SW.

“The idealized sector depictions for the two towers overlap in a limited area on the map,” the retired agent said. “However, without [radio frequency] calibration or carrier engineering data, the actual extent and shape of any overlap cannot be reliably determined.”

The expert said that while evidence suggests Cole’s phone was south of the hoodie suspect’s location at 7:39 p.m., it can’t be proven from the data.

‘No reliable nexus can be established between the cellular records and that individual.’

“The government’s interpretation of the sector orientations suggests that the handset may have been located south of the individual observed on video; however, sector-based [cell site location information] does not provide sufficient precision to determine the handset’s exact location or its position relative to the hoodie-wearing suspect,” he said. “Without RF calibration, distance metrics, or carrier engineering data, such directional interpretations remain general and non-exclusive.”

At the exact time the FBI claims Cole’s phone pinged on the southeast-facing tower sector, the hoodie bomb suspect walked along D Street Southeast, about to turn south on Capitol Street SE toward the DNC, according to video from U.S. Capitol Police security Camera 753. The hoodie suspect did not appear to be holding or otherwise using a cell phone at the time.

The retired supervisory special agent said the security video provides no evidence supporting Cole’s phone being at the same location as the hoodie suspect.

“Geometric comparison between tower locations, sector orientations, and the video-confirmed sidewalk location demonstrates that the location of the hoodie-wearing individual is not a clean main-lobe match for the southeast-facing sector of Cell Site 59323.” The ping was “a low-specificity, general-area location inference.”

“The surveillance video provides a high-specificity location constraint for the unidentified hoodie-wearing individual at specific times,” he said in an analysis commissioned by Blaze News.

“However, the video does not identify the individual and does not show the individual using, possessing, or interacting with a cellular device,” he said. “There is no visual evidence linking the individual on video to the handset reflected in the [cell site location information] records.”

If confirmed, that would put Cole’s vehicle more than one mile away from the hoodie suspect.

A ping, shorthand for a cellular device’s interaction with a tower, “documents the activity of a device, not the actions or identity of a person,” he said.

“Absent evidence demonstrating device possession or use by the individual observed on video, no reliable nexus can be established between the cellular records and that individual,” he said.

Further, Cole’s blue 2017 Nissan Sentra does not appear on any Capitol Police security cameras in the areas of the DNC or RNC, according to video investigator Armitas, who scrubbed the video feeds of dozens of USCP cameras. Armitas found only two Nissan Sentras on the road on Capitol Hill, one of which was driven by a white individual with a white passenger. Cole is black.

The other Sentra appeared to be a visual match for Cole’s vehicle, Armitas said, but the driver’s characteristics and identity cannot be determined from the security video.

In a memo filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., seeking to keep Cole in jail pending trial, the DOJ said Cole told the FBI he parked his car on D Street Southeast at Folger Park and walked from there to the DNC.

Folger Park is just beyond the network of more than 1,800 Capitol Police surveillance cameras. The court filings in the Cole case do not indicate if Cole was somehow aware of the boundaries of USCP surveillance cameras when selecting a parking area.

The FBI said Cole’s vehicle was captured on a license plate reader taking the Capitol Street exit from Interstate 395 South at 7:10 p.m.

The hoodie suspect was first captured on Capitol Police video at 7:34 p.m., the FBI said. Capitol Police Camera 5050 showed the bomb suspect crossing E Street Southeast on New Jersey Avenue at 7:35 p.m.

DNC bench but no ping?

Another potential phone conflict happened at 7:44 p.m., when the FBI said Cole’s phone pinged off the eastern sector of Tower 126187.

Video shows the hoodie suspect was sitting on a DNC bench at 7:43 p.m., using a cell phone. That phone did not appear to have produced a manual ping between 7:43:36 p.m. and 7:44:19 p.m. At least, no such ping is referred to by the FBI in public Cole case documents.

It seems unlikely that the hoodie suspect was on Ivy Street at 7:44:36 p.m. as the FBI asserts. The bomb suspect had to walk from the DNC bench a short distance on Capitol Street to Canal Street, then use Canal to cross Ivy Street before proceeding up Ivy Street.

Could that distance be covered in just six seconds? It seems doubtful, even if the suspect was running. The hoodie suspect no longer appeared to be using a phone when the person disappeared from DNC camera view at 7:44:30.

Third potential contradiction

A third potential contradiction in the cell-tower evidence came at 7:59 p.m., when the hoodie-wearing suspect was — according to the FBI — on New Jersey Avenue SE, about to turn east on E Street SE and continue onto North Carolina Avenue SE. Capitol Police Camera 0703 at the entrance to the Capitol Power Plant captured a glimpse of the bomb suspect turning from New Jersey Avenue to E Street.

The FBI said at 7:59:36 p.m., Cole’s cell phone pinged in a sector of Tower 147990 that faces south approximately 180 degrees from its location at 200 Independence Ave. SW. The FBI links this ping to the hoodie suspect’s appearance at New Jersey Avenue and E Street.

At roughly 8 p.m., the hoodie suspect was believed to be walking northeast toward Folger Park. There is an eight-minute gap during which the bomb suspect is not visible on any security cameras. The FBI has theorized since early in the case that the suspect used Folger Park as a base of operations.

Since the FBI said the bomber only carried one pipe bomb at a time in the backpack, the suspect would have had to acquire the second bomb before reappearing on camera walking toward the Capitol Hill Club and the Republican National Committee building.

A 2017 Nissan Sentra believed by video investigator Armitas to be pipe-bomb suspect Brian Cole Jr.’s vehicle is shown a mile from where the hoodie-wearing suspect was at the same time.Capitol Police CCTV

The hoodie-wearing suspect’s likely resupply mission presents a possible problem for the FBI’s timeline. At 8:03 p.m., security cameras captured what Armitas believes to be Cole’s blue Nissan Sentra traveling north on 3rd Street SW toward C Street SW, according to several USCP cameras along the route.

If confirmed, that would put Cole’s vehicle more than one mile away from the hoodie suspect at 8:03 p.m. Since it is a six- to seven-minute drive to Folger Park from 3rd Street SW, Cole could not be in the same location as the hoodie suspect at the time. According to Capitol Police cameras, the Nissan Sentra tracked by Armitas traveled north on 3rd Street SW to C Street SW, then turned east.

That Nissan was last seen at 8:04 p.m. on Capitol Police Camera 8483 on C Street at Second Street SW, in front of the O’Neill House Office Building. The Sentra drove onto an entrance ramp to I-395, traveling west — away from Folger Park, the Capitol Hill Club, and the Republican National Committee building. Cole could not have been hiding in or near Folger Park from roughly 8:02 to 8:08 p.m. and also been driving away from Capitol Hill more than a mile away at the same time.

Confession claim

The DOJ detention memo said Cole confessed to placing the bombs and his intention was that they would detonate at night on Jan. 5 and not the next day, on Jan. 6. The DOJ said Cole “set the timer on the first device to the maximum duration (60 minutes) and planted the device.”

Armitas said the surveillance video released by the FBI from a DNC security camera shows that the bomber took the device out of a backpack and immediately placed it under the bush near the base of the park bench. “Video from 2 different angles shows that the timer was never set,” Armitas wrote on X Monday.

“This device requires 2 full turns of the dial to set it,” Armitas wrote, “not to mention you have to unclip and reclip all the alligator clips, otherwise turning the dial will close the switch across those clips, shorting the detonator — Kaboom. As we can see in the video, the device is pulled out of the backpack and immediately placed.”

Shoes and gait

Cole’s demeanor, mannerisms, and walk look distinctly different from the bomb suspect wearing the hoodie on FBI video.

According to Prince William County Police bodycam video from the scene of a minor traffic accident involving Cole in late April 2024, Cole has more of a lumbering walk with his feet facing outward with no cadence to his steps. Blaze News obtained the 48-minute video through a freedom of information request.

Cole noticeably leans his head and neck to the left, while the hoodie suspect stood upright with a straight back and squared shoulders. As the hoodie suspect walked south down Rumsey Court to place the second pipe bomb at 8:16 p.m. on Jan. 5, video showed a confident stride with a fast cadence. On the bodycam video, Cole looked unsure of himself, withdrawn, avoiding eye contact and appearing to lack the confidence displayed by the original bomb suspect.

Cole told the Prince William County officer he had a “lapse in focus” that led to him run into the pickup truck in front of him. When the officer issued Cole a citation for following too closely, it appeared that Cole’s eyes welled up with tears. “It’s not a criminal offense,” the officer reassured Cole. “It’s just a traffic offense. So you can go to court. You can fight it if you want or you can prepay it.”

The owner of a 7-Eleven on Minnieville Road in Woodbridge, not far from the Cole family home, said Brian Cole Jr. has come into his store for years, always purchasing the same thing: pizza and two Cokes.

“I saw him for 13 years a minimum of two to three times per week,” said Sunny Sandhu. “He was probably here every day.

“Every time he came in here, it was always the same thing, same routine,” Sandhu told Blaze News in an interview. “Always had his headphones on. Always made it the same order, bought two Cokes and a pizza.”

Sandhu said if he didn’t have a fresh pizza on display, he would offer to make one for Cole, but in those cases Cole always opted instead for chicken wings. He said Cole usually didn’t say anything, but occasionally would nod when Sandhu thanked him and said goodbye.

After Cole’s arrest, Sandhu said he watched the FBI video of the hoodie suspect walking down an alley to place the second pipe bomb near the RNC.

“I go, ‘No way. The kid doesn’t walk like that,’” Sandhu said. “This kid has no confidence in his stride at all.”

Cole has a “goofy walk” that does not resemble the FBI’s bomb suspect, Sandhu said. “There’s no way,” he said.

The 7-Eleven owner said the FBI didn’t come to his store asking about Cole before or since the Dec. 4 arrest.

An FBI whistleblower who has worked in the Washington Field Office filed a protected disclosure with the U.S. House on Dec. 11, asserting that Cole was simply mentally incapable of carrying out the placement of pipe bombs while evading a massive law enforcement dragnet for nearly five years. The disclosure was filed with U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Attorney Kurt Siuzdak said his whistleblower client lives in the vicinity of the Cole home in Virginia and has observed Brian Cole “hundreds of times, if not more, over the course of nearly a decade.” He said his client described Cole as “detached and vacant” and displaying “awkward” behavior.

“It is obvious he has a mental disability and likely lives in a permanent vulnerable, intellectual and emotional state,” Siuzdak wrote. “It is well understood that individuals with mental conditions are susceptible to providing inaccurate and unwarranted ‘confessions.’ The FBI should have used caution and its behavioral experts to ensure any [interrogation] was proper.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) outlined a litany of problems he has with the state of the pipe-bombs case, including the fact that Cole is “borderline autistic,” as disclosed by Cole’s grandmother, Loretta Cole.

“They said, ‘Look, our son or our grandson, he’s autistic and he’s operating at a 16-year-old level and he’s not capable of this,” Massie said Dec. 11. “That was their claim, and I do think that that’s relevant to know his mental acuity.”

Different eyesight?

The way Cole held his cell phone at the accident scene is very different from how the hoodie suspect held and used a cell phone on Jan. 5. Cole kept the phone less than a foot from his face while reading the screen, video showed.

The hoodie suspect, in contrast, held the cell phone in his or her lap while sitting on the park bench behind the DNC. This could indicate that Cole’s eyesight is significantly different from the eyesight of the hoodie suspect.

The Converse Chuck Taylor All Star canvas sneakers Cole wore at the 2024 accident scene also appear to be larger than the Nike Air shoes worn by the pipe-bomb suspect on Jan. 5. The FBI said Cole told agents he used to have a pair of Nike Air Max shoes but threw them away because they were in poor condition.

Ignored evidence

In its narrative accusing Cole of being the pipe bomber, the FBI apparently did not ask Cole about stopping at a bush alongside the Congressional Black Caucus Institute at 7:48 p.m. — a video discovery made by Armitas and published by Blaze News Oct. 29.

Security video shows the hoodie suspect walked from New Jersey Avenue down a sidewalk next to the CBCI building, 413 New Jersey Ave. Southeast. The suspect spent one minute, 17 seconds near the bush — first bent over, then sitting down in front of the shrub — Capitol Police security video shows. The suspect rummaged through a backpack while sitting cross-legged, then leaned into the bush and appeared to place or attempt to place something underneath.

Police walked right past DNC pipe bomb to first look under a bush where bomber sat 17 hours earlier. Photos by U.S. Capitol Police

The suspect stood up after 77 seconds and walked to the DNC building. There, the suspect sat on a park bench and, at 7:54 p.m., placed a pipe bomb under an adjacent bush, video released by the FBI showed.

The DOJ memo does not mention the CBCI or indicate whether Cole explained why he stopped at the bush next to the headquarters of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute. Information on the bomber’s time near the CBCI and the video showing the suspect’s actions was shared with the FBI by Armitas earlier this year.

It also does not mention that the bomb suspect stopped in a garden in front of the C Street Center, 133 C St. SE. The building has long served as a dormitory or rooming house for members of Congress and staff.

Armitas said he believes the suspect was attempting to place the second pipe bomb in the bushes in front of 133 C Street but may have been interrupted by a Capitol Police squad car that turned onto C Street from the east with its emergency lights on.

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​January 6 

Pope Leo XIV says people need more face-to-face interaction in their lives.

Speaking with Italian mayors from the association of local Italian authorities, the Assocazione Nazionale dei Comuni Italiani, the pope touched on some of the biggest issues faces the world today.

‘Democracy atrophies, becomes just a name, a formality.’

During the Vatican meeting, Pope Leo noted that a “demographic crisis” and “struggles” among families and young people remain top issues. According to Vatican News, the Catholic leader also stated that social isolation and “social conflicts” are pervasive issues in Italy.

At the same time, the pope — Robert Francis Prevost — said he wanted to focus on one of the biggest topics in today’s world: gambling. The Chicago native explained that he wanted to “draw attention in particular to the scourge of gambling,” which has “ruined many families.”

Citing a “major increase” in gambling in Italy in recent years, Prevost cited a recent report that described gambling as a “serious problem” in terms of education, mental health, and societal trust for Italians.

RELATED: New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan resigns; pope appoints his replacement

Photo by Simone Risoluti – Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images

The pope stressed that gambling addiction is a form of “loneliness” and called on the local mayors to promote “authentically human relationships between citizens” as a way to tackle the issue.

Pope Leo reportedly drew from 20th-century Italian priest and activist Don Primo Mazzolari in order to illustrate the need for social interactions between Italians.

“[Italy] does not only need sewers, houses, roads, aqueducts, and pavements,” but also “a way of feeling, of living, a way of looking at one another, and a way of coming together as brothers and sisters.”

RELATED: Pope Leo XIV, Eastern Orthodox patriarch signal greater unity at site where Nicene Creed was adopted 1,700 years ago

Photo by Jacopo Raule/Getty Images for Philipp Plein

To solve many of these modern issues, authorities must listen to the weak and the poor, the pope said. If not, he said, “democracy atrophies, becomes just a name, a formality.”

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When Lindsay Tornambe was just 11 years old, her parents and four siblings moved out to remote Minnesota to join a religious compound called River Road Fellowship. The group was led by a man named Victor Barnard, who claimed that God had ordained him to gather and shepherd the fragmented people of the Way International — a deeply heretical “Christian” sect — after its founder Victor Paul Wierwille died in 1985.

At first, things were almost idyllic. Lindsay spent her days playing with the other kids, tending to animals, and skating on the frozen lake. But it wasn’t long before Barnard’s sinister intentions shattered the pastoral facade he had created, condemning Lindsay and other victims to years-long servitude in a sex cult.

On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie Beth Stuckey interviews Lindsay about her decade as a “maiden” in a cult whose leader is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence.

After secretly grooming Lindsay, Victor, who had taken off his wedding ring, claiming he was “married to the church” like Christ, reportedly preached a sermon from the passage in Exodus where God commands the Israelites to “give” Him their firstborns, meaning redemption through small payments or temple service.

As many cult leaders do, however, Victor reportedly twisted the passage to mean that parents must literally give their firstborn daughters over to him.

“He read off a list of names. Mine was on there,” says Lindsay.

This all happened during the early 2000s, amid lingering influences from the 1999 “Summer of Love” — a notorious period in the Way International when leadership allegedly encouraged widespread sexual promiscuity among members, including married people, as a supposed expression of “God’s love.”

Victor, however, didn’t frame the girls’ role as sexual. They were merely being asked to serve Christ and the church. Lindsay, after seeing her friends eagerly volunteer, consented to being a “maiden,” having no idea what awaited her.

She, along with nine other young girls, was then removed from her family home and taken to live in Victor’s private living compound. The maidens were assigned different duties, like gardening, cooking, cleaning, and assisting Victor with various tasks, many of which were intimate.

“Things in the beginning were kind of okay,” says Lindsay, noting that she initially believed her time as a maiden was temporary.

“I was under the impression that I would serve there and live at the camp … and then I would go home and be homeschooled,” she says.

But a shepherdess who helped oversee the young girls told 13-year-old Lindsay, who had expressed excitement about returning home to her family, that her role as a maiden was a lifetime commitment. “You’re not going home. This is your home now,” she said.

“It was shortly after that that I was raped by Victor for the first time,” says Lindsay, adding that he justified his actions by claiming that “Jesus Christ had Mary Magdalene and the apostle Paul had Phoebe” as sexual partners.

He also claimed that “even though he would be having sex with me, I could remain a virgin spiritually,” she adds.

This abuse, which was often accompanied by physical and emotional abuse, lasted for years, she says.

Eventually, fear and manipulation brainwashed Lindsay into believing she genuinely loved her captor. “One thing that Victor would tell us is that the more we dedicated ourselves to him in this life and to God, the better place in heaven we would have, and so I think the thought of not being in heaven with the maidens and with Victor really scared me,” she says.

But Lindsay’s sympathetic view of Victor was a ticking time bomb.

In 2008, after most of the girls had been moved to another remote location in Washington state, one of the maidens was deported to Brazil after her student visa expired. Victor sent other maidens to live for temporary periods in Brazil alongside her.

When it was Lindsay’s turn to go, she was exposed to the outside world for the first time since her family had joined the commune. The taste of freedom was intoxicating.

When she returned to Washington, the maidens had started their own cleaning business. As a housemaid, Lindsay got another taste of life outside the cult, as she studied family pictures on walls and heard secular music drifting from radios.

This view of the outside world had already begun to sour Lindsay’s feelings for Victor, but then news came that he, still legally married to his wife, who lived next door to him, had been sleeping with married women in the community.

In Minnesota, it is against the law for pastors to have sexual relations with their congregants, so one of the women in the commune reported Victor to the police and even shared some information about his “maidens,” forcing him to flee. The infidelity broke up the original commune in Minnesota, sending Lindsay’s family back to their home state.

Lindsay, deeply disturbed by Victor’s philandering but still unaware of her own abuse, decided she was done being a maiden. Even though fellow maidens and Victor pleaded with her to stay — calling her Judas and accusing her of not loving God — Lindsay’s mind was made up.

She called her parents, who were still committed to the Way International and Victor, and they agreed to allow her to come home.

“They gave me $500 and bought me a train ticket, and I took Amtrak all the way from Washington state to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia,” says Lindsay.

Re-entering secular society at 23 proved difficult and confusing for Lindsay. “At that point, I thought the only way to make a man happy was to sleep with him, and so I slept around a lot. I lived in a lot of sin,” she says.

“I just was really interested in exploring and living life and making friends and getting away from my parents, because they were still supporting Victor.”

While her outside life looked fun and exciting, Lindsay’s internal world grew darker over the years, as she reckoned with her past life in the cult.

“I just kept thinking over and over again: If God is a God of love that I read and believed for so long, why would he let this happen to me? If heaven is so great, why don’t I kill myself now and not live in this internal pain that I feel?” she admits.

To quell the pain, Lindsay experimented with a gamut of “remedies” — self-love programs, crystals, witchcraft, even self-harm.

“I always came up feeling so empty, so unsatisfied,” she says.

But despite Lindsay’s doubt and sin, God was working in ways she couldn’t see. Single motherhood, unexpected friendships, and perfect timing wove together and allowed Lindsay to distinguish the real God from the phony one who had been used to warp and manipulate her as a child.

To hear the beautiful story of Lindsay’s redemption, including where her family is today and the trial that landed Victor behind bars, watch the full interview above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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The National Geographic Society undertook a massive astronomical survey between 1949 and 1958 at the Palomar Observatory in California, snapping thousands of photographs of the sky from the north celestial pole to 33 degrees south of the celestial equator.

According to a 1959 leaflet issued by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the result was a “map of the sky, one that can be used like any road map, to help the astronomer find his way to objects too faint to see directly at the eye-piece of a telescope.”

The Palomar Observatory Sky Survey images captured a multitude of inexplicable star-like objects that astronomers had reportedly seen appear then quickly vanish. The objects, which flashed in the sky several years before the October 1957 launch of Sputnik, supposedly cannot be chalked up to gravitational lensing, gamma ray bursts, fragmenting asteroids, and/or various non-astronomical effects.

“We’ve ruled out some of the prosaic explanations, and it means we have to at least consider the possibility that these might be artificial objects from somewhere,” Stephen Bruehl, a professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told Live Science.

In a peer-reviewed study published in October in the journal Scientific Reports, Bruehl and co-author Beatriz Villarroel, a Swedish astronomer, found that there are “associations beyond chance between occurrence of transients and both nuclear testing and [unidentified anomalous phenomenon] sightings.”

The duo analyzed the transient data available for the time period Nov. 19, 1949, to April 28, 1957, and tested for possible associations between the occurrence of 107,875 transients, which were observed on 310 of the 2,718 days in this period, and above-ground nuclear weapons tests, which were conducted by the U.S., the U.K., and the former USSR on 123 days during the study period.

RELATED: Pentagon psyop exposed: Military reportedly cooked up tales of alien technology in weapons cover-up

Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

The researchers found that a “transient was 45% more likely to be observed on dates within a nuclear test window compared to dates outside of a nuclear test window.”

The duo also linked the transients to unidentified flying object/unidentified anomalous phenomenon reports, noting that “for days on which at least one transient was identified, significant associations were noted between total number of transients and total number of independent UAP reports per date.”

‘Why do they seem to show interest in nuclear testing?’

“For every additional UAP reported on a given date, there was an 8.5% increase in number of transients identified,” Bruehl and Villarroel wrote.

When it came down to hypothesizing what the transients might be, the duo came up with two possibilities that could account for associations of transients with both nuclear testing and UAP reports.

“The first involves an unexpected and previously undocumented atmospheric phenomenon triggered by nuclear detonations or related to nuclear fallout that may serve as a stimulus for some UAP reports and appear as transients on astronomical images,” they wrote.

The duo noted, however, that this first hypothesis is problematic, as effects in the atmosphere “would be likely to result in a streak on the image over the 50 min exposure, yet all transients appear as distinct point sources rather than streaks.”

Additionally, the researchers noted that transients were “most often observed one day after a nuclear test; such atmospheric phenomena would have to be sustained and remain localized in one location for approximately 24 h to account for the visual appearance of transients.”

After poking holes in their first hypothesis, the duo propped up their second hypothesis on the “well-known strand of UAP lore suggesting that nuclear weapons may attract UAP.”

“Within this latter hypothesis, our results could be viewed as indicating that transients are artificial, reflective objects either in high-altitude orbits around Earth or at high altitudes within the atmosphere,” they added.

Bruehl said to Live Science, “If it turns out that transients are reflective artificial objects in orbit — prior to Sputnik — who put them there, and why do they seem to show interest in nuclear testing?”

Michael Wiescher, a nuclear astrophysicist at the University of Notre Dame in France, suggested to Scientific American that nuclear tests alone might be the simpler explanation for the transients as they “obviously have an impact on the atmosphere” and can leave “a lot of junk in the outer atmosphere.”

Sean Kirkpatrick, former head of the Department of War’s UAP-investigating All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, similarly suggested that the explanation likely has to do with nuclear tests and the sun, noting that the “first thing that comes to mind is solar flare radiation or ionized particle radiation from nuclear testing.”

Kirkpatrick also suggested that high-altitude balloons, which were used for nuclear monitoring, could account for some of the UAP reports.

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One of the most vital components in consumer electronics just reached a critical low. Big AI data centers are taking up RAM faster than manufacturers can make it, and the cost is getting passed on to consumers. As the shortage takes hold, prices on many popular electronic devices are expected to jump in 2026 by up to 30%, further straining wallets and the U.S. economy.

What is RAM?

Every electronic device you own — your smartphone, tablet, laptop, smartwatch, and even your game console — comes with a tiny brain packed inside. The CPU is the control center that runs processes and commands, launching apps and keeping them awake as you click, type, and interact. The GPU handles heavier tasks, from rendering graphics to managing larger processes and more. Local storage, usually in the form of an SSD or HDD, is akin to long-term memory, holding a complete archive of your files, photos, and everything else you saved on your device over the course of weeks, months, and years. Then there’s RAM.

Big Tech and AI companies are prioritized over regular citizens like you and me.

RAM, or Random Access Memory (sometimes shortened to “memory”), is your computer’s short-term memory. It holds temporary bits of data to keep your open apps running smoothly. RAM is the reason you can switch between several tabs in your web browser without the page reloading, or open a couple Word documents side by side to copy and paste information, or type an email while you also stream your favorite show on BlazeTV.

Some devices come with more RAM installed than others. The more RAM you have, the more apps you can run at the same time (i.e., multitask) without crashes or data loss. As consumer electronics advance, the need for more RAM grows at a steady pace. For example, the very first iPhone from 2007 launched with a measly 128MB of RAM, while the latest iPhone 17 Pro Max packs 12GB of RAM. That’s a huge jump!

A RAM shortage is coming

Consumer electronics aren’t the only devices that need a lot of RAM. Data centers demand tons of it — especially the ones built to train and maintain large language models like ChatGPT by OpenAI, Gemini by Google, and Grok by xAI.

Remember how much RAM comes with the latest iPhone Pro Max? A basic AI model — the type that can run directly on a phone — requires 8-16GB of RAM. That means, depending on the model, even the best iPhone in the world will hit a RAM bottleneck due to its own hardware limitations.

Moving a step up, medium-level AI models require 32GB to 64GB of RAM. In terms of consumer devices, only the most expensive laptops on the market that are worth thousands of dollars can run these models natively. This is why most models at this level run in data centers where information is processed on a server and beamed back to users via the cloud.

At the highest end, advanced AI data centers like the ones being built by Big Tech demand 128GB to 256GB of RAM or more. This kind of RAM is necessary for training large language models, processing data, and creating content for users on the other end. You use about this much RAM every time you send a query to your favorite AI platform, whether it’s a simple question to an answer you could find on the web, a request to create an image for your Christmas card, or a command to write your annual review for work. This is also why AI data centers require so much energy to keep the lights on.

Prices on electronics are going up

Earlier this year, President Trump unveiled an AI Action Plan to build America’s first AI infrastructure. The deal streamlines the permit process to create new AI data centers across the United States. More data centers mean a higher demand for vital computer components. As the plan moves forward, RAM manufacturers are already feeling the pressure.

RELATED: Will this tech company’s huge losses sink our economy next?

Photo by Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In early December, Micron, one of the largest makers of RAM products on the planet, announced it was closing its consumer business, Crucial, after 29 years. Its new mission is to create RAM directly for Big Tech AI brands and data centers. The news is a double-edged sword, as the shutdown will both help alleviate some of the demand created by Big Tech while it also eliminates a vital option for consumers who rely on Crucial for their upgradable RAM sticks. Crucial will end all consumer shipments in February 2026.

Days later, popular PC maker Dell sounded the alarm on the upcoming RAM shortage. Due to low availability, the prices of their PCs are expected to jump anywhere between 10% and 30%, effective immediately. The report from Business Insider notes that this is an industry-wide shortage, so you should expect higher prices from brands like Lenovo and HP as well. In an attempt to make up for the shortage, Dell and Lenovo will also reportedly launch cheaper mid-range laptops with lower RAM specs topping out at 8GB, which as we already covered, is quite low for handling the demands of modern smart devices.

Not to be left out, the shortage also extends to mobile devices. In the latest projections by Counterpoint Research, the price of smartphones will inflate by 6.9% in 2026. Although Apple and Samsung are best positioned to endure the RAM shortage, no brand is immune to the price spikes. That said, Chinese OEMs are expected to take the hardest hit.

RAM-ifications of the great memory shortage

All of this is part of a bigger problem facing the American people as Big Tech and AI companies are prioritized over regular citizens like you and me.

For starters, times are still tough for most Americans just trying to get by. Latest reports indicate that job growth is slowing, the unemployment rate is going up, and AI has even led to more lost jobs than it has created. When asked about this phenomenon, Big Tech CEOs like Sundar Pichai of Google claim that “people need to adapt” to get along in the new age of AI. Until that happens, the coming price increase in consumer electronics will force many to skip out on upgrading their devices this year, negatively impacting businesses and the economy as more people hold on to the money they have left.

Another notable strain on the American people directly targets our power grid. AI requires a lot of energy to run and maintain, and without it, Glenn Beck warns that rolling brownouts are on the way. To alleviate the problem, President Trump recently approved the use of nuclear power — something that would’ve been nice to have for us normal people ages ago, but at least it’s a start. Until those nuclear plants are operational, however, our current power grid will continue to buckle under the weight of all the new data centers being built right now, the same ones responsible for the RAM shortage. Simply put, if the nuclear plants are postponed for any reason, or if they’re deactivated if/when Democrats retake power, the American people will be the first to go without in favor of the AI giants and their resource-guzzling LLM machines.

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like this mess is going to end anytime soon. President Trump recently put in a fast-lane for AI development, limiting state laws and reducing federal regulations to make it easier for Big Tech to compete against China in the race for artificial general intelligence. With fewer restrictions, AI companies can continue to strain our power grid, gobble up vital computer components, and push AI onto every facet of our daily lives, whether we want it there or not.

​Tech, Ai, Ram 

The cultural powers that be determined long ago that a film needn’t deal directly with the Nativity of our Lord and Savior to qualify as a “Christmas movie.”

Many films apparently qualify simply by virtue of their plot events’ proximity to December 25, their festive backdrops, and their occasional visual reference to Coca-Cola Claus, starred pines, and/or the birth of God.

In a way, the Christmas imagery does visually what the movie’s eponymous theme song does sonically: tease at something lovely and wonderful beyond the nightmare.

Rest assured as the bare-footed cop wastes German terrorists at his estranged wife’s office party; as the two burglars repeatedly fall prey to an abandoned adolescent’s mutilatory traps; and as the inventor’s son unwittingly turns his Chinatown-sourced present into a demon infestation — these are indeed Christmas movies.

Given the genre’s flexible criteria, Terry Gilliam’s 1985 masterpiece “Brazil” also qualifies.

State Santa

In truth, the Python alumnus’ film about a bureaucrat’s maddening investigation of his totalitarian government’s execution of the wrong man is a far stronger entry than “Die Hard,” “Home Alone,” “Gremlins,” and other such flicks.

Not only is there Christmastime imagery throughout, but such visuals are also of great importance, providing insights both into the treachery of the film’s principal antagonist — the state — as well as into what appears missing in Gilliam’s dystopian world.

In the opening scene, a man pushes a cart full of wrapped presents past a storefront window framed by tinsel and crowded with “Merry Christmas” signage, television sets, and baubles.

Next we enter an apartment where a mother reads “A Christmas Carol” to her daughter, a father wraps a present, and a boy plays at the foot of a well-dressed evergreen.

After numerous scenes featuring gift exchanges, mutterings of “Happy Christmas,” and Christmas trees, we meet a kindly faced man dressed as Santa.

Jingle hells

This is, however, no feel-good Christmas movie.

The storefront window is firebombed.

Armored police storm into the family’s apartment, jab a rifle in the father’s gut, and take him away in a bag while his wife screams in horror.

The gifts exchanged and piling up throughout the film — besides the offers of job promotions and plastic surgery — appear to all be versions of the same novelty device, a meaningless “executive decision-maker.”

The kindly faced man dressed as Santa is a propaganda-spewing government official who rolls into the protagonist Sam Lowry’s padded cell on a wheelchair to inform Lowry — played by Jonathan Pryce — that his fugitive lover is dead.

With exception to the heart-warming domestic scene interrupted by the totalitarian bureaucracy’s jackboots at the beginning of the film, the Christmas imagery rings hollow and for good reason.

Extra to dehumanizing workplaces, purposefully meaningless work, bureaucratic red tape, and paperwork that’s so bad it ends up killing Robert DeNiro’s character — at least by the tortured protagonist’s account — the regime’s population-control scheme relies on consumerism.

The regime has, accordingly, done its apparent best to empty Christmas of the holy day’s real significance and meaning, donning it as a costume to sell and control.

RELATED: Santa Claus: Innocent Christmas fun or counterfeit Jesus?

Beyond the nightmare

“Brazil” is not, however, an anti-Christmas film.

The emptiness of the costume prompts reflection about its proper filling — a reflection that should invariably lead one to Christ.

In a way, the Christmas imagery does visually what the movie’s eponymous theme song does sonically: tease at something lovely and wonderful beyond the nightmare Gilliam once dubbed “Nineteen Eighty-Four-and-a-Half.”

“I had this vision of a radio playing exotic music on a beach covered in coal dust, inspired by a visit to the steel town of Port Talbot. Originally the song I had in mind was Ry Cooder’s ‘Maria Elena,’ but later I changed it to ‘Aquarela do Brasil’ by Ary Barroso,” Gilliam told the Guardian.

“The idea of someone in an ugly, despairing place dreaming of something hopeful led to Sam Lowry, trapped in his bureaucratic world, escaping into fantasy.”

Whereas the recurrent theme from the samba references a fantasy the regime can crush, the various indirect reminders that Christmas is about more than presents and half-hearted niceties reference a hidden truth and source of eternal hope: that God was born in Bethlehem.

​Brazil, Terry gilliam, Entertainment, Culture, Christmas movies, Faith, Christianity, Merry christmas 

Everyone keeps promising that artificial intelligence will deliver wonders beyond imagination — medical breakthroughs, massive productivity gains, boundless prosperity. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. But one outcome is already clear: If data centers keep driving up Americans’ electricity bills, AI will quickly become a political liability.

Across the country, data center expansion has already helped push electricity prices up 13% over the past year, and voters are starting to push back.

Handled correctly, AI can strengthen America. Handled poorly — by letting data centers overwhelm the grid and drive families toward energy poverty — it will accelerate decline.

In recent months, plans for massive new data centers in Virginia, Maryland, Texas, and Arizona have stalled or collapsed under local backlash. Ordinary Americans have packed town halls and flooded city councils, demanding protection from corporate projects that devour land, drain water supplies, and strain already fragile power grids.

These communities are not rejecting technology. They are rejecting exploitation. As one local official in Chandler, Arizona, told a developer bluntly, “If you can’t show me what’s in it for Chandler, then we’re not having a conversation.”

The problem runs deeper than zoning fights or aesthetics. America’s monopoly utility model shields data centers from the true cost of the strain they impose on the grid. When a facility requires new substations, transmission lines, or transformers — or when its relentless demand drives up electricity prices — utilities spread those costs across every household and small business in the service area.

That arrangement socializes the costs of Big Tech’s growth while privatizing the gains. It also breeds populist anger.

A better approach sits within reach: neighborhood battery programs that put communities first.

Whole-home battery systems continue to gain traction. Rooftop solar panels, small generators, or off-peak grid power can recharge them. Batteries store electricity when it’s cheap and abundant, then release it when demand spikes or outages hit. They protect families from blackouts, lower monthly utility bills, and sometimes allow homeowners to sell power back to the grid.

One policy shift should become non-negotiable: Approval for new data centers should hinge on funding neighborhood battery programs in the communities they impact.

In practice, that requirement would push tech companies to help install home battery systems in nearby neighborhoods, delivering backup power, grid stability, and real relief on electric bills. These distributed batteries would form a flexible, local energy reserve — absorbing peak demand instead of worsening it.

RELATED: Your laptop is about to become a casualty of the AI grift

Photo by: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Most importantly, this model reverses the flow of benefits. Working families would no longer subsidize Big Tech’s expansion while receiving nothing in return. Communities would share directly in the upside.

Access to local land, water, and electricity should come with obligations. Companies that consume enormous public resources should invest in the people who live alongside them — not leave residents stranded when the grid buckles.

Politicians who ignore this gathering backlash risk sleepwalking into a revolt. The choice is straightforward: Build an energy system that serves citizens who keep the country running, or face their fury when they realize they have been sacrificed for someone else’s high-tech gold rush.

Handled correctly, AI can strengthen America. Handled poorly — by letting data centers overwhelm the grid and drive families toward energy poverty — it will accelerate decline.

We still have time to choose. Let’s choose wisely.

​Affordability, Ai data center, Artificial intelligence, Big tech, Chandler arizona, Costs of living, Electricity, Opinion & analysis, Populism, Power, Power grid, Solar panels, Water