Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge was “targeted with energy weapons.”

Directed energy weapons are real and fire concentrated electromagnetic energy at light speed. These weapons include high-energy lasers, high-power microwaves and radio frequency devices. The United States and other countries are researching using directed-energy weapons for military purposes.

What do these weapons have to do with the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore? Absolutely nothing, despite what some social media posts claim. 

About a week after a cargo ship crashed into one of the bridge’s supports and caused the bridge’s collapse, an Instagram account shared a familiar conspiracy theory that the bridge was intentionally destroyed using directed energy weapons.

“Is Baltimore bridge planned collapse?” read text on a photo of the bridge. “Was the Baltimore bridge targeted with energy weapons?”

The post’s caption claimed the bridge collapse was “a stealth plot planned in advance.”

(Screengrab from Instagram)

The investigation into the March 26 Baltimore bridge collapse continues, but there is no evidence supporting this claim. Over the past year, we’ve documented similar false claims that linked wildfires in the United States (Texas and Hawaii), Canada and Russia to directed energy weapons. 

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Let’s review what happened:

At about 1:30 a.m., March 26, the 984-foot-long Dali cargo ship, weighing 112,000 gross tons, or about 248 million pounds, collided with the 1.6-mile bridge. Minutes before the crash, the local pilot issued a mayday call to say the ship had lost power and warn officials to stop traffic from crossing the bridge.

Video footage shows the ship hitting one of the bridge’s support columns, causing the rest of the bridge to collapse into the Patapsco River. The National Transportation Safety Board, the independent federal agency that is leading the investigation into the crash, said audio recordings from the ship reported sounds consistent with a collision.

Federal and Maryland officials said they do not think the ship’s crash into the bridge was intentional. Officials have called the event an accident.

We rate the claim that Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge was “targeted with energy weapons” Pants on Fire!

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