The Claim

In late September, following the announcement that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be conducting a nationwide test of its Emergency Alert System on October 4, a number of X users flocked to the platform to share their thoughts about it. Several far-right conspiracy theorists claimed that the agency would be using 5G signals to trigger pathogens within the COVID-19 vaccines and cause disease and zombification outbreaks. One post garnered over 5 million views, receiving both mockery and agreement from thousands of users. While it seems to be an incredibly absurd claim, people across the country believed it to be true, so is it?

Who’s Behind the Information?

Upon reading about the situation further, numerous red flags popped out. For one, none of the available articles covering the conspiracy theory made mention of who created the first post regarding the alert test. Fortunately, after a few more searches on the Internet, one website provided a source behind this claim. As it turns out, the initial post that sparked this massive rumor mill was uploaded to X by John Sabal, who runs The Patriot Voice website that organizes QAnon conferences and spreads the movement’s far-right ideologies. As far as what is known about Sabal, he has no experience within the scientific and medical fields, specifically anything involved with vaccines. More reading yielded that his personal account had been banned from X following a handful of violations of the platform’s terms of service. This raised a handful of questions concerning the validity of the theory, seeing that Sabal is a highly unreliable source.

Look into the Evidence and Experts or Do a Keyword Search

The most substantial evidence that anyone would need to disprove this claim is that the day of the alert test happened, and thus far no reports of health issues directly correlated with the event have come about. FEMA also maintains that the EAS has remained identical to its original form from the 1960s, of which no health effects have ever been noted. Additionally, several of the pathogens many claimed were going to prompt this worldwide crisis are oftentimes fatal, have no connections to zombification, and are not contained within the COVID-19 vaccine to begin with. This emphasizes that the conspiracy theory had absolutely no scientific backing during its conception and is, therefore, untrue.

Our Rating

To conclude, this claim is not legitimate, since there is no scientific or medical basis upon which it was created. It is purely misinformation.