No its not WWIII. In the aftermath of the catastrophic Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, conspiracy theorists wasted no time flooding social media with baseless claims the disaster was an intentional attack – directly contradicting statements from officials that all evidence points to a tragic accident.

Just hours after a container ship struck the bridge around 1:30am Tuesday, sending vehicles crashing into the harbor below, influential online personalities began speculating the vessel had been hijacked or suffered a cyber attack intended to deliberately ram the span.

Andrew Tate took to his X platform account with 9 million followers to baselessly declare: “Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge support. Foreign agents of the USA attack digital infrastructures. Nothing is safe.”

That unfounded allegation was then reposted by Alex Jones of Infowars, who claimed “A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started.” Jones had previously been found liable for spreading hoaxes about the Sandy Hook school massacre.

Despite footage showing the cargo ship appearing to temporarily lose power before the accident, both Maryland’s governor and the FBI swiftly rejected any suggestion of intentional acts or terrorism being involved.

“Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident…we have no other indication, no other reason to believe there’s any intentional act here,” Gov. Wes Moore stated clearly at a press conference.

Bill DelBagno of the FBI’s Baltimore office echoed: “At this point, there is no evidence whatsoever of a terrorist attack.”

Still, the conspiracy theories spread like wildfire across X, Reddit, and other online platforms. Anti-semitic accounts doubled down on unsubstantiated claims Israel had struck the U.S. in retaliation for its position on the Gaza conflict.

Accusations of “false flags” soon followed.

For officials grappling with a mass casualty event that claimed at least 6 lives, the rapid proliferation of blatant disinformation muddying the narrative represented a dismaying but familiar challenge in the modern social media era.

“The crew notified authorities of a power issue” ahead of the accident, Moore confirmed, appearing to lend credence to the ship’s owners who cited an “engine failure” as the primary cause – not an intentional act of sabotage or subterfuge as falsely claimed.

As recovery efforts continued at the scene, cyber forensics experts were also working to examine systems aboard the Singapore-flagged Dali for any signs of malicious hacking or interference that could explain its tragic course.

Shortly before 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Singaporean-flagged container vessel Dali struck one of the pillars of the 47-year-old Francis Scott Key Bridge, according to officials.

Clay Diamond, executive director and general counsel of the American Pilots Association, stated that just minutes before the bridge collision, there was a “total blackout” on the ship, causing it to lose all engine and electrical power.

Diamond said the local pilot guiding the Dali did “everything that he could have done” in attempt to slow the powerless ship and prevent it from drifting towards the bridge span. The pilot quickly gave orders for a hard rudder turn to port (left) and for an anchor to be dropped.

Video footage shows the 95,000 gross ton ship’s lights going off as it approached the bridge, emergency generators briefly restored some lighting. However, the ship’s main engines never regained power, according to Diamond.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore confirmed in a statement that dropping anchor was part of the emergency protocol, and that the Dali “was unable to maintain the desired heading and collided with the Francis Scott Key bridge” due to the “momentary loss of power.”

Footage of the crash also revealed the 984-foot long vessel, which had been chartered by Danish shipping giant Maersk to carry cargo.

State and federal officials have stated there is no indication that the cargo ship’s crash into the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the subsequent catastrophic collapse were intentional acts.

However, the presence of the FBI at the scene serves multiple purposes, according to former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

“The first is because when you have an event like this that calls for a massive response and resources, all of the local law enforcement entities, federal entities, whoever’s in the area, because of mutual aid agreements, will show up and contribute whatever resources they have,” McCabe explained.

He noted that the FBI has highly experienced dive teams that can assist with search and recovery operations in situations like this bridge disaster.

Additionally, the FBI’s role is to help definitively confirm whether such a large-scale incident was accidental or potentially intentional in nature. “They will look through all their intelligence holdings to see if there’s any chatter talking about plans or targeting, about locations like this, to see if there’s anything in the background that we should have been aware of and watching for,” McCabe said.

However, he acknowledged, “Obviously, we’ve heard from numerous officials that that is not the case at this point” regarding any indication of intentional acts related to the bridge’s catastrophic failure.