In late September, 2024, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the continental United States, churning its way up the Atlantic seaboard. The storm devastated North Carolina with massive rainfall and flooding of towns such as Asheville. All told, the damage from Helene totaled over 50 billion dollars and the loss of entire communities. But Hurricane Helene inadvertently produced another storm in its wake, a deluge of conspiracy theories about the “true” cause of the hurricane and about the response from the Federal government. Even as the Biden administration rushed to respond to the destruction, conspiracy theories began circulating on
X.com (formerly Twitter) about Biden ignoring the destruction due to senility, about the government using the hurricane as a pretext for nefarious deeds, and, perhaps most bizarre of all, about Federal agencies using secret weather technology to steer the hurricane into conservative parts of the country to dampen electoral turnout. Donald Trump, then candidate for president, circulated some of these conspiracy theories himself on Truth Social, claiming that President Biden steered disaster aid to illegal immigrants, among other lies. (Waldman and Aton, 2024). The spread of these conspiracy theories forced the Federal Emergency Management Agency, long a villain in conspiracy theory discourse, to publish a fact-checking website to deal with public outrage (
FEMA.gov). These false claims hindered disaster relief efforts and impacted the 2024 elections as Americans responded in outrage to perceived incompetence by the Biden administration (Gollom, 2024).
The story of Hurricane Helene’s aftermath is not new. Conspiracy theories circulate in the wake of disasters because these events are such traumatic and sensational eruptions in media coverage that alternative narratives about their “true” causes are almost inevitable. If disasters are events that render the unthinkable thinkable (Cerulo, 2006), then conspiracy theories twist this revelatory moment into a warped attempt to think about something else. They provide a context for disaster that provides a distorted simulacrum of an explanation of the destruction and death and loss by offering a convenient villain whose shadowy machinations are to blame for the tragic event. They turn what could be explained as an unfortunate but “normal accident” (Perrow, 1999), into proof of nefarious agents. Shifting the focus from the human role in creating and exacerbating disastrous conditions (Erikson, 1995), to a way of blaming a secretive cabal. And because many disasters are caused by human error or negligence or complicated historical trajectories, conspiracy theories may seem plausible even when they are not. Conspiracism offers a satisfying explanation for the spectacle of destruction, rooted in narratives about evildoers who cause such pain and anguish (Rice, 2020). While at the same time providing a comforting assurance that the skeptics, unlike the supposed experts, are the ones who know the real explanation for what has happened (Murphy, 2006; Buhs, 2009).
Such conspiracy theories are detrimental because they produce suspicion, fear, and anger toward the very agencies responsible for responding to these disasters, while undermining efforts to understand the decisions that have been made over decades (if not centuries) that generated the risks that eventually turned into disasters. And in the age of social media, conspiracy theories can circulate with incredible speed and scope, fueled by recommendation algorithms and the attention economy which ensures that the most sensational content is incentivized (Valaskivi, 2022; Popken, 2018). While thinking about worst case scenarios plays an important role in disaster preparedness (Clarke, 2006; Thomas, 2021; Wuthnow, 2010), events such as Hurricane Helene demonstrate that today even as organizations like FEMA try to manage crises on the ground they find themselves bogged down combatting conspiracy theories online.
Conspiracy Theories in the Wake of Disaster will combine conspiracy theory research with disaster studies to launch a new horizon for research focused on the relationship between disasters and conspiracy, which we see as an understudied and fruitful area of study. Contributions can include multiple authors from various disciplines and methodological approaches, including work from sociology, history, communications, philosophy, information studies, data science, and other relevant disciplines, and we are especially interested in approaches from science and technology studies, extremism and conspiracism studies, and disaster studies.
Abstracts of 250-300 words and biographical statements will be due by
May 15th, 2026. Please send materials to both Matthew N. Hannah at
matthew.hannah@wisc.edu and Zachary Loeb at
zloeb@purdue.edu. While we are still working on identifying a press, but we are currently in discussion with editors about publishing the book.
Possible topics of interest include:
- Hurricanes, conspiracism, and recovery efforts
- Wildfire and water/forest management conspiracy theories
- Mysterious technologies as cause of disasters
- Analysis of social media discussions following disaster (Telegram, X, Truth Social)
- Conspiracy theories about Federal disaster agencies such as FEMA or NOAA
- Disaster preparedness efforts and public conspiracism
- Anthropogenic disasters (Fukushima, 3-Mile Island) and conspiracy theories
- False-flag operations and disasters (September 11)
- The impact of conspiracism on civil society in the wake of disasters
- Geoengineering and disasters
- Climate change conspiracy theories
