The Miami police showed up in force to respond to a disturbance at a downtown open-air mall on New Year’s Day after reports of teens brawling and setting off fireworks, ultimately arresting four individuals between the ages of 14 and 16. But with footage of the chaos and dozens of cop cars lined up alongside Bayside Market making the rounds online in the following days, it wasn’t long before a cohort of conspiracists had invented a very different story befitting The X-Files.
On Friday, “Miami Mall” trended on X (formerly Twitter), a platform that owner Elon Musk has said “needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world.” But the top posts were from misinformation and conspiracy theory accounts — many favored by the site’s algorithm thanks to their paid verification badges — speculating that the heavy police presence indicated a government coverup. Of what, you ask? Oh, probably some 10-foot aliens and/or shadow creatures. The term “Nephilim,” referring to mysterious beings mentioned in the Hebrew Bible who are sometimes portrayed as giants or fallen angels, also briefly trended on X, though video of such characters were hard to come by.
Some misleading tweets falsely claimed that there was no media coverage of the incident, baselessly reported that individuals had fired guns at the “shadow” beings, and overstated the extent of the lockdown in the area (police had to shut down six blocks of traffic, and the number of vehicles likely had more to do with the fireworks causing panic about a possible mass shooting). A few implied that it was all intended as a distraction from the unsealing of documents related to sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. And other viral posts — including one that incorrectly referenced the havoc unfolding on Thursday rather than Monday, and a TikTok that the user later confirmed was a trollish joke — purported to be eyewitness accounts of supernatural phenomena. Collectively, these posts have been viewed millions of times.
The ridiculous theories got so out of hand that a Miami Police Department spokesperson was compelled to inform TMZ that overhead footage of a supposed “gray creature” was, in fact, a human being and their shadow. “What is seen on this clip is the shadow of someone walking,” they said. “If you look at the bottom of the shadow, you can see the person. No creature.” Another clip of an alleged creature was just blurry video of three police officers walking alongside one another.
The debunkings hardly slowed down the claims that some paranormal or sci-fi nonsense was afoot. “Project Blue Beam” was another strain of paranoia that gained in popularity, this conspiracy theory revolving around the idea that the government has the holographic technology to stage “false flag alien invasion” and thereby gain complete control over a terrified general populace. Meanwhile, a lack of any substantial evidence was chalked up to big tech wiping devices and even “scrubbing the web” — this despite the fact that conversation about these topics has exploded across X and TikTok.
Why this large though unimportant shitshow at a Miami mall would be misrepresented as the beginning of an alien takeover — proof of an inter-dimensional rift or an instance of the government distracting us to advance a secret agenda — is anyone’s guess. Maybe it’s some combination of new-year jitters, a Covid-19 spike, and the frenzy over the Epstein papers. Or perhaps social media is so fractured and dizzying these days that creators rely on the most outrageous lies for engagement. You know what? Probably all of the above.
