How a Conspiracy Theorist’s Call About a Dirty Bomb Shut Down Part of a Port<br />The episode began around 8 p.m. on Wednesday when the Coast Guard said it received two phone calls about a potential dirty bomb — a crude explosive<br />rigged to spray radioactive material — aboard the container ship Maersk Memphis, Lt. James B. Zorn, a Coast Guard spokesman, said on Thursday.<br />By CHRISTOPHER MELEJUNE 15, 2017<br />A section of the Port of Charleston in South Carolina was shut down for several hours Wednesday night after a tip from a far-right YouTube conspiracy theorist warned<br />that a dirty bomb might be on a container ship moored there, officials said.<br />Erin P. Dhand, a spokeswoman for the operator of the port, South Carolina Ports Authority, said in a statement on Thursday<br />that it was "operating as usual with minimal impacts to our operations from last night’s incident." The United States Coast Guard said on Twitter that the person who reported the threat was being questioned by the authorities.<br />With almost 17,000 followers on Twitter and nearly 40,000 subscribers on YouTube, Mr. Webb does not<br />have the reach of prominent conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones and his organization Infowars.<br />Lieutenant Zorn said the two separate calls appeared to have been prompted by a YouTube posting and<br />that agencies responded out of "an abundance of caution." What appeared to be an account of one call was posted to YouTube on Wednesday.
