A Tennessee neo-Nazi pleaded guilty last Tuesday to a plot to use an explosive kamikaze drone to attack a Nashville electrical substation, the US Justice Department Public Affairs Office announced.
Columbia resident Skyler Philippi in July 2024 told a “confidential human source” about how attacking interstate
electrical substations would “shock the system,” later expanding in an August 2024 manifesto that he sought to attack “high tax cities or industrial areas to make the k**es lose money.”
“If you want to do the most damage as an accelerationist, attack high-economic, high-tax, political zones in every major metropolis,” Philippi texted the source last September, referring to the strategy to create radical social change through an intense and rapid deterioration of conditions.
The 24-year-old former Atomwaffen Division and ex-National Alliance affiliate told the source that his research determined that firearms would not be sufficient and planned to deliver C-4 explosive material or triacetone triperoxide to the site by drone in order to avoid detection by law enforcement.
Last September Philippi conducted reconnaissance of the electrical substation, ordered C-4 and other explosives from the source, and purchased black powder for pipe bombs.
Neo-Nazi pleads guilty to carry out power grid attack
FBI Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Donald Holstead said in a statement that the plan “had the potential to knock out power to thousands of American homes and to critical facilities like hospitals.”
Just before Philippi sought to implement his plan in November, the sources participated in a Nordic ritual with Philippi, in which they recited a prayer and discussed the Norse god Odin. The neo-Nazi promised that “this is where the New Age begins” and that it was “time to do something big.”
After the prayers, the sources moved into position as lookouts. Philippi was arrested as he had turned on the drone, armed the explosives, and was preparing to attach the two devices.
National Security Assistant Attorney-General John Eisenberg said in a statement that “Philippi planned what he had hoped would be a devastating attack on Nashville’s energy infrastructure. He acquired what he believed to be explosives, surveilled his target, and equipped a drone to attack an electrical substation.”
Philippi is set to be sentenced in January and faces a maximum conviction of life in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.