A 24-year-old Tennessee man was arrested on Saturday moments before he planned to use a drone carrying an explosive to destroy a Nashville power substation to further his “violent white supremacist ideology,” federal prosecutors said Monday.
The man, Skyler Philippi of Columbia, Tenn., had plotted the attack to push an extremist ideology called “accelerationism,” which calls for the complete collapse of American society, according to a criminal complaint prepared by the F.B.I.
Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director, said in a statement that the attack would have left thousands in the area without power, including some hospitals.
“The FBI’s swift work led to the detection and disruption of the defendant’s plot before he could cause any damage,” he said in the statement.
Mr. Philippi was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy an energy facility. If convicted on all charges, he could face life in prison.
Lawyers representing Mr. Philippi did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday night.
The F.B.I. had been watching Mr. Philippi since June, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice. Prosecutors said that they learned that month from a confidential source that he was planning to commit an act of mass violence.
A month later, they said, he discussed plans to attack large electric substations with another confidential source. According to the criminal complaint, Mr. Philippi sent a text to the source, saying, “if you want to do the most damage as an accelerationist, attack high economic, high tax, political zones in every major metropolis.”
With the help of the confidential sources, who were communicating with an F.B.I. special agent, Mr. Philippi bought materials needed to build a pipe bomb and a drone, according to court documents. On Saturday, the sources went with him to a hotel in Nashville, where they conducted a Nordic ritual, which included a Nordic prayer and discussion about the Norse god Odin, prosecutors said.
The criminal complaint said that neo-Nazis and white supremacists sometimes take part in such rituals before conducting an attack to ask for help from the gods — and also because Adolf Hitler took interest in pagan and Nordic traditions.
When the authorities arrested him on Saturday, Mr. Philippi was preparing to attach an explosive to a drone near the power substation, according to prosecutors.
There has been an uptick in plots by extremists to attack the power grid in recent years from far-right extremist groups. A 2022 study from George Washington University found that white supremacist plots to attack the energy sector “dramatically increased in frequency” from 2016 to 2022.
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