Skyler Philippi , a 24-year-old man from Columbia, Tennessee, was arrested by federal agents and charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy an energy facility in Nashville. The arrest was made moments before Philippi was about to launch an attack on the city’s power grid using a drone carrying an explosive device.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Philippi was driven by a violent white supremacist ideology and had meticulously planned the attack. He had conducted extensive research into explosive devices and potential targets and had even conducted reconnaissance of the substation he intended to attack.
The FBI had been monitoring Philippi since June 2024, when he expressed his desire to commit a mass shooting at a YMCA facility in Columbia, Tennessee. In July 2024, he shifted his focus to attacking large interstate substations, believing that such an attack would cause other substations to malfunction. He concluded that firearms would not be sufficient for such an attack and decided to use a drone with explosives attached to it .