Michigan Man Gains FBI Attention with Power Plant Bomb Threat

This was a fun tweet to stumble across yesterday. Sarcasm heavily implied.

Yesterday, while doom scrolling through Twitter I came across this post from the account for the FBI in Cleveland:

Cue my anxiety jumping from 0-100 in a matter of seconds. I, immediately, jumped to google to find out what in the world was happening and here it is:

According to Cleveland.com, 33 year old Michael Fogelson, of Adrian, Michigan, towed a trailer to the entrance of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio on Wednesday night. He claimed that inside the trailer was a bomb and then refused to leave.

Local law enforcement officers were, obviously, called in along with the Lake County Bomb Squad and the FBI. Thankfully, the threat was determined to be not credible.

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The question that remains is that of motive. Why would a man from Michigan drive over 3 hours to make a false claim about a bomb at a power plant of all places? People on Reddit had some opinions:

u/Telemetrics277 wrote: Will be interesting to see how this all plays out. What a whacko. I don’t think the armed guards at a nuclear power station screw around. (I saw a photo from one site where there was a guard at the gate carrying an assault rifle.)

They make a good point. I have a friend who works at a nuclear power plant in Florida. She's told me in the past how intense security is and that they do, indeed, employ armed guards. I can't speak for Perry Nuclear Power Plant but I would feel safe assuming they have similar measures.

u/Ellis_D-25 commented: Such a weird story. Almost makes me wonder if he was deliberately trying to cause a distraction for a crime being committed elsewhere.

Perhaps I've been watching too much CSI through the pandemic but I considered this for a moment. Although, it does feel a bit paranoid.

And finally, my favorite comment just because it made me laugh:

u/hikermick said: Michigan is the new Florida

Ha! All I'll say is good luck taking the "most ridiculous story state" title away from Florida. I promise...they'll win. I'm feeling both incredibly thankful that this was a false claim and still...incredibly confused as to why. And we may never know.

Fogelson was taken to Lake County Jail. He currently awaits a court appearance where he'll face charges of making false alarms and aggravated trespassing and may face more charges not yet listed.