Social media rumors of global blackout debunked

Viral social media theories claiming a global blackout will occur on November 17, 2026, have been identified as false. The rumors suggest a potential 90-day interruption of electricity, internet, and banking services, often citing a scene from the animated series “The Simpsons” as a prediction.

Fact-checkers and authorities have clarified that the rumors stem from a combination of unrelated events. These include a routine national emergency alert test scheduled by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for that date, and a preventive recommendation from Brazil’s National Civil Defense for families to maintain 72-hour emergency kits for natural disasters.

Experts note that the global electrical infrastructure is decentralized and managed by individual nations, making a simultaneous worldwide collapse technically improbable. Additionally, the “90-day” claim appears to be a distortion of a U.S. Department of Defense project, “Fortress Directive,” which aims to make 500 military bases self-sufficient for 90 days in the event of cyberattacks, a measure strictly for military resilience and not for the civilian population.