The First Sighting
I went to a 49ers game with my daughter on December 24th, 2022. Walking up the back stairs of Levi's Stadium, I noticed the massive substation infrastructure. It gave me a weird feeling, but I didn't make too much of it at the time.
The Greenlaw Injury
A couple years later I was watching the 49ers play against Kansas City in the Super Bowl and one of their players, Dre Greenlaw, tore his Achilles tendon on the sidelines getting ready to run into the field.
It was startling because there was no contact, no unusual load – just a little warm up before running in. This stuck with me.
The Jon Feliciano Interview
Then last year I came across a post by Chase Senior on X that mentioned an interview with Jon Feliciano on Willard and Dibs. When asked about their unusually high injury rates, he joked about the electrical substation behind their training facilities.
"After he joked though, he mentioned that some very high level players in the organization took this idea seriously, and were doing everything they could to mitigate against it."
So I decided that he and other players were serious, and that no one was taking them seriously, so I would. In my clinical work, one of my mantras is that if a client tells you they think something is an issue, they are probably on to something.
The Research
Over the next few months I studied 49ers and NFL injury stats, integrated my MCAS research and my understanding of the history of EMF regulations into a 4-part essay series explaining my hypothesis about how EMF from the substation could be contributing to their injuries.
Measuring the Fields
Over Thanksgiving I flew down to the Bay Area to visit family, and on the way to the airport to go back home I stopped at Levi's Stadium with my dad to measure the fields. The trip was cut short when he started feeling unwell and I had to leave abruptly to race to the doctor in order to get to the airport on time.
Going Viral
I finished the essay series in December, then got distracted by holidays. After the holidays I returned to the essay, spent 2 days going over all of the citations with a fine tooth comb, and then posted on January 6th, closed my computer, and celebrated Little Christmas (the Epiphany) with my two daughters.
I woke up the next day to half a million views, and it was increasing by half a million every hour.
Perfect Timing
My timing couldn't have been better if it had been planned. SF had just lost to the Seahawks in the final game of the regular season, and had lost Tatum Bethune to a groin injury, and two other players, including Brock Purdy, were listed as questionable.
The George Kittle Moment
The post levelled off at around 9 million views. While lots of people were receptive, there was lots of pushback as well. People were more open to it than they had been back in October when Chase Senior posted about it, but there was still a lot of resistance.
Until the following Sunday when the 49ers beat the Eagles but lost George Kittle to an Achilles tear, in a non-contact injury – exactly the type of injury I had described.
All of a sudden overnight the story completely blew up. Ex-players were posting about it very seriously, most noteworthy was Will Compton quote tweeting my post, saying "This needs to have 1 billion views".
The Media Onslaught
What followed was a media onslaught with requests from all over, including Skip Bayless, Barstool Sports, and international news coverage.
It kept building with commentators like Bill Simmons bringing it up several times on his podcast and then reached another apex after the 49ers lost to the Seahawks, ending their season, and a reporter asked GM John Lynch what he thought of the substation hypothesis.
He laughed but said they were going to take it seriously because it involved the health of their players. The next day Joe Rogan mentioned it in his podcast, making it a national news story again.
Where We Are Now
The story has generated over 22 million views on X, major press coverage from Washington Post, New York Times, ESPN, and SF Chronicle, and continues to gain momentum.
Legacy media has largely written me off as a "conspiracy theorist" without examining my claims, even as credible scientists and researchers have validated the underlying mechanisms (none of whom the media bothered to contact).