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Goliath incident

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“Goliath” redirects here. For the biblical Philistine warrior, see Goliath (Samuel).
“9/13” redirects here. For the calendar date, see September 13.

The Goliath incident, also known as the Queens disaster and occasionally 9/13, was a disaster that occurred on September 13, 2016 in the borough of Queens in New York City. For several minutes between 1:13 p.m. and 1:24 p.m., a series of irregular powerful explosions collapsed over 18 square miles of the city, killing between 220,000 and 340,000 people in total,[1] making it the deadliest non-epidemic disaster in the history of the United States. Almost all of central Queens was destroyed, and significant structural damage was reported in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. Fires continued to burn throughout the next three weeks, with initial efforts to control them failing and prompting an evacuation of at-risk areas. The economic impact of the incident has been estimated in excess of $100 billion in total costs as of December 2017.[13] Due to the enormous cost of the damage, repair efforts have stalled,[17] and the officially designated 8-mile (12.9 km) radius exclusion zone colloquially known as The Queens Pit has been in place since September 17, 2016.

Initial reports referred to the incident as the Queens disaster.[3][4][5] Subsequent analysis of the event showed it to be caused by what appeared to be an altercation between multiple unknown persons[5][6][7] who later came to be nicknamed “Goliaths” after their apparent superhuman abilities. The international response to the Goliath incident has been noted as the primarily cited motivation behind the David Years,[8][9] an ongoing period marked by a dramatic increase in international militarism with the existence of such persons (or possibly weapons) as justification. Despite this, no similar incidents have since occurred and no further “Goliaths” have been identified, leading to a popular characterization of the incident as unexplained.[22][23][24][25] Conspiracy theories surrounding the incident have proliferated, becoming a cultural phenomenon in the United States and worldwide.[27][28] These conspiracy theories have had a wide impact on political discourse, despite the lack of endorsement from historians and scientists.