Some are convinced that the 4 August 2020 explosion involved an aerial attack, that there was a missile, despite none being apparent in the many video recordings. One might reasonably suspect an agenda, or several, motivating the creation and propagation of such conspiracy theories.

The port example confused me, as I heard very clearly what sounded as if a supersonic jet or missile passed directly over our apartment toward the port, first jolting the building with its sonic boom and ending in the very loud blast that hurt my ears and broke windows. Soon after, when someone said it was an Israeli missile, it seemed not only plausible, it seemed the only plausible explanation. Yet it is now clear that if a missile was involved, it did not streak at supersonic speed just above our apartment, and what I heard was not it.

This was a puzzle, and lying in bed thinking about the events of the day (auspiciously starting with a long wait at the bank [while the friendly staff spent the 30 minutes between the posted opening and “new” opening hours chatting over coffee and ignoring the line at the door — and when finally letting us first two customers in, they still needed ten more minutes, despite having at least 15 employees] successful in reducing our holdings to the cost of bottle of Scotch and collecting the new card so necessary in the relentless battle to extract my salary from their cold vaults), I reviewed what I could recall from the beginning: standing in the middle of the apartment with all windows open, a strong jolt, the sound of something large rushing at high speed east toward the port, my spouse dragging me to the interior, the very loud sound of the explosion, and a few minutes later standing on glass shards downstairs, the sight of the red cloud rising and roiling as it drifted south.

The videos show the flash of the explosion, the transient condensation of a sphere of fog, and the blast front radiating and shattering windows, and close to the origin, shedding facades.

I have an explanation reconciling my experience with the documentation (see figures). At time zero, a large explosion occurs. The ground shock radiates very fast, something on the order of 3500 meters per second, depending on the bedrock, here, karst. Meanwhile, the sound of the blast travels through the air about one-tenth the speed, something close to 350 meters per second (we could find an accurate number for 80% humidity, sea level, 30 Celsius). Thus, for me, about 4000 meters west of the site, the jolt comes just after one second from time zero. Indeed, there was no sound before the jolt that I can recall. There could have been distant Israeli military jets, but those have been so common recently that I hardly notice unless they are near Beirut. Immediately after the jolt (as if a truck hit the building, but I cannot recall a directionality), there was the rushing, whistling sound of something moving very fast due east toward the port. Then, about ten seconds after the jolt (the rushing sound having receded and faded), the air pressure wave arrived with its concomitant very loud boom and broke windows. In our building, some were sucked out and some were blown in. So, between the jolt and the boom, what could have so rapidly moved from here toward the port causing the rushing whistling noise? Imagine the jolt, the rapidly radiating ground shockwave, emitting noise by shaking buildings as it travels. Immediately after the jolt, one hears the sound the jolted buildings emitted just upstream, then earlier and further away (reversed in both time and space), all the way back to the origin, which is the arrival of the boom. To understand this, imagine the speed of sound is precisely 350 m/s, the speed of the jolt through the ground is precisely 3500 m/s, and you the observer are 3500 meters from the origin. At time=1 second, the explosion occurs at the origin, and if in line of sight, you might see it, but no jolt or sound will have arrived. At time=2 second, the jolt arrives silently (no sound has arrived yet). At time=3 second, you hear sound of the jolt rattling buildings 350 m closer to the origin. At time=4 second, you hear the jolt rattling buildings 700 m closer to the origin, but the sound is fainter as it is more distant. At time=5, 6, 7, 8, 9 seconds, the sound emitted by the propagating jolt has receded almost to the origin. At time=10 second, the very loud boom of the explosion arrives and breaks windows. Thus, between the jolt and boom (would have been a good title reminiscent of Aravind Adiga’s excellent “Between the Assassinations”), you would hear the jolt moving faster than the speed of sound toward the port ending with the boom, reasonably interpreted as a supersonic air attack by jet or missile.

There are other origins of conspiracy theories to consider. Logic, especially in the service of pre-formed conclusions. Imagine this: Who has the most to gain from the destruction of the port of Beirut? China! Why China? Because China will be willing to rebuild the port in return for recouping costs, just like its deal with Sri Lanka. We all heard Hassan Nasrallah advocating seeking investment from the East, even specifically mentioning China. Thus, concluding a motive, we only need evidence (or to substitute a plausible concoction) and mechanism. China, wanting the port contract, discovers there is a very large store of ammonium nitrate stored in warehouse 12, leaks to Israel that Hezbollah has a cache of super-advanced missiles. Israel sneaks its agents into the port to plant a bomb to detonate the ammonium nitrate and obliterate the port. Some elaborations of this can involve the Russians abandoning the cargo, or Hezbollah preventing the removal of the ammonium nitrate in order to create an anti-Israeli Maginot in the south, or anti-Hezbollah parties causing the explosion to blame it on Hezbollah, to disrupt income to Amal, or to profit from the rebuilding. Or agents of the port in Tripoli. Or the Egyptian rice lobby, as there is no place to store wheat.

And how are these theories propagated? They are circulated innocently, with malice, for fun, or as exploration of possibilities, by all means, and as in the game of “broken telephone,” mutate, diverge, and become extinct, and the relationship to the truth is irrelevant.