US NAVAL WARSHIP WITHOUT POWER FOR FOUR DAYS IN THE PACIFIC

August 26, 2026 / Joseph P. Farrell /

You may or may not have heard of this event. Truth to tell, I did not hear of it at all until E.G. sent along this article (our thanks for doing so). I'm putting this in the same category as the other anomalies that have occurred to U.S. Navy warships:

  • The First USS Donald Cook incident or 2014, when an "obsolescent" Russian Sukhoi fighter bomber flew several close mock attack run fly-by's of the Donald Cook when it was stationed in the Black Sea. The vessel's electronics and missile guidance systems suddenly went down. Russia subsequently claimed that its fighter-bomber was equipped with high tech electronic jamming systems that were responsible for the Donald Cook's electronics failure, a claim which American officials denied, while the vessel made for the nearby port of Constanza in Romania. We were told it was so the crew could rest.
  • The Second Donald Cook incident occurred in the Baltic Sea when it was again approached by the same type of Russia fighter-bomber which made several passes near the vessel. According to the stories at the time, the same thing happened to the vessel, though recent accounts do not say this. (Was the event "cleaned up"? or did it not happen as some reported?)
  • The USS Fitzgerald incident of 2017 involved the same vessel class as the USS Donald Cook. The Fitzgerald collided with a merchant vessel off the east coast of the Japanese main island in busy shipping lanes. At the time, I blogged about this incident and its highly anomalous character and the problems with the narratives we were being told. At the time I posited some sort of electronic warfare was deployed against the Fitzgerald. It should be noted that the Fitzgerald was also involved in the relief efforts after the 2011 tsunami in Japan.
  • The USS John McCain incident of 2017, just shortly after the above incident, when the warship, yet another of the same class of warships as the Donald Cook and the Fitzgerald, collided with a freighter in an almost exact replay of the Fitzgerald incident in the busy shipping lanes of the Strait of Malacca.

Four separate incidents all involving the US Navy's most electronically advanced guided missile frigate, and each incident can be grouped into a category of the same conditions leading to the same results: the two Donald Cook incidents involve the same type of Russian aircraft, and the Fitzgerald and John McCain incidents involve collisions with merchant vessels.  In all my blogs about those incidents - you may use the website's search engine to pull them up and review them - I have essentially argued that the ships' electronics were somehow interfered with or perhaps rendered entirely inoperable.

So now we get to this story shared by E.G., because the Donald Cook incident has happened again, this time in the Pacific and in the dangerous waters of the China Sea:

USS Benfold went days without power in the South China Sea

Note what the article says happened:

The guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold spent four days without power last month after a problem with its engineering, according to a spokesperson for the Navy's 7th Fleet.

Commander Matthew Comer, the spokesperson, said there were no injuries to the crew.

The loss of power impacted plumbing, meals, toilets and air conditioning aboard the ship. The issue has been fixed and is under investigation. The incident was not publicly disclosed for nearly a month.

In addition to the poor conditions, the vessel was located in the South China Sea, which is not friendly waters. Officials told CBS News that the vessel is being protected by other air and surface assets nearby and that they wouldn't leave an asset vulnerable to an attack "like a sitting duck."
And true to form, the vessel was, like the Fitzgerald and the John McCain, taken to the base at Subic Bay in the Philippines for repairs. The loss of power was, as was alleged for the two Donald Cook incidents, total, affecting all the ship's environmental systems, and presumably its defense systems, as is suggested by the comment that the ship was "vulnerable to attack like a sitting duck." And similarly to the Fitzgerald and John McCain incidents, a narrative of  crew exhaustion and responsibility appears to be being carefully prepared:
The news about the Benfold comes amid ongoing concerns about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln(opens in new tab), which has been deployed in the Middle East for nine months. Some family members have said(opens in new tab) they worry about conditions aboard the ship and fear the long deployment and grueling pace are worsening mental health issues. A U.S. official last week told CBS News that the USS George Washington is headed to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln.
I'm not buying, and I'm not buying for one simple reason: the USS Benfold is an Arleigh Burke class guided missile frigate, the exact same class as the Donald Cook, Fitzgerald, and John McCain.  Thus, we could very possibly be looking at a class of warship whose electronic system has been compromised in some fashion.  It's either colossal incompetence on the part of crews, or perhaps it's a flaw in the design of the class itself, or in the building standards and materials. But in any case, it's a national security issue.  But since the first of the incidents involving this class of ship was claimed by the Russians to have been caused by their equipment, and denied by American authorities, my money is still on the possibility that all these incidents are being deliberately caused by someone with the technology to do so.  Something is very wrong, someone is covering it up, someone is sending messages, and someone is not listening.
See you on the flip side...
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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

No Comments

  1. DanaThomas on August 30, 2026 at 12:37 pm

    While it is unclear what is behind this, one might be led to suspect that Pinky and the Brain could organize a navy better.



  2. Nidster - on August 30, 2026 at 1:00 am

    This appears to be Russia’s way of fighting back after Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump met in Anchorage, Alaska. Trump supported the neo-Nazi’s in the Ukraine, then bombed Iran. So that plus a few other mistakes Trump and gang have made. There will be more of these types of incidents. The North Koreans are mass producing EMP weapons. So of course there will be more of these incidents coming in the future, you can bet all your money on that.



  3. tyrtul on August 26, 2026 at 11:19 pm

    Sounds like a main switchboard failure. Four days without power: 26 Jul – BEN goes dark, tug is contracted for tow; 27 Jul – tug arrives at BEN and commences tow; 28 Jul – tug delivers BEN in Subic Bay; SRF Japan makes initial material inspections and repair estimates. Contracts issued for crew to move ashore. 29 Jul – Crew moves ashore. SRF Japan continues repairs on BEN; 30 Jul – initial repairs to BEN made and power restored to ship. 4 days without power. Full repairs require parts shipped to Philippines from States. 7 Aug – All repairs parts received and repairs completed. Crew moves back aboard. 8 Aug – BEN returns to sea and CSG screening duties.

    The simplest answers are usually the best answers. COOK encountered new and better Russian EW tech; FITZ and McCAIN displayed poor seamanship; and BEN had equipment failure. Dog bites man.

    The article is sensationally written by CBS and Yahoo to further capitalize on the ABRAHAM LINCOLN’s negative news cycle. ABE’s problems are not only length of time at sea coupled with poor leadership and morale. The loss of Bahrain, Jebel Ali UAE, and Djibouti as nearby shuttle ship re-supply depots, the reduction of the number of re-supply ships themselves over the past fifteen years, and the poor material condition of US Navy ships in general makes for challenging conditions for US Navy ships at the end of the supply chain in the North Arabian sea. Plus the Southwest monsoon is blowing this time of year in the North Arabian sea making for heavy seas daily for ABE and her crew, and also for the small boys in the screening group. Hopefully lessons are learned and the GEORGE WASHINGTON CSG will be better served.



  4. marcos toledo on August 26, 2026 at 5:44 pm

    I wonder if the US problems are is over enginered and complicated and not ready for harsh conditions is the problem



    • Nidster - on August 30, 2026 at 2:52 am

      Yes, over engineered and too complicated. That also leads to unexpected problems. When we were deployed into Antarctica we had many more problems and issues with all of the ‘new stuff’ that was supposedly developed for extremely cold temperatures. We had to resort to using regular hand tools in order to build a 2-story Machine Shop, 60 feet wide and 120 feet long. Same thing occurred at all the main bases. Only simple tools would work. The simple answer is: ‘how much money’ can the design engineers make?



  5. Timo Beil on August 26, 2026 at 6:48 am

    Are there information about the allegedly returned USS Gerald R. Ford, any statements by the crew?



  6. anakephalaiosis on August 26, 2026 at 5:56 am

    A drunken-sailor self-sabotage!

    One observes, that the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have an inherent flaw, that the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, apparently, don’t.

    List of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyers

    List of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear-powered_aircraft_carriers

    A spoon full of sugar, poured, into the gas tank, helps the rust bucket go down:
    https://youtu.be/U8VHc49ZdP4



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