Featured Image Credit: Domino's Pizza
Yes, government officials are just like the rest of us. They need to eat as well, and like we've seen President Donald Trump has a penchant for Diet Coke and McDonald's, it seems workers at The Pentagon are partial to a slice of pepperoni pizza.
The U.S. Department of Defense is based in the iconic building on the banks of the Potomac River, named for its unique shape.
X account Pentagon Pizza Report has over 80,000 followers, and like it suggests from its name, it monitors pizza deliveries to the DoD headquarters. By looking at Google indicators on how busy a pizza restaurant is, the idea is that the busier they are, the more activity is going on at The Pentagon.
According to Pentagon Pizza Report, an influx of orders to a Domino's Pizza in Arlington foreshadowed Israel's missile strikes on Iran.
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At 6:59 p.m. ET on Thursday, the account said "nearly all pizza establishments nearby the Pentagon have experienced a HUGE surge in activity."
It also noted that a nearby gay bar had "abnormally low traffic for a Thursday night" as the Israeli strikes were taking place.
As per Newsweek, a surge in Pentagon pizza orders can be linked to major milestones, going as far back as December 1989's invasion of Panama. There are almost 30,000 people working at The Pentagon each day, with it apparently not having its own pizzeria. Still, The Pentagon has denied these reports, telling the outlet: "There are many pizza options available inside the Pentagon, also sushi, sandwiches, donuts, coffee, etc."
They added that the Pentagon Pizza Reports' timeline does "not align with the events" in Iran.
Then again, pizza takeout orders continued to climb as the evening went on, with Domino's on 2602 Columbia Pike reaching 'abnormally high traffic' just before 9 pm EST.
The second closest Domino's to The Pentagon also climbed to 'extremely high' levels of customer traffic at around 11 pm EST.
President Donald Trump has confirmed that he was warned about the strikes before they happened, with a US military official telling Newsweek how American forces defended Israel from counterattacks. Despite Israel's Iron Dome, some Iranian missiles made it past the country's air defenses.
The pizza palaver has grabbed headlines, with Alex Selby-Boothroyd, The Economist's head of data journalism, writing on LinkedIn: "The Pentagon Pizza Index has been a surprisingly reliable predictor of seismic global events—from coups to wars—since the 1980s. On the night of August 1st 1990 for example, the CIA ordered 21 pizzas in a single night just before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (a new record)."
With fears that World War III is just around the corner, we might be monitoring the Pentagon Pizza Report a little more closely.
