A 19-year-old Ohio man spent his graduation money on guns and body armor, kept a journal with 46 names of politicians and celebrities, and allegedly helped organize a multi-phase attack on the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House, until his mother picked up the phone and called the police.
Tycen Proper of Danbury, Ohio, now faces federal charges for allegedly planning a mass casualty attack that would have used explosive-laden drones and rooftop snipers to target what the FBI describes as "high value targets" at the event on the White House South Lawn. Five suspects have been arrested across Ohio, California, and Missouri. The FBI believes as many as 20 people were involved.
The plot, if the FBI's sworn affidavits are accurate, ranks among the most operationally detailed domestic terror schemes to target a sitting president in recent memory. And it was undone not by a sophisticated intelligence intercept, but by a worried parent in Knox County, Ohio.
Knox County police received a call from Proper's mother before the weekend of the UFC event. She told officers her son had been buying guns and talking online about "recons" and "hit and run missions," the Daily Mail reported.
When officers visited the family home, Proper's parents said he was planning to leave that weekend. They had seen maps of Washington, D.C., on his phone and Discord messages. Inside the house, investigators found a journal containing a list of 46 names, politicians and celebrities, along with boxes of spent ammunition.
Proper had spent roughly $3,000 of his graduation money on weapons and body armor. The FBI traced his phone and began unraveling a network of alleged co-conspirators stretching from Ohio to California to Missouri.
FBI affidavits describe a layered assault designed to maximize casualties. The first phase called for staging a demonstration on the north side of the White House, then deploying small drones rigged with explosives over the north side of the UFC arena, a temporary structure known as "the Claw."
The explosions were intended to force the crowd and high-value targets south, directly toward pre-positioned snipers. A user operating under the alias "Fulcrum6" laid out the sequence in a Signal group chat titled "Ops Stage One":
"Once each team is mission ready the green light will be given and the drone rigged with explosives will fly (and) they will initiate the attack."
Fulcrum6 continued: "Rooftop snipers will initiate their part of the plan eliminating HVTs (high value targets)." The FBI identified and arrested the person behind the alias in Missouri.
The targets, per the affidavits, included both wealthy individuals and politicians. The plotters' escape plan called for fleeing via the Potomac River to a safe house.
Fox News reported that the plan also included a second wave in which attackers would storm the White House gate, a detail that underscores the scope of what investigators say they disrupted. The network involved at least 23 users communicating through Signal, with one group containing 19 members and smaller groups organized by shooting position and location.
On May 13, 2026, Proper sent a message naming U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee as a target: "I got a possible target Marsha Blackburn is senator for Tennessee. She's taken money from the pro Israel lobby and supports them."
He later shared images of four additional politicians, Senator Jim Justice, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Congresswoman Carol Miller, and Congresswoman Riley Moore, with the message: "These are people we're going to focus on." The images were pulled from the AIPAC website.
The ideological fuel behind the plot was a toxic stew of conspiracy theories. FBI affidavits state the group "expressed ultra-religious and anti-government sentiments, specifically citing grievances about government corruption, the handling of the Epstein files, data centers taking up all the water in communities, and other government actions."
One alleged co-conspirator, Michael Alan Thomas of California, told FBI agents he believed "the US government is run by an elite group of individuals who sacrifice and consume infants, who also were deeply involved with Jeffrey Epstein, and are now protected by President Donald Trump." Thomas wrote in a Signal group that members should "consider yourselves an enemy of the state." In another message, he asked: "So, to be precise, you're imagining executions right?"
Thomas also discussed financing: "$1300 gets us the drones and the charges. Yes we should all pitch in and we need it asap."
The attack, per the FBI, was "designed to 'jumpstart' a revolution in the United States." The alleged plotters organized themselves into tiers, "Tier 1" operators who would "put themselves in harm's way" and "break the law," with others in supporting roles.
The conspiracy did not germinate in some dark corner of the deep web. AP News reported that the group of approximately 20 participants initially connected through TikTok before migrating to Signal, where they shared maps, aerial photographs, and discussed escape routes and safe houses. The FBI affidavit noted that group members "stated that they wanted to protect the United States, which they believed was headed in the wrong direction."
That framing, self-styled patriots planning a mass casualty attack on a presidential event, captures the incoherence at the heart of the alleged conspiracy. These were not foreign operatives. They were Americans, radicalized online, allegedly plotting to murder other Americans at a celebration on the White House lawn.
The FBI's announcement of the foiled plot drew immediate attention to the question of how close the scheme came to execution. Vice President JD Vance addressed the matter on Fox News, saying: "It didn't even get close to the point of execution."
Five suspects were taken into custody across multiple states. Proper was arrested in Ohio. Bryan Omar Roa and Michael Alan Thomas were arrested in California. Fulcrum6 was arrested in Missouri. A fifth individual has not been publicly identified.
Roa, per the FBI, had told family members that one day he would be gone and "something big" would happen in Washington. The federal charges filed against the five men reflect the gravity of what investigators uncovered.
FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the operation's scope. Breitbart reported that Patel described the effort as a successful multi-agency operation spanning at least 12 FBI field offices, working in coordination with the U.S. Secret Service.
"On June 10, FBI and our law enforcement partners became aware of a potential threat to the UFC America 250 event in Washington, D.C. involving individuals outside of the National Capital Region, and thanks to the rapid action of this FBI, our partners, and the Department of Justice in a multi-state operation, multiple individuals are now in custody and allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold."
The Washington Times reported that nearly two dozen potential co-conspirators were identified through the Signal communications, suggesting the investigation is far from over.
The UFC Freedom 250 event took place on the White House South Lawn, four days after President Trump's 80th birthday. Trump attended the event and stood in the Octagon at its conclusion. Ceremonial weigh-ins were held on the Ellipse on June 13, 2026.
The alleged plot is the second major security threat linked to a high-profile White House event in recent months. An accused gunman at the White House Correspondents' Dinner has pleaded not guilty to attempted assassination charges, a case that raised its own serious questions about protective security around the president.
Kyle Shideler, director and senior analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, placed the alleged plotters' ideology in a broader context. He described accelerationism, the belief that violent acts can hasten the collapse of existing political systems, as a strategy with no fixed ideological home:
"It's a strategy, which can be equally utilized by actors of any ideological bent, and indeed is common to many very different ideologies."
The 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, in which 51 people were killed, were carried out by an attacker whose manifesto included a chapter titled "Destabilisation and Accelerationism: Tactics for Victory." The alleged UFC plotters appear to have drawn from a similarly chaotic ideological well, anti-government rage, conspiracy theories about Epstein, and fantasies about a revolutionary spark.
Patel's public disclosure of the plot before all arrests were completed drew criticism from the Secret Service, adding a layer of inter-agency friction to an otherwise successful operation.
Significant gaps remain. The identity of the fifth arrested individual has not been disclosed. The specific charges against Roa, Thomas, and the person behind the Fulcrum6 alias have not been detailed publicly. Whether any of the named political targets, Blackburn, Justice, Capito, Miller, or Moore, were present at the UFC event is unclear. And the full list of 46 names in Proper's journal has not been released.
The FBI says roughly 20 people were involved. Five are in custody. That leaves a substantial number of alleged participants unaccounted for.
What is clear is that the investigation began with the simplest and oldest form of law enforcement cooperation: a parent who saw something wrong and said something. Proper's mother watched her teenage son spend his graduation money on weapons, talk about reconnaissance missions, and plan a trip to Washington, and she called the cops.
In a country that spends billions on counterterrorism technology, signals intelligence, and surveillance infrastructure, this plot was stopped by a mother in rural Ohio who picked up the phone. That ought to tell us something about where real vigilance starts.
