If you’re a fan of mystery icebergs or conspiracy theories then you have probably heard about something called ‘The 2006 Volleyball Incident’.

The story goes that, in 2006, an unnamed assailant would enter a high school volleyball court and open fire on the attendees. However, the strange part comes with the fact that there is little to no information about this incident on the internet.

Nevertheless, people in the surrounding area to where this supposedly happened stand their ground that this did occur, and they seem to remember every detail.

Searching for the phrase ‘2006 volleyball incident’ on Google will return under 1,000 results, showing how obscure this conspiracy really is. The main mentions of the phrase come from 4chan, Reddit, and iceberg charts, but no-one seems to be able to provide a concrete answer as to what happened.

Despite that, some key facts have been decided upon.

There was an attack during a high school volleyball game in either Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Oregon, Montana, or Utah. The list of states seems to be narrowed down to either Nebraska, South Dakota, or North Dakota as those seem to be the ones that pop up most often.

It is claimed that between 17 to 24 people lost their lives that day, and that one of two things happened afterwards.

One possibility is that there was news coverage of the event but it was kept local and never went mainstream.

The second possibility is that no information was ever made public, and news outlets were told not to cover it, with the victims being forgotten about over time.

The second one leans much more into the conspiracy side of things as some people even suspect government involvement – but if I had to pick one of these options I would go with the first one as it would explain why people in the surrounding areas seem to remember the event but the rest of the world has no recollection.

People continue to claim that law enforcement tampered with evidence and records due to the lack of information about this event online.

If you try to search for it, no news articles appear, and no matter how hard you search you will find no obituaries that make mention of the shooting.

The story continues as people claim that you can find lots of information about this on the dark web, however it seems as if some people have looked for it there and still nothing turned up – with this, we can safely say that this is a false lead.

The theories surrounding who carried out the attack are also very interesting.

A lot of people believe that members of the United States Government were in attendance that night to assassihate a target, however at some point things took a turn and people were caught in the crossfire.

Others claim that a hired hitman was responsible for the attack, and that the situation was the same in that the other attendees were simply collateral damage. 

So with all the information laid out for you, let’s go over the theories.

The first theory is that this actually happened and that it was covered up by the government due to their assassination plot spiralling out of control.

The theory goes that there was someone at the game that night who the government considered dangerous. They took their chance but civilian casualties occurred, and thus they created a plan to erase all records of the incident and paid the families of victims to keep their mouths shut regarding the event.

The next theory states that the 2006 volleyball incident is actually an extreme case of the Mandela Effect, and for people who aren’t really into the government conspiracy side of things, this is what they will choose to believe.

The reason I say this is an extreme case is because like I mentioned before, mass amounts of people in the surrounding area reportedly remember the attack happening, and can give specific details about it.

This could just be false information however as I am yet to see a post by someone who vividly remembers it, but supposedly they exist, just not on the internet.

Some people believe that the 2006 volleyball incident was actually confused with the 2014 attack at a volleyball game in Afghanistan.

45 people had their lives taken, and 60 others were injured after a man blew himself up in the middle of a volleyball game.

Considering there are no mentions of the 2006 incident on the internet until 2017, it could definitely be the case that this is what people were thinking about, however if that were the case, what happened to cause the multiple year difference from 2014 to 2006?

The next theory ties in with the first result that comes up should you search for ‘2006 volleyball incident’ without putting it in quotes, and that is the Platte Canyon High School Hostage Crisis.

The Platte Canyon High School Hostage Crisis occurred in September 2006 when a 53-year-old man would take seven female students hostage. He would sexually assault them, before allowing six of them to leave.

He would take the life of one girl, before ending his own. The incident occurred in Colorado.

Is this a case of misremembering? Or is this a different incident entirely? You’ll get different answers depending on who you ask. 

The final theory states that the entire story was made up, and is simply another case of an internet hoax.

Surprisingly enough, this one actually has something to back it up.

When you put the search term into Google, the earliest mention you’ll be able to find is from 2017, from a comment made on a thread on the website ‘abovetopsecret’.

The comment reads:

“Something I came across recently that is just a prank but it’s a cool idea/story. The ‘2006 Volleyball Incident’. Supposedly there were multiple school shootings on a certain day in 2006. The attacks all took place in tiny towns with very small populations during high school volleyball games. The attacks were then erased from all public record and only a few people remember them happening.”

http://www.abovetopsecret.com

With this, I’m inclined to believe this comment that the whole thing was fabricated, as it is the earliest mention available nowadays and this user seems to know where it stemmed from.

It makes the most sense that it is simply a hoax as there are no records of the attack, and it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to think that some people started to believe that this was true if they didn’t have the original context that it was made up.

It’s quite unlikely that the government would successfully keep an attack as big as this top secret for all those years, and even more unlikely that they could convince the families of victims or onlookers to keep quiet.

Even in 2006, I think if someone like this had happened, news outlets around the country would’ve jumped to cover this as it would have been seen as extremely important information to relay, so even the theory that it was only covered locally is unlikely because I’m sure it would’ve been picked up by someone relevant in the mainstream media.

I don’t blame people for believing this was a case of the Mandela Effect as the brain can work in strange ways – but at the end of the day, it seems as though this was yet another internet hoax, but a very interesting mystery nonetheless.