{"id":244698,"date":"2026-03-31T07:53:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/244698\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T07:53:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:53:26","slug":"49ers-substation-believers-find-new-crisis-after-team-kills-emf-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/244698\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers substation believers find new crisis after team kills EMF theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an unsurprising turn of events, the ardent believers of the\u00a0pseudoscientific theory<\/a> that an electrical substation was to blame for the rash of 49ers<\/a> injuries are not convinced by general manager John Lynch calling it \u201ca big nothing burger.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Niners reportedly hired<\/a> a scientist to look into this controversy that picked up steam<\/a> after San Francisco\u2019s biggest names suffered catastrophic injury after catastrophic injury this past season. Lynch told reporters Sunday<\/a> that their study found the electromagnetic output by the substation was 400 times below the threshold of \u201cunsafe zones,\u201d like any gym or \u201cnormal place of work.\u201d If nothing else, Lynch noted that this never came up as an issue throughout free agency, which the Niners<\/a> are excelling<\/a> at this offseason<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But those who gained popularity and attention by talking about this substation were not satisfied with this report. Chase Senior, a Texas-based 49ers (and Eagles)\u00a0YouTuber<\/a> who was among the first to push this theory as a talking point, and Peter Cowan, an alternative medicine practitioner whose thread in which he guesstimated the effects of the substation on Niners facilities gained national attention<\/a>, took issue with the report. Both had the same demand: Show us the report and name the scientist.<\/p>\n

Cowan claimed the Niners couldn\u2019t have gotten someone legitimate because he\u2019s \u201cconnected to every scientist and forensic engineer actually qualified to do this analysis,\u201d and the team didn\u2019t reach out to them. He noticeably did not name any of these scientists and engineers himself. Senior, meanwhile, asked why the Niners only talked to one scientist, and claimed there had been an uptick in speculation and questions from the general public.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly one thing for Cowan, whose origin story<\/a> is that he replaced a traditional medical treatment plan with sunlight exposure, to focus on the scientists and ignore the salient note that this didn\u2019t upend the Niners\u2019 plans in free agency. He doesn\u2019t talk about sports for a living. Senior, however, does, and yet he followed the same path as his dedication to this crackpot theory continued.<\/p>\n

Senior’s post illustrated how he seems to pick and choose when to call the 49ers\u2019 honesty into question. In the same post<\/a> where he complains that the Niners have not outed the scientist and accompanying research, he easily accepts the organization\u2019s investment in training facilities and staff as a factual, \u201cvery positive update.\u201d There are significantly more examples of organizations promising to invest in something but never following through. Where are the demands for documentation that this money will actually go where the team says it will? Where are the cries for the names of these physical therapists, and evidence of their qualifications?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The answer is likely that reporting on finances doesn\u2019t allow one to back out of their accusations by alluding to pseudoscience. When Senior does dabble in questioning medical experts\u00a0\u2014 if it\u2019s not focused on the substation, it\u2019s about the COVID-19 vaccine<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 he\u2019ll credulously regurgitate a social media post that supports his viewpoint, vaguely reference studies<\/a> whenever he receives pushback and then go radio silent<\/a> when that pushback provides actual evidence. In a post where he proudly declared that he didn\u2019t get the COVID vaccine, the post he piggybacked off of referenced the anti-vaccine conspiracy term \u201cturbo cancer.<\/a>\u201d This raises the question of whether he\u2019d understand any kind of scientific report the Niners published, especially if it wasn\u2019t neatly summarized to him through social media.<\/p>\n

Just as likely, however, is that if the Niners did give him what he asked for, it wouldn\u2019t be enough. The team\u2019s perspective is markedly different than Senior\u2019s on this issue. San Francisco\u2019s issue with this substation theory has been obvious since the organization publicly addressed it: It\u2019s a perception issue. If free agents believe that the Niners\u2019 practice fields could harm their careers, they won\u2019t sign there. If Senior, or any other random person on the internet, isn\u2019t convinced, it doesn\u2019t matter since neither he or anyone else from the peanut gallery could fill the roster holes the Niners want to address this offseason. This theory should be dead and gone for no other reason than the fact that, according to Lynch, no free agents asked about the substation, a brief possible reality after a dubious Washington Post article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The only reason the substation controversy could possibly persist is if there was a financial incentive for someone to do so, such as payouts from a YouTube or Substack page. One way to ensure those go up: Provide a name so that users and readers can know who to question about this ongoing conspiracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an unsurprising turn of events, the ardent believers of the\u00a0pseudoscientific theory that an electrical substation was to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105,2225],"class_list":{"0":"post-244698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news","14":"tag-sfgsports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}