The NYT visited every Waffle House in Rome, Georgia, after a top FEMA official claimed he was teleported there

The New York Times visited every Waffle House in Rome, Georgia, and found no one who remembered a top FEMA official appearing there after claiming he was teleported. Gregg Phillips, who heads the Office of Response and Recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, made the claim, but employees and regulars at all three locations had no memory of it.

Phillips was appointed to his position in December and first told the story during a January 2025 appearance on the Onward podcast, co-hosted by right-wing activist Catherine Engelbrecht. He said his car was suddenly lifted while he was driving, and he ended up 50 miles away at a Waffle House. In the same episode, he also claimed he was once transported 40 miles into a ditch near a church.

He described the Waffle House incident in detail: “I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. And I ended up at a Waffle House. This was in Georgia, and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was.” He said “teleporting is no fun,” but also called it an “incredible adventure,” adding that you “know it’s happening, but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride.”

Nobody at the Waffle House remembers Phillips, and his teleportation claims are now affecting his federal role

The New York Times interviewed two dozen workers and regulars across all three Waffle House locations in Rome, a city of about 33,000 residents. Not one person remembered seeing Phillips or anything unusual. Shastoni Burge, who has worked at one of the diners for over a decade, said, “I’ve seen it all. But I’ve never seen that.” No one even recognized a photo of him.

One local, Austin Spears, a 29-year-old land surveyor, offered a simpler explanation for ending up at a Waffle House unexpectedly. He said, “I can say I’ve been drunk and ended up in a Waffle House. Don’t know how I got there. But I was there.” It is not the first time a public place has become the unlikely setting for a bizarre and widely mocked public incident.

Phillips’ claims have raised concern among Democrats who question whether he is fit to lead a major federal agency. As head of the Office of Response and Recovery, he oversees 1,000 employees and manages a budget of nearly $300 million. 

According to KCRG, he was also removed from the schedule at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing last month, where he was set to testify about the government shutdown’s impact on FEMA. Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson said at the hearing, “FEMA is on its third unqualified acting administrator in 15 months. And the witness that was scheduled to testify today, Mr. Gregg Phillips, raises serious concerns.”

Despite the criticism, Phillips stood by his account this week but offered a revised explanation. He posted on social media that the incident happened while he was “heavily medicated” and called it a “miracle” from God. He also pushed back on the word “teleportation,” writing, “The word ‘teleportation’ was not mine. It was used by someone else in the conversation reaching for language to describe something with no easy name. 

The more accurate biblical terms are ‘translated’ or ‘transported’ – not new ideas for people of faith.” He added that he knows “what I experienced” and that “haters gonna hate.” This kind of pushback from federal officials against public scrutiny is part of a broader pattern, as seen in how the Justice Department challenged judges blocking Trump’s orders.

Scientists, however, are not convinced. Sidney Perkowitz, an emeritus professor of physics at Emory University, told the Times that “the amount of information you need to reproduce something as complicated as a body is so immense that I don’t think there’s a number that can express it.” He added that trying to express “what you need about every atom, every electron, etc., is just off the charts as far as the data goes.”