What do tomato sauce, mozzarella, and late-night takeout have to do with military operations? For a growing number of online observers, quite a lot.
In the hours before Israel launched its first strike in its ongoing conflict with Iran, Internet users claimed to notice a sharp spike in pizza orders from restaurants near the Pentagon. This surge, they say, may have signalled that something major was underway and has revived interest in what is now known as the "Pizza Index".
The theory, popularised by the anonymous X account Pentagon Pizza Report, claims that a sudden increase in fast-food orders, especially pizza, near the US Department of Defence often coincides with late-night military preparations.
In the early hours of Friday last week, when Israel launched its strike on Iran, the account noted a sharp uptick in orders from District Pizza Palace, a takeaway restaurant about three kilometres from the Pentagon, at around 19:00 Washington time, just under an hour before the bombing began.
While the theory is far from scientific, its believers point to a history of curious coincidences. A similar pizza order surge was reported just before the launch of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Others noted increased deliveries ahead of the 1989 US invasion of Panama.
In recent months, similar spikes were seen before key regional flashpoints. In April and October last year, unusual pizza activity was recorded shortly before Iran responded to Israeli attacks on its embassy in Damascus with waves of missile and drone strikes.
The same pattern reportedly occurred ahead of the assassinations of former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, when traffic around Pentagon-area takeout restaurants had increased sharply.
Despite its novelty, the Pizza Index has drawn scepticism from military analysts, who say it lacks serious merit. Actual intelligence assessments rely on tangible indicators, such as troop deployments, satellite imagery, classified briefings, not food delivery data. But the theory remains oddly compelling, especially in an era where tools like Google Maps can track foot traffic in and out of shops in real time, based on user location data.
Crowd levels at bars
It's not just fast-food deliveries, either. The Pentagon Pizza Report account also tracks crowd levels at a nearby bar popular with defence staff.
On the night of the Israel-Iran strike, the bar was unusually quiet, an absence the account interpreted as further proof that Pentagon officials were too busy at work to relax. On Tuesday night, as the US National Security Council met to discuss whether to join the war, the same bar was reportedly unusually packed.
Bernard Maiks, a former owner of more than 40 Domino's pizza franchises near the Pentagon, once told The Times that journalists often miss signs of looming conflict because "they’re asleep in bed" at a time when his pizza drivers were already crisscrossing Washington on urgent deliveries to the Department of Defence.
Whether the Pizza Index is a quirky data point or a sign of things to come is up for debate. But in an age of war-by-algorithm and constant surveillance, even a slice of pepperoni might hold a clue.