The Man Running FEMA’s Disaster Response Says He Has Been Teleported Multiple Times. Once to a Church. Once to a Waffle House. He’s Standing by It.

Gregg Phillips leads FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery — overseeing billions in disaster funds and directing the agency’s response to fires, floods, and other national emergencies. He is also the same man who, in a January 2025 podcast episode, described being involuntarily teleported on multiple occasions, including once when his car was physically lifted into the air and deposited 40 miles away in a ditch near a church, and once when he and his sons ended up at a Waffle House in Rome, Georgia — 50 miles from where they had been, with no memory of the drive. After the claims circulated widely in late March 2026, Phillips doubled down on social media rather than walking them back. The New York Times then sent a reporter to every Waffle House within 50 miles of the alleged origin point. Nobody there had seen anyone arrive by paranormal means.

The podcast episode was called “Onward.” Phillips recorded it in January 2025 while in the midst of treatment for metastatic bone cancer that had spread from his prostate — a detail he later offered as context when the clips began circulating. He described his experiences as “a spiritual journey.” He said the word “teleportation” was not originally his.

But the descriptions are his, and they are specific.

The first incident: driving alone when his car was “lifted up” and moved approximately 40 miles from Albany, Georgia, depositing him and the vehicle into a ditch beside a church. No time elapsed from his perspective. He could not account for the journey.

The second incident: with his sons, en route to get Waffle House. He was intending to drive to a nearby location. Instead, he said, they ended up at a Waffle House in Rome, Georgia — roughly 50 miles from their starting point. His friends, contacted later, told him: “That’s not possible. You just left here a moment ago.” Phillips’s description of the experience: “Teleporting is no fun. It’s no fun because you don’t really know what you’re doing. You don’t really understand it, it’s scary, but yet so real. And you know it’s happening but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was.”

The Doubling Down

When CNN’s reporting on the podcast clips began circulating in late March 2026, the standard playbook for an official in Phillips’s position would have been to clarify that he had been heavily medicated, the comments were metaphorical, and the whole thing was a misunderstanding. Phillips did some of this — he said the context was cancer treatment, that his comments were “taken out of context,” and that the word “teleportation” was not how he would phrase it now.

Then he continued posting on Truth Social. “God will not be mocked,” he wrote. “People can debate me. Question me. Even ridicule what they don’t understand.” He cited the New Testament’s Acts of the Apostles. He wrote, “I know what I’ve experienced. I know Who I serve.” He posted a poem. When a user asked him directly whether he had experienced teleportation, he replied: “Yes.”

His biblical framework is specific: he cites the concept of being “transported or translated” by divine intervention, referencing several biblical passages in which figures are physically moved by God. Philip the Apostle is the canonical example — taken from a road by the Spirit of the Lord and found immediately at another city, with no record of having traveled. Phillips appears to believe something similar happened to him, likely more than once.

The New York Times Goes to Waffle House

The Times dispatched a reporter to interview employees and regulars at the three Waffle House locations within 50 miles of the alleged origin point in Rome, Georgia. About two dozen people were contacted. The response was unanimous: no one recalled seeing anyone arrive by paranormal means.

“I’ve seen it all,” longtime server Shastoni Burge told the Times. “But I’ve never seen that.”

FEMA’s official response when the story first broke: “This is so silly it’s barely worth acknowledging.” A spokesperson added that Phillips’s comments represented “personal, informal, jovial, and somewhat spiritual discussions made in the context of barely surviving cancer; in a private capacity prior to his current role.” Phillips survived his cancer. He now oversees billions in federal emergency funds. He says God teleported him to a Waffle House. He is standing by it.

Sources: CNN — A Top FEMA Official Has History of Violent Rhetoric and Said He Once Teleported to a Waffle House (March 2026) — CNN — Haters Gonna Hate: A Top FEMA Official Defends His Claim That He Was Teleported (April 1, 2026) — Rolling Stone — FEMA Official Gregg Phillips Claims He Teleported to Waffle House (April 2026) — UPI — FEMA Official Claims He Teleported to Waffle House, Staff Does Not Remember Him (April 3, 2026) — The New Republic — FEMA Official Doubles Down on Claim He Teleported to Waffle House (April 1, 2026) — AOL / People — Waffle House Employees Didn’t See FEMA Official Who Says He Teleported to Georgia Location