Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth quipped Sunday that if there is ever a spike in pizza deliveries near the Pentagon, it might simply be him placing large orders to mislead online observers who monitor such activity as a predictor of major world events.

Appearing on Fox News, Hegseth was asked about the “Pentagon Pizza Report,” an account on X that tracks ordering patterns at pizzerias located near the Pentagon and other key military facilities. The account analyzes Google Maps “popular times” data under the theory that unusually high late-night demand may signal that senior officials are working extended hours in response to unfolding military developments.

Hegseth acknowledged he is familiar with the account and joked about deliberately disrupting its conclusions.

“I’ve thought of just ordering lots of pizza on random nights just to throw everybody off,” he said Sunday on Fox News. “Some Friday night when you see a bunch of Dominos orders, it might just be me on an app, throwing the whole system off so we keep everybody off balance. We look at every indicator.”

The Pentagon Pizza Report focuses on spikes in evening activity at restaurants near U.S. military headquarters, suggesting that sudden increases could indicate heightened operational tempo or pending action abroad.

On June 12, for instance, hours before reports emerged of Israel launching a major strike on Iran, the account noted a sharp rise in activity at four pizza establishments close to the Pentagon around 7 p.m., interpreting it as a sign that top officials remained on site to monitor events.

“As of 6:59 p.m. ET nearly all pizza establishments nearby the Pentagon have experienced a HUGE surge in activity,” the account posted on X that evening.

Although the United States initially said it did not take part in the first wave of attacks against Iran, it later entered the 12-day conflict. On June 22, U.S. forces carried out strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities in an operation known as Midnight Hammer.

Hegseth maintained that Pentagon officials are conscious of publicly available tracking methods and take them into account.

“There’s a reason Midnight Hammer worked, because we understood open sourced, we understand classified ways in which the public and others are trying to watch movements and in sensitive ways, we control for a lot that,” he said.

Launched in August 2024, the Pentagon Pizza Report is part of a longer-standing public fascination with pizza deliveries as a barometer of military activity, a pattern observers have noted since the 1980s.

In January 1991, Frank Meeks, who owned 43 Domino’s locations in the Washington area, told the Los Angeles Times that pizza delivery patterns sometimes reveal more than official briefings.

“The news media doesn’t always know when something big is going to happen because they’re in bed, but our [pizza] deliverers are out there at 2 in the morning,” Meeks said.

He recalled that on Aug. 1, 1990, the CIA placed an order for 21 pizzas — a one-night record at the time — just hours before Iraqi troops moved into Kuwait, setting off the Gulf War.

{Matzav.com}