For the conspiratorial among you, buckle your seat belts.

On Thursday, the lights mysteriously went out during the confirmation hearing for Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) while he was being vetted by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Even stranger, the topic of conversation that was happening in the room at the time of the unexplained light outage was about Russian hacks.

Then, a C-SPAN feed was abruptly interrupted later in the day and in its place suddenly appeared a feed for Russia Today television (RT), the Kremlin-run news organization. Representative Maxine Waters (D – CA) was mid-sentence when the 10-minutes of RT footage overtook the airwaves. While C-SPAN meekly offered that is was likely a technical glitch, it has not established any further substantial explanation, though noted it was the first time in the network’s history that anything like that had occurred.

And THEN — mystery struck a third time Thursday night, and it also involved Russia.

During Hardball With Chris Matthews, an interview with David Ignatius was suddenly cut short when the journalist was discussing — surprise surprise — the Kremlin’s interference with the general election. “It’s dangerous when you have Russian jets buzzing U.S. warships in the baltic,” Ignatius said on Hardball. “But I think this whole flap — whatever the Russians intended with this their hacking has made it much more difficult to get to where they want,” he said.

Then, this happened, fully transcribed below as it appeared live on MSNBC:

“When you hear General Mattis today, Mike Pompeo, the CIA Director, [all] almost swearing that they’re gonna be hardliners on Russia Russia Russia Russia Russia Russia Russia Russia…”

Ignatius’ voice hung on that word over and over again, appearing to be a glitch of some kind. Eventually the feed was cut to black, and before long Matthews was back on the air, discussing FBI Director James Comey.

I would never allege some widespread conspiracy, just laying out the evidence of three bizarre instances — all surrounding Russia — that happened in one day in American politics and media. A MSNBC spokesperson told CNN’s Brian Stelter, “The show was pre-taped but there was a technical glitch that was resolved in a matter of seconds,” which you can watch above.

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[image via screengrab]

[h/t Dorsey Shaw]

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