All 6 Real-Life Disasters Referenced In Leave The World Behind, Explained

WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for Leave the World Behind.

The new Netflix thriller movie Leave the World Behind references a few real-world disasters that make up some of the most critical moments of its plot. Directed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, Leave the World Behind carries similar themes to the acclaimed dystopian hacker series starring Rami Malek. The Esmail film has been celebrated as one of the most popular new releases on Netflix this December, with great performances from its star cast including Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, Kevin Bacon, and Myha’la.

Leave the World Behind is highly conceptual in its realistic portrayal of how a rogue coordinated cyberattack and spread of misinformation could effectively cause the downfall of a great superpower such as the United States. The compelling Netflix film is based on the 2020 novel by Rumaan Alam and was executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama. Esmail and his crew made several big changes to the Leave the World Behind book, but was mostly successful in painting a terrifying portrait of the sudden collapse of the Western world with multiple layers of societal commentary on technological dependence.

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6 Three Mile Island

1979

Ruth and G. H. Scott briefly mention the possibility of the pandemonium in Leave the World Behind being the result of a nuclear catastrophe like that one that nearly happened in the Three Mile Island incident. Ruth, G. H. and, Amanda speculate on the possibility of there being a cyberattack that could have infiltrated the nuclear power plant or simply there just being a power plant explosion or meltdown. This is early on in the film when Ruth, G. H., and Amanda wait for Clay to come back to the Long Island vacation house, as everyone is completely clueless to the reason behind the plane crashes and the internet blackout.

In the case of the Three Mile Island incident, a nuclear reactor at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station experienced a partial meltdown that almost had irreparable effects in the United States. Nobody was injured during the partial meltdown, which took place in 1979, but numerous regulations were instated after the disaster which could have been much, much worse. Ruth proposes the idea of another Three Mile Island incident as the group tries to look for answers, but a nuclear disaster like that probably wouldn’t result in a rapid collapse of the media and internet as depicted in Leave the World Behind.

5 Love You Bug

2000

The Love You Bug was a real-life virus mentioned in Leave the World Behind that spread like wildfire during the summer of 2000 and beyond. As G. H. explains in the film, the Love You Bug was a computer worm that would appear as a random email in an attempt to spread to users’ entire network. “People would get an email with the subject line that read “I love you.” You clicked on the attachment, it would send it to all your contacts. It crippled businesses and caused billions of dollars in damages. Turns out, it was just two teenagers in the Philippines.”

The Love You Bug infected millions of computers operating on Windows by spreading an email with the subject line “ILOVEYOU”. The email would also include a seemingly innocent attachment titled “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs.” If clicked, the virus would immediately spread to all the Windows Outlook contacts on the user’s computer. Because the internet was such a relatively new technology in 2000, there were no laws that prohibited the creation of the malicious malware in the Philippines. Thecharacters in Leave the World Behind hope that their situation will turn out to be a “big nothing” like the Love You Bug.

4 Havana Syndrome

2016

The unforgettably loud and abrasive noise in Leave the World Behind is a reference to the real-life Havana Syndrome. According to Health, the “Havana syndrome is a condition some government officials and their family members at US embassies in different countries have reported experiencing since 2016.” The effects of the Havana syndrome have been reported to be both temporary and chronic, with illnesses first detected at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, in 2016. People suffered from symptoms such as hearing loss and dizziness after hearing an inexplicable loud grating noise that could point to intentional microwave radiation (via BBC).

3 NASA Cyberattack

1999

G. H. tries using a satellite phone in Leave the World Behind and is shocked to discover that it doesn’t work despite there being no ostensible reason why it wouldn’t. This leads him to believe that the United States satellites have been compromised, hacked, and potentially disabled. While something to this extent has not happened in the United States, the scenario is reminiscent of the infamous 15-year-old teen named James Jonathan who hacked into NASA’s computers and shut them down for 3 weeks in 1999. According to ABC, the teen, known by the username “comrade” also infiltrated the Pentagon’s internal communications system during the hack.

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2 Oil Tanker Crash

2018

An automated oil tanker hasn’t crashed into a public beach quite like the horrific scene depicted early on in Leave the World Behind. However, according to Aljazeera, there was a similar situation involving the crash of a massive oil tanker into a seaside residence off the coast of Turkey near Istanbul in 2018. It’s difficult to say whether that situation directly inspired the scene in the Sam Esmail movie, but in both accounts, there were no fatalities or serious injuries during either incident. The oil tanker scene set the frightening stage for the surrealistic disastrous events to come later in the film.

1 Tesla Autopilot Crashes

2023

Automated Teslas have not caused dangerous roadblocks on major American motorways as seen in Leave the World Behind, but recent reports have pointed out the growing number of crashes and fatalities tied to the advanced driving technology. According to The Washington Post, as of June 2023 there have been a reported total of 736 crashes and 17 fatalities as a result of Tesla-specific Autopilot and Full Self-Driving technologies. It’s one of the many intriguing concepts presented in Esmail’s Leave the World Behind, which does well in portraying an on-the-nose road map to the collapse of a superpower.