This is a list of manifestos written by mass killers and attempted mass killers, explaining their motives for their actions. Many of them have committed the killings to propagate their views.
According to a 2020 analysis of 17 mass shooters' manifestos, common themes appearing in them are: narcissism, threats to masculinity, paranoia, fame, suicide ideation, and revenge.[1] A 2017 analysis found the following themes in the manifestos of mass murderers: ego survival and revenge; pseudocommando mindset: persecution, obliteration; envy; nihilism; entitlement; and heroic revenge fantasy.[2]
The FBI conducted a study of 52 lone terrorists in 2019, which found that 96% produced either writings or videos intended to explain their beliefs to others; they found that in 88% of cases, perpetrators published their manifestos before the attack occurred, or "leakage," which is a valuable opportunity for intervention.[3]
| Name of manifesto | Author | Language | Date published | Notes | Length | Sources | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial Society and Its Future | English | 19 September 1995 | The manifesto was published in The Washington Post and The New York Times, after Kaczynski said he would end his bombing campaign if they did so. The manifesto contends that the Industrial Revolution began a harmful process of natural destruction brought about by technology, while forcing humans to adapt to machinery, creating a sociopolitical order that suppresses human freedom and potential. The 35,000-word manifesto formed the ideological foundation of Kaczynski's 1978–1995 mail bomb campaign, designed to protect wilderness by hastening the collapse of industrial society. | 35,000 words (~100 pages) | [4] [5] | ||
| Communication From the Dead | Robert Flores | English | 28 October 2002 | Flores mailed a 22 page letter to the Arizona Daily Star, who later published it online, discussing his reasons for committing the shooting and giving a chronology of his life, stating that it was about "settling accounts". Two of his victims were named in the letter. | 22 pages | [6] | |
| Unnamed | English | 16 April 2007 | The manifesto was mailed to NBC News an hour and a half after Cho had first opened fire. Upon receiving the package on April 18, 2007, NBC News contacted authorities and made the controversial decision to publicize Cho's communications by releasing a small fraction of what it received. The manifesto was described as "rambling" and "incoherent", with Cho criticizing "rich brats" and referring to the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre as martyrs. | 23 pages | [7] | ||
| Natural Selector's Manifesto | English, Finnish | 7 November 2007 | Auvinen published a "media package" through RapidShare that he linked from his YouTube channel, containing 21 files including pictures of himself, his school, and guns, as well as several word files. The word files gave background on the attack, with Auvinen describing the attack as "political terrorism" and saying that he didn't want the attack to be called a "school shooting". | 3 pages | [8] [9] | ||
| Unnamed | Jim Adkisson | English | 27 July 2008 | A letter, or "manifesto," found in his vehicle after the shooting attributed his motivation for the rampage as a hatred of liberals, Democrats, African Americans, and homosexuals. | 4 pages | [10] | |
| 2083: A European Declaration of Independence | English | 22 July 2011 | Breivik wrote a manifesto titled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence. It runs to 1,518 pages and is credited to "Andrew Berwick" (an Anglicization of Breivik's name). It was emailed to over 1000 email contacts less than an hour and a half before his bomb went off. | 1,518 pages | [11] [12] | ||
| Manifest | Dmitry Vinogradov | Russian | 7 November 2012 | Posted on Vkontakte, expresses his hatred towards mankind, comparing humans to cancer. | 2 pages | [13] | |
| Unnamed | English | 6 February 2013 | The manifesto cites anti-police sentiment as a reason for killings. | 11,000 words (~32 pages) | [14] | ||
| Ragnarok | Alex Hribal | English | 6 April 2014 | Cites the Columbine shooters as inspiration and expresses moral nihilism. | 4 pages | [15] [16] | |
| My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger | English | 23 May 2014 | Rodger emailed his 107,000-word manifesto, My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger, to 34 people, including his therapist, Charles Sophy, his parents and other family, former teachers, and childhood friends. In it he said he had originally sought to carry out an attack on Halloween of 2013, but reconsidered because he thought there would be too many police present. | 107,000 words (~300 pages) | [17] [18] | ||
| rtf88 | English | 17 June 2015 | The manifesto was posted on Roof's website, The Last Rhodesian, which also contained several photos of himself. Roof claimed in the manifesto that he had been radicalized after looking up "black on white crime" and was led to white supremacist websites. His manifesto was described by an expert on extremism as not belonging to the "mainstream" of white supremacist ideology. | 2,444 words (~7 pages) | [19] [20] [21] | ||
| My Manifesto | English | 1 October 2015 | The manifesto, carried on a USB drive, was given to a UCC student in Snyder Hall. It was later released by investigators. In the manifesto, Harper-Mercer wrote his actions were done to serve Satan, who, according to Harper-Mercer, would "reward" murderers in hell by turning them into "gods". A large portion of the manifesto was devoted to describing Mercer's hatred of black men. He also described having "kinship" with various other mass and serial murderers, including Ted Bundy, the Columbine shooters, and the Sandy Hook School shooter. | 6 pages | [22] [23] [24] | ||
| The Great Replacement | Brenton Tarrant | English | 15 March 2019 | Tarrant wrote a 74-page manifesto titled The Great Replacement, a reference to the "Great Replacement" and "white genocide" conspiracy theories. In the manifesto, several anti-immigrant sentiments are expressed, including hate speech against migrants, white supremacist rhetoric, and calls for all non-European immigrants in Europe who he claimed to be "invading his land" to be removed. He also cited the work of other far-right killers such as Anders Breivik and Dylann Roof. | 74 pages | [25] [26] | |
| An Open Letter | John Earnest | English | 27 April 2019 | An anti-semitic and racist open letter was posted on 8chan shortly before the shooting and signed with Earnest's name. Earnest's letter was influenced by Christchurch and took responsibility for the Escondido mosque fire. | 9 pages | [27] | |
| The Inconvenient Truth | Patrick Crusius | English | 3 August 2019 | The El Paso police chief, Greg Allen, said that they are "reasonably confident" that a manifesto, titled The Inconvenient Truth, was posted by the suspect on the online message board 8chan shortly before the shooting. The manifesto in question is explicitly inspired by Christchurch. | 2,300 words (~7 pages) | [28] [29] | |
| Techno-Barbarism: A Spiritual Guide for Discontented White Men in the Current Year +4 | Stephan Balliet | English | 9 October 2019 | Structured in a similar way as the Christchurch manifesto, it has a list of "Achievements" alluding to first-person shooter games. | 11 pages | [30] [31] | |
| Unnamed | Mohammed Alshamrani | English | 6 December 2019 | Posted on Alshamrani's Twitter account, it condemned the United States as a "nation of evil" for their supposed crimes against Muslims and humanity. | 4 pages | [32] | |
| Skript mit Bilder | German | 19 February 2020 | In the manifesto, Rathjen called for the murder of all people from various non-European nations, and described himself as an incel, as he had not had a relationship in nearly 20 years "out of a fear of the state surveilling him". He also accused Donald Trump of stealing his ideas. | 24 pages | [33] [34] | ||
| A White Awakening | Nathaniel Veltman | English | 6 June 2021 | Inspired by the Christchurch terrorist's manifesto, the manifesto was found on a thumb drive inside of Veltman's residence. | 74 pages | [35] [36] | |
| You Wait for a Signal While Your People Wait for You | Payton Gendron | English | 12 May 2022 | Titled after a quote from the Christchurch terrorist, the manifesto is focused on mass immigration and holds anti-Black views. The manifesto was originally posted on Google Docs two days before the attack and had not been modified since. The author describes himself as someone who initially identified himself as being on the "authoritarian left", before he developed American neo-Nazi, antisemitic, eco-fascist, ethno-nationalist, populist, and white supremacist views influenced by Tarrant, Breivik, Roof, Earnest, Robert Bowers and The Daily Stormer. The manifesto is largely plagiarized from The Great Replacement. | 180 pages | [37] [38] [39] | |
| The Downward Spiral of "Ethan Miller" | Ethan Miller | English | 28 August 2022 | Posted on Wattpad, the manifesto describes his isolation and solitude as well as his inspiration by the Columbine High School massacre. | 15 pages | [40] | |
| Post-modernism and Its Consequences for Our Nation | Unknown, first name Isaque[41] | Portuguese | 26 September 2022 | A few hours before committing a shooting at the Barreiras school, the perpetrator published a manifesto on his Twitter account. In his manifesto, the perpetrator claimed to be superior to others, in addition to containing speeches in favor of racial supremacy and hate speeches against different communities such as the LGBT community, the residents of Bahia and the school community itself, in addition to stating that his intentions were to murder as many people as possible so that they "felt divine wrath". | 29 pages | [42] | |
| A Call to Arms | English | 12 October 2022 | Just a few hours before the attack, links to a 65-page long manifesto were posted on Twitter. In the document, the author does not provide their name, claiming it is not of importance and "will be known later anyway", but identifies himself as a man of Slovak origin born on July 28, 2003, who has decided to "execute an operation" against "the enemies of the white race". The manifesto blames Jews and LGBT people for "causing harm to white people" and celebrates mass murderers, including Breivik and the perpetrators of Christchurch mosque shootings and Poway synagogue shooting. | 65 pages | [43] [44] | ||
| Unnamed | English | 27 March 2023 | Hale's manifesto was not originally released to the public pending a lawsuit for their release, but on November 6, 2023, 3 pages were leaked online by Steven Crowder followed by the Nashville MPD opening an investigation. the leaked manifesto included far-left views, anti-white sentiments, and extreme hatred for those Hale considered to have white privilege. The leaked pages also included the plan Hale would go through the day of the shooting, with the top of the page being adorned with the words "Death Day". | 3 pages released, unknown number unreleased | |||
| A White Boy Summer to Remember | Ryan Palmeter | English | 26 August 2023 | Palmeter had three manifestos, two of which were not released to the public. One of them was released by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. It contains sentiments of racism against African Americans and anti-semitism. He cited the perpetrator of the Christchurch shootings as the "main inspiration for [his] methods…and targets."[45] | 26 pages released, unknown number unreleased | [46] [47] | |
| Mass Cleaner Manual | Arda Küçükyetim | Turkish | 12 August 2024 | In the manifesto, Küçükyetim states his intent to target immigrants, Syrian children, and members of the LGBT community, as well as noting that he originally planned to attack the headquarters of the Communist Party of Turkey. | 17 pages | [48] |