What we know about Julian Brown, inventor of 'plastoline' who vanished from social media

In July 2025, a rumor spread online that a young inventor with 1.7 million social media followers had disappeared. 

Julian Brown, 21, of Georgia has purported to have created a low-cost, solar energy-powered process to convert plastic waste into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, which he called plastoline. Internet users to suggest this invention, which some people claimed would make fuel "free" while tackling plastic pollution, had turned Brown into the target of corporate interests. 

For example, a post on X included a video of Brown with a long caption, adding that "the elites" may have "kidnapped" him (archived):

The post had 2.6 million views and 28,000 likes as of this writing. Versions of the claim further spread on X and Reddit, where users started a new subreddit, as the site's forums are known, named "Where is Julian Brown."

The rumor stemmed from a few of Brown's videos. For example, on June 14, 2025, he posted a video of a helicopter in the night sky he said had repeatedly circled and shined a spotlight on him (archived):

Then, on July 9, 2025, he posted a video in which he said he was "certainly under attack" (archived):

Brown cited "odd stuff going on." After he posted this, his social media feeds went silent. There were no more updates on his TikTok, Instagram or X accounts.

As speculation started to mount, The Daily Mail published an article on July 28, 2025, in which it reported Brown's mother, Nia Brown, said her son had not gone missing: 

"I can confirm Julian is safe but in the best interest of his security I'm not able to provide any more information," she said.

When asked for further details, Nia Brown insisted she could not provide more information about her son. 

However, in 2017, Wikipedia banned The Daily Mail for being an "unreliable source" in part because of subpar fact-checking. 

On July 30 and Aug. 1, Brown appeared with his mother Nia on two Instagram posts. The first was a photograph (archived) of the two of them smiling. The second was a video (archived) in which they confirmed Brown had not gone missing. Instead, they said, he had decided to stop posting on social media on the advice of "his cyber security team" and Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, after he endured hacking attempts and threats: