In the United States, the term has been used by conspiracy theorists who claim that some mass shootings and other disasters are staged, and victims and their families are being played by crisis actors. Conspiracy theorists' use of the term is thought to have originated in 2012, when a blog post by former professor and professional conspiracy theorist James Tracy suggested that the government could have hired an acting agency named Visionbox, which supplied crisis actors who were "trained in criminal and victim behavior, and bring intense realism to simulated mass casualty incidents in public places" to help stage the Sandy Hook shooting.