MacDill bomb was housed in 2 Pepsi bottles, court record says

Christopher O'Donnell, Katelyn Ferral and Zachary T. Sampson, Tampa Bay Times on Apr 4, 2026

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TAMPA, Fla. — The bomb placed outside the MacDill Air Force Base visitors center last month was built inside two 2-liter cherry Pepsi bottles, according to federal prosecutors.

Alen Zheng, 20, of Land O’Lakes, is accused of planting the bomb and lighting the fuse at the base on March 10. He drove the explosive to MacDill in the trunk of his Mercedes SUV, according to a document filed by prosecutors Friday. The bomb did not detonate.

U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe has said it had the “potential to be very deadly.”

The filing Friday came as part of an attempt to keep Zheng’s sister, Ann Mary, from being released as she faces charges of evidence tampering and being an accessory after the fact in her brother’s case. Ann Mary Zheng is accused of helping Alen Zheng get rid of his car and flee to China.

The revelation of the bomb’s makeup comes amid questions of how it could have sat outside the military installation for six days without being discovered. Authorities say Alen Zheng called 911 after placing it, though he did not provide a specific location.

Court records do not offer additional details about the device. But it matches the description of a photo circulated on social media in recent weeks. The image depicting the bomb was posted March 16, the day officials found it, on Air Force amn/nco/snco, a Facebook forum for members of the Air Force and other branches of the military. It has more than 126,000 followers.

The same image was also shared on X and Reddit.

It depicts two bottles of cherry Pepsi inside an unzipped black gym bag. The bottle necks have been cut off and covered with duct tape. A long wire or fuse trails out of one bottle.

A Tampa Bay Times reporter who went to the area last week was able to match the image to a spot behind the visitors center.

There, outside a door marked “mechanical electrical” on the northwest side of the center, the pavement bore black marks that mirrored those in the photograph. The cement appeared to have been singed by the lit fuse.

The location is about 15 yards from the covered walkway used by a steady stream of people seeking visitor passes.

FBI and MacDill officials have declined to confirm whether the photograph shows the bomb found at the base. FBI officials wouldn’t deny it, either.

The Times shared the image with four experts in digital forensics and digital image manipulation to try to confirm its authenticity.

Two said the photo shows no sign of being doctored and appears genuine.

“Our analysis shows that this image does not appear to be AI-generated or manipulated,” said Matthew Stamm, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University.

The other two differed. One said he could not confirm that it was authentic. David Doermann, a professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at University at Buffalo, said the image lacked accompanying data typically generated when a digital photograph is taken.

After reviewing the photo, Ed Davis, the former Boston Police Commissioner who investigated the Marathon bombings of 2013, said that it appeared to be a “very basic childlike attempt at an IED.”

“From the outside look of it, it looks rudimentary at best,” Davis said. He now runs his own security services firm.

It would be tough to determine how serious or effective a bomb like that could be without inspecting it, he said, but the maker could put a powerful plastic explosive in the middle to cause damage. He said the explosive in the photograph did not look like any he’d seen before.

“There does appear to be a fuse there that looks like it didn’t run down,” Davis said. “Maybe they lit it, and the fuse went out.”

Investigators said they flew the MacDill bomb to a lab in Alabama for testing.

Alen Zheng has not been arrested and is believed to still be in China. His parents are Chinese citizens who have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and are expected to be deported, according to the court filing Friday.

Prosecutors are arguing Ann Mary Zheng should continue to be detained because “there is a substantial risk the defendant will join her immediate family members in China, rather than facing trial.”

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(Times staff writers Dan Sullivan and Christopher Spata contributed to this report.)

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