Came across this thread and had to stop scrolling. The timing thing jumped out at me too when I read about it, because there was apparently some kind of military communication test scheduled for that region around the same period - I saw it mentioned on a couple of different sites but then couldn't find the original source again which is always fun.
Not saying it's directly related but the gap between the initial outage and when the official explanation came out was what, nearly 48 hours? That's a long time to figure out what supposedly tripped a single substation.
I'm more of a paranormal person than a conspiracy person if I'm honest, my usual rabbit hole is black-eyed children reports, but I do think these things are worth asking about. Infrastructure failures that coincide with unusual atmospheric readings or unexplained aerial activity tend to get written off very quickly.
Anyone got solid documented sources on the timeline? That would help separate the actual odd bits from the noise.