Memorial Drive Shooter on Memorial Day Weekend

It is a riddle not yet solved. Why was at least one shooter firing at a helicopter, police, and drivers in Texas on this Memorial Day weekend?

On Sunday, May 29, 2016, on the west side of Houston, Texas, an active shooter began firing shots around 10 a.m. at 13200 Memorial Drive. The media said this was "near Wilcrest Drive." But actually, that is just the nearest large cross street. The shootings were concentrated at the corner of Memorial Drive and Wycliffe.

In English the meaning of the name Wycliffe is from the "white cliff."

Now recorded in the "modern" spellings of Wickliffe, Wycliff, and Wycliffe, this is one of the most famous of all surnames in Christian history. One of the earliest nameholders being John Wycliff, the religious reformer and arguably the first English protestant. The surname originates from the village of Wycliffe, in the far north west corner of the county of Yorkshire, near Barnard Castle on the River Tees. The village is ancient, being recorded in the famous Domesday Book of 1086, the first known gazetter of land ownership anywhere in the world. This recording was in the spelling of "Witclive," meaning "The white cliff," the area being famous for its limestone. Source.

Law enforcement officers said the shootings left two people dead, including one suspect, and several others injured. Among the injured were four bystanders and two officers. An alleged second shooter is in police custody. That unnamed person was also injured and taken to the hospital in critical condition.

Investigators said the two suspects are either Hispanic or Caucasian males. One "white" man covered in tattoos was seen by local residents holding his hands in the air. One male victim, in his 50s, was found shot to death in a vehicle. Three other people were wounded by the gunmen and taken to area hospitals in unknown condition.

The shooters did hit a police helicopter five times, apparently with AR15s.

A fire at a nearby gas station was sparked by a bullet fired during the shooting. The focus of the shooting was at Memorial Drive Tire and Auto Center.

The Houston Police Department said there is no motive known for the shootings.

Phantom & Killer Clowns: 1854 Record and 2016 Incident

Two very bizarre cases of alleged killer and phantom clowns, one from 1854, and the other, a modern report from 2016, have come my way. 

A young boy, 13 years, 6 months old, named William Snyder was allegedly killed on or before January 11, 1854, by "being swung around by the heels by a circus clown." This occurred in San Francisco, California.

Snyder was born in July 1840, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The data on this killing are to be found at the Find A Grave site, and through Vital Records, reproduced here. 

Meanwhile, on May 4, 2016, the newspaper, A.D. Haagsche Courant, where the well-known Fortean journalist Theo Paijmans works as a reporter, published his first Phantom Clown report.

On Sunday, April 30, 2016, in Zoetermeer (Dutch for "Sweet Lake"), a city in the western Netherlands, the following occurred. (This is a direct translation of the above article.)

Terror Clown frightens woman on bicycle

Last Sunday afternoon at about 12:30 hours a person in a clown costume frightened a woman on a bicycle in the vicinity of the grafittitunnel at the Boerhavelaan. The clown suddenly emerged from the underbrush when the woman was entering the tunnel. The woman quickly sped away. The clown ran off in the opposite direction. Police state that it has received no other reports of a person in a clown costume.

Theo Paijmans writes:

Zoetermeer experienced a clown scare flap in 2014, because of posters of evil clowns that were distributed in connection with Halloween. Children became frightened and mothers and shopkeepers protested because the poster was too frightening.

At top, a 1850-55 daguerreotype of a clown is posted for illustrative purposes only.

For more on "Killer Clowns" at Twilight Language, click here.

My thanks to Tim Cridland for bringing this 1854 record to my attention. 
And to Theo Paijmans for his Netherlands reporting.

UFO-Interested, Megadeth's Nick Menza, 51, Dies Suddenly

Nick Menza, 51, former drummer for the well-known metal band Megadeth, who had a deep interest in ufology, died on Saturday, May 21, 2016, after collapsing on stage during a performance of his progressive jazz trio in Southern California.

(Many UFO sightings have occurred on May 21st. One of the earliest ones in the modern era took place May 21, 1949, when a silvery disc hovered over the Hanford Atomic Energy Commission radar station outside of Moses Lake, Washington, and was seen by a US Air Force F-82 pilot flying over the area. Source.)

Menza's latest band OHM was three songs into a semi-regular set at a Los Angeles-area club when Menza collapsed. Friends and audience members rendered aid while paramedics were called.

The 51-year-old died at the club of a suspected massive heart attack.

Nick Menza (July 23, 1964 – May 21, 2016) was the drummer in Megadeth from 1989 to 1998 and in 2004. He recorded drums on four of Megadeth's albums: Rust in Peace (1990), Countdown to Extinction (1992), Youthanasia (1994) and Cryptic Writings (1997).

The name Menza is Italian, from a feminine form of Menzo, from Sicilian menzo "middle," possibly in the sense "middle son," presumably applied to the older of twin boys who have an older brother, or possibly a nickname for someone of small stature, from the same word in the sense "half."

The name Nicholas is from the Greek Νικολαος (Nikolaos), with the meaning of the name Nicholas being "people's victory." St. Nicholas is the patron saint of children, sailors, and pawnbrokers - Santa Claus is based on this saint.

Menza made no secret of his long standing involvement in matters dealing with UFOs.

In 2014, Menza filmed an alleged UFO outside his Studio City, California home on July 14.

At the time, Menza said: "I was standing in my front yard with my two boys and this is what we saw. [It had] the shape of a triangular object with rounded tips glowing yellow and white. [I am] not sure what it is, but it looked totally awesome."

In 2014, talking about his autobiography, tentatively entitled Menzalife, which he was writing with J. Marshall Craig, Menza told the media: "There's a lot of funny things in it. It's all true stuff. There's some government conspiracies and alien coverups and all kinds of stuff in there. Now that I'm into space exploration and research stuff — that's kind of what I'm into right now. I've always been into aliens and stuff like that. We are the aliens and that's why we're here. All the evolution of everything is from alien technology.

"Before, back in the Stone Ages, like when we were just regular humans, we didn't have brains in us and then the aliens came down and they intervened and they put brains in our heads and now we're all smart and we're starting to figure things out, ascending to the next level and a higher level of conscious awareness and that sort of stuff." Source.

Another obvious example of Menza's longterm interest in UFOs is the song he wrote over 26 years ago: "Hangar 18."

"Hangar 18" is a song by American heavy metal band Megadeth from the 1990 album Rust in Peace. UFO conspiracy theories, or possibly Hangar 18, the 1980 film based on those theories, inspired drummer Nick Menza to write the lyrics. Shortly thereafter, frontman Dave Mustaine composed the bulk of the music. The intro is a rapidly strummed version of the D-minor arpeggio that Mustaine wrote for the Metallica instrumental track "The Call of Ktulu," which was the final Metallica music he was credited for. Hangar 18 is located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, and it is speculated that an alien aircraft was brought there from Roswell in 1947. The song reached number #25 on the Irish Singles Chart, also reached number #26 on the UK Singles Chart.
The song is also particular in that the bass uses a different tuning from the two lead guitars, the bass being in dropped D while the guitars are in standard tuning.
A sequel to this song called "Return to Hangar" was included on Megadeth's ninth album The World Needs a Hero. It tells the fictional story of the life-forms said to be contained in Hangar 18 coming back to life and killing those inside the building before escaping.
"Hangar 18" was nominated for Best Metal Performance at the 1992 Grammy Awards.
The "Hangar 18" video is themed after the song's lyrical concept. It depicts the torture of aliens and, at the end, shows all the band members in freezing chambers. The video was shot in San Pedro, Los Angeles at a Water & Power building. Coincidentally, the band would film the video for "Crush 'Em" on this same site nine years later. An edited version of "Hangar 18" is typically shown on MTV2 which has the song length cut down drastically. During the intro to the video the song "Dawn Patrol" from the Rust in Peace album can be heard in the background. Source.

Interested in space, aliens, and ufos, Menza photoshopped himself on Facebook, as a spaceman, a couple years ago.  Shades of David Bowie.

Menza was Megadeth's longest-serving drummer, performing on five records over nine years, including 1990's thrash metal landmark, Rust In Peace.
Dave Mustaine, singer, guitarist and co-founder of Megadeth, said in a statement that he awoke to a text message from his son with the news.
"Shocked, devastated, and saddened don't begin to describe my feelings," Mustaine said.
"As a player, Nick had a very powerful jazzy flair, unpredictable and always entertaining, and as great a drummer as he was, the time spent with him as a person, a bandmate, and a friend was even more fun," Mustaine's statement said.
Marty Friedman, the band's guitarist from 1990 to 2000, wrote on Facebook that Menza was "a great and unique drummer" and "a trustworthy friend, a hilarious bandmate, as well as a very loving dad."
...
[Menza] is survived by his mother and father, the jazz saxophonist Don Menza, and two sons. Source.

Thanks to Nick Redfern for the heads up.

Suicide-by-Lion Attempt

Early on Saturday, May 21, 2016, at the Santiago Metropolitan Zoo in Chile, a man took off his clothes and jumped in the lion enclosure. It was a suicide attempt, apparently. A suicide note was reportedly found in the man's clothing.

Chilean television, and United Kingdom media, published graphic photos and videos of the mauling.

The man, 20, was saved, but two lions were killed as they attacked the individual.

"The zoo has an established protocol because people's lives are very important to us," said Director of the City's Metropolitan Zoo Alejandra Montalba. 

The zoo director said she was "deeply affected" by the deaths of the two lions, a male and a female.

"Everyone started screaming when they saw him," a man told news channel Chilevision.

Another said: "There were a lot of children there, and parents covered their eyes while it was going on.

"He was screaming religious things." Sources: here, here.

White House Shooting: Suicide-By-Cop Attempt?

The Secret Service shot an armed man at a security checkpoint outside the White House on Friday, May 20, 2016, causing the complex to go into lockdown. The man who was shot was identified by law enforcement officials as Jesse Andrew Olivieri, 30 or 31, from Ashland, Pennsylvania.

The name Olivieri originates from the region around Venice. The surname Olivieri comes from the given name Olivero, which comes from the Latin words olivarius and olivo, which mean olive.

The Mothers' Memorial was erected in 1938.

(Ashland, Pennsylvania is perhaps best-known for the Mothers' Memorial, which is located at the junction of Pennsylvania Route 54 and Pennsylvania Route 61. The Mothers' Memorial is a bronze reproduction of the famous James Abbott McNeill Whistler artistic painting: An Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, commonly known as "Whistler's Mother". The WPA-Built Mothers' Memorial honors all mothers of the United States and it's the only one of its kind in the world. The Mothers' Memorial was commissioned and erected during the misery of the Great Depression in the United States by the Ashland Boys' Association and it was dedicated on Sunday, September 4, 1938, during Labor Day weekend. President Franklin D. Roosevelt economic recovery plan of the Works Progress Administration completed the historical stone masonry work.)

Vice President Biden was in the complex; he was secured for his safety. President Obama was on a golf outing at Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs, Maryland, when the shooting occurred. A White House official said no White House employees were injured, and that Obama was briefed about the situation.

The incident happened at 3:06 p.m. at a security gate at 17th Street and E Street N.W., on the west side of the White House complex where employees enter. Law enforcement agencies had originally given conflicting accounts of where the shooting happened; the Secret Service said it was outside the security perimeter.

The suspect was brandishing a weapon, and a uniformed Secret Service officer gave him "numerous verbal commands for the subject to stop and drop the firearm," said Secret Service spokesman Samuel Reed Jr. The officer shot the suspect once, and he was taken to a local hospital.

Several law enforcement officials said they believe it may have been an attempt at suicide by cop, and that Olivieri said he wanted to die.

Earlier in the day, Secret Service officers cleared the North Lawn, Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Park during an incident in which officers drew guns.

Flight 804 Vanishes Near The Ancient Site of the Colossus of Rhodes

LEgyptAir Flight 804 (MS804/MSR804) is an international passenger flight operated by EgyptAir that is missing as of 19 May 2016 at 02:30 local time. Egyptian authorities have stated that the plane most likely crashed into the sea.

The EgyptAir flight, heading from Paris to Cairo, disappeared from radar. It contains 66 people, according to one report. Earlier, 69 was mentioned.

No remains have been recovered yet.

The aircraft involved was an Airbus A320-232, registration SU-GCC, msn 2088. Its first flight was on 25 July 2003 and it was delivered to EgyptAir on 3 November 2003. Routine maintenance checks on the plane were done Wednesday in Cairo, before it left for Paris, an airline official said. The flight was the aircraft's fifth of the day, having flown from Asmara International Airport, Eritrea to Cairo; Cairo to Tunis–Carthage International Airport, Tunisia and back; and Cairo to Paris.

A distress signal was detected in the general vicinity where the flight disappeared, the airline official said. The signal was detected at 4:26 a.m. -- about 2 hours after the jet vanished. He said the distress signal could have come from another vessel in the Mediterranean. But the Egyptian armed forces stressed that they had not received a distress call.

Greek ministry source said authorities were investigating an account from the captain of a merchant ship who reported a ‘flame in the sky’ some 130 nautical miles south of the island of [Warpaths] - (every time I write Karpathos, it gets autocorrected to Warpaths).

The island of Karpathos was in ancient and medieval times closely connected with Rhodes. Rhodes' nickname is The Island of the Knights, named after the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who once conquered the land. Rhodes was famous worldwide for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Medieval Old Town of the City of Rhodes has been declared a World Heritage Site. Today, it is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe.

The harbor's statute at the entrance to the Free City of Braavos in Game of Thrones appears to have been inspired by the the Colossus of Rhodes. 

On a smaller scale, Ellis Island's Statue of Liberty (Columbia) also may have been inspired by the Colossus of Rhodes. Image: Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World (1886) by Edward Moran. Oil on canvas. The J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York.

Karpathos' current name is mentioned, with a slight shift of one letter, in Homer's Iliad as Krapathos (οἳ δ' ἄρα Νίσυρόν τ' εἶχον Κράπαθόν τε Κάσον τε). Apollonius of Rhodes, in his epic Argonautica, made it a port of call for the Argonauts travelling between Libya and Crete (Κάρπαθος: ἔνθεν δ' οἵγε περαιώσεσθαι ἔμελλον). The island is also mentioned by Virgil, Pliny the Elder and Strabo.

The Karpathians sided with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC and lost their independence to Rhodes in 400 BC. In 42 BC the island fell to Rome. After the division of the Roman Empire in 395 AD, the island became part of the Byzantine Empire.

Of its Christian bishops, the names are known of Olympius, who was a supporter of Nestorius, Zoticus (in 518), Mennas (in 553), Ioannes, Leo (in 787), and Philippus (in 879). In the 14th century the island was a see of the Latin Church, four of whose bishops bore the name Nicolaus. No longer a residential bishopric, Karpathos (in Latin Carpathus) is today listed by the Catholic Church as an archiepiscopal titular see.

In 1304, Karpathos was given as fief to the Genoese corsairs Andrea and Lodovico Moresco, but in 1306 it fell to Andrea Cornaro, a member of the Venetian Cornaro family. The Cornaro controlled Karpathos until 1538, when it passed into the possession of the Ottoman Turks.

During the Greek War of Independence between 1821–22, the island rebelled, but afterwards it fell again under the Ottoman rule. In 1835 Sultan Mahmud II conceded to the island the privilege of the Maktu tax system, that is, the tax was calculated as an annual lump sum, and not on an household basis. The Ottoman rule ended on May 12, 1912, when the Italians occupied the island, together with the whole Dodecanese, during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12. On that day, sailors from the Regia Marina ship Vittorio Emanuele and the destroyer Alpino landed in Karpathos. With the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 Karpathos joined the other islands of the Dodecanese in the Italian possession of the Italian Aegean Islands, and was ceded by Italy to Greece with the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947. The island formally joined the Kingdom of Greece on 7 March 1948, together with the other Dodecanese islands.

Due to the economic problems after World War II, numerous Karpathians emigrated to the U.S. eastern seaboard cities; Karpathos today has a significant Greek-American constituency who have returned to their island and invested heavily. Inhabitants of the mountains to the north are more traditional.

Taunton Mall and Grafing Stabbings

Taunton Mall Stabbings

Two people are dead after a stabbing and shooting at a mall and a home in Taunton, Massachusetts, and their attacker has also been killed after being shot by an off-duty police officer, state police said.

Massachusetts State Police and Taunton Police responded to a report of a shooting and stabbing at the Silver City Galleria Mall on Galleria Drive and a related crime scene at a home on Myrick Street at about 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Investigators determined the assailant, identified as 28-year-old Arthur DaRosa of Taunton, was shot and killed at the mall by an off-duty officer.

Two victims who were stabbed inside the home on Myrick Street were a mother and daughter.

They were both taken to Morton Hospital where one of the women, an 80-year-old, succumbed to her injuries. The other victim suffered serious injuries.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day....

Grafing Bahnhof Stabbings

On 10 May 2016, there was a 5 a.m. attack at the Grafing train station, near Munich, Germany. One person was killed, three injured, as the man with a knife was quickly arrested. He yelled "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great."

Barefoot Assailant

The Grafing Bahnhof suspect was taken into custody with bare feet, and his shoes could not be found. Was this a ritualistic killing of some type?

From Jewish and Christian traditions...

Moses was instructed to remove his shoes before approaching the burning bush:

"Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest [is] holy ground" ~ Exodus 3:5.

to Muslim...

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,
“The Hour will not be established-till the people of the desert (the camel shepherds) compete with one another in constructing high buildings.”
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on the minor signs of the last day.
On being asked on the signs of the last day, the Prophet (peace be upon him) mentions: “you shall see the barefoot, naked, penniless shepherds competing in constructing high buildings.” This hadith describes people who become rich all of a sudden and then build not for need but only in competition. Prophetic Miracle of Muhammad {saw}: Desert Arabs competing in building skyscrapers. 

Is there symbolism in the settings? In the context of what is occurring in Germany? This photograph above, from March 2015, was used again today by the International Business Times, regarding this Grafing attack. What it actually shows is armed police officers guarding the St Petri Dome, next to the town hall of the northern German city Bremen. (Photo by Morris MacMatzen.) Below are detailed images of what is vaguely seen behind the armed police above.

"Munich knife attack: One dead as man shouting 'Allahu Akbar' attacks four at train station in Grafing, Germany" screams the UK's Telegraph headlines. Contained in that article were the details on the greater alert:

Police in neighbouring Czechia (Chezch Republic) have evacuated several schools, town halls and railway stations across the country after receiving an anonymous tip-off that they were to be targetted in coordinated bomb attacks.
The main train station and municipal buildings in the capital Prague were affected, along with the train station and city hall in the western city of Pilsen.
A total of 14 different locations around the country were involved. The evacuations began at around 10am local time (am BST) after the authorities received detailed tip-offs including the timings bombs would go off at the various locations.
In the central city of Pardubice, which was also affected, staff at the city hall said they had received a tip-off in a phone call.
"At about 8.30am we received an anonymous phone call saying that a bomb would go off in the city hall at 12pm. We immediately contacted the police," Radim Jelinek, a spokesman for the municpality said.
The anonynpus tipster apaprently made no attempt to hide their telephone number.
"We handed over the phone number of the anonymous caller, because it showed up in the caller ID," Mr Jelinek said.

A spokesman for the Bavarian police told Welt newspaper the suspect, identified as "Paul H.," was born in Germany and does not have an immigrant background.

The spokesman confirmed reports the 27-year-old was a resident of the town of Giessen in the Hesse state in central Germany.

Grafing coat of arms: A bear.

Grafing station (German: Grafing Bahnhof) is a station in the Bavarian town of Grafing and a station of the Munich S-Bahn. There is also the S-Bahn station of Grafing Stadt ("Grafing town") in central Grafing. Grafing station was opened along with the Munich–Rosenheim railway on 15 October 1871.

The town of Garfing, founded about 960 as Gisling, belonged to the Munich Rentamt and the Swabian legal district in the Electorate of Bavaria. During the Thirty Years' War, Grafing was looted and set on fire by Swedish troops in 1632. Only the castle Elkofen, so the legend, was overlooked by Swedish troops.

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Could this attack have been done by a person engaging his “enemy” as a “Juramentado”? Barefoot, praising Allah, using a knife, and killing Christians?

Juramentado is an archaic term derived from the Spanish word juramentar, meaning one who takes an oath. Some sources link amoks (from the Malayan term for "out of control") and juramentados as similar culture-specific syndromes while others draw distinctions of religious preparation and state of mind. A Moro might be said to have "gone juramentado" or be "running juramentado."
Juramentado, in Philippine history, refers to a male Moro swordsman who attacked and killed targeted occupying and invading Christian police and soldiers, expecting to be killed himself, the martyrdom undertaken as an unorthodox form of personal offensive jihad, considered a form of suicide attack.

Candidates, known as mag-sabil, "who endure the pangs of death," were selected from Muslim youth inspired to martyrdom by the teaching of Imams. Parents were consulted before the young men were permitted by the sultan to undergo training and preparation for Parang-sabil (the path to Paradise). After an oath taken, hand on the Qur'an, the chosen took a ritual bath, all body hair was shaved, and the eyebrows trimmed to resemble "a moon two days old." A strong band was wrapped firmly around the waist, and cords wrapped tightly around the genitals, ankles, knees, upper thighs, wrists, elbows, and shoulders, restricting blood flow and preventing the mag-sabil from losing too much blood from injury before accomplishing his gruesome task. Clad in white robe and turban, the chosen youth would polish and sharpen his weapons before action.

At the moment of attack, the mag-sabil would approach a large group of Christians, shout "La ilaha il-la'l-lahu" ("There is no god but Allah"), draw kris or barong and then rush into the group swinging his sword, killing and maiming as many victims as possible in the time he had left. The true believer, however, faced a theologic conundrum. If the observant Juramentado believed that his murders pleased Allah, he could not admit that the inevitable consequences of his attacks constituted suicide, per se, as their Qur'an forbids it. To reconcile the inconsistency, they fashioned themselves as martyrs of their own making, coaxing their way into Paradise with the spilled blood of numerous enemies of the faith on their hands. In effect, however, the tactic more closely resembles murder/suicide. The Juramentado—acting neither in self-defense nor through selfless altruism—commits to murder, and his own self-destruction, solely for the promise of his perception of personal gain. After death, the mag-sabil's body would be washed and again wrapped in white for burial. In the unlikely event the mag-sabil survived his attack, it was believed his body would ascend to Paradise after 40 years had passed. Source.

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Trump and the Simpsons

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: 

See that ye be not troubled: 

For all these things must come to pass, 

But the end is not yet. 

The Bible, Matthew 24: 6

See also:

'Simpsons' Writer Who Predicted Trump Presidency in 2000: "It Was a Warning to America"

‘The Simpsons’ predicted a Donald Trump presidency 16 years ago

How America survives a Donald Trump presidency, according to The Simpsons

Trucidation Trump Tales & X-Files' Tipping-Point Trumpets

An Actor Rushes The Stage: The Fayette Factor & Trump Rally Incidents

Trump's Ides of March: Of Arenas, Actors & Assassination Fears

Which Cruz Was Photographed With Lee Harvey Oswald? A Manufactured Distraction?

2016 Presidential Yankees or Cowboys? UPDATE