Friday, July 08, 2022

Signs, Assassinations, and Name Games

The news of an assassination in Japan must not be viewed in a void. It is part of our violent times.



As St. John's Day was passing into June 25, 2022, a gay bar in Oslo, Norway was the site of a shooting. Two people were killed and twenty-one people were wounded in a mass shooting in Oslo, Norway. Police are treating the incident as an "act of Islamist terrorism" targeting the Oslo LGBTQ pride event. The suspect is identified as 42-year-old Norwegian Iranian Zaniar Matapour, who moved from Iran to Norway in 1991 when he was 12.

Then on the 4th of July 2022, in Highland Park, Illinois, a mass sniper incident occurred. Highland Park formerly was known as St. John's. St. John's Avenue is a major thoroughfare.



On July 4, 2022, a mass shooting took place during an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, United States. The shooting occurred at 10:14 a.m. CDT (UTC−05:00), roughly 15 minutes after the parade had started. Seven people were fatally shot, and 46 others were wounded by gunfire or injured in the ensuing panic.
Authorities apprehended Robert Eugene Crimo III eight hours after the shooting and charged him the next day with seven counts of first-degree murder. 

Seven people were killed and 46 others were injured during the attack. Five of the victims—all adults—died at the scene and two died at the hospital.

Crimo left an extensive social media trail of numerological signs, symbols, and clippings related to his Trump rally appearances, neo-Nazi leanings, and obsession with Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy ("St. John" to some).

Crimo: 4 (Fourth of) 7 (July)












Name Game: Uvaldo/Uvale



Highland Park/Parkland High/Parkland Hospital

Crimo was obsessed with Jack Ruby killing LHO. Both JFK and LHO taken to Parkland Hospital. To die.









On January 3, 1967, Lee Harvey Oswald assassin Jack Ruby died at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas, the same hospital where Oswald died and where President John F. Kennedy had been pronounced dead following his assassination in 1963. 



Georgia Guidestones bombed on July 6, 2022. They are 7 miles down Georgia 77. Destroyed and then down.



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Crimo was a Trump supporter and was photographed at Trump rallies. Was he also stalking Trump?

Next up, political assassinations? The wait was short.



Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe 




Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dies at 67 after assassination in Nara, Japan.

An assassination of an Abe in Japan.

On Friday, July 8, 2022, Japan time. 
















Police said that the suspect Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, admitted he thought the ex-prime minister was connected to a religious organization he has a grudge with.

The alleged killer was a Nara resident and had worked at Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Forces for three years, but now appeared to be unemployed, cops said.




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Monday, July 04, 2022

Recent Mass Shootings: St. John's Day to a city formerly named St. John's







A mass shooting has occurred at Highland Park, Illinois during a 4th of July parade. 

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End of the Day: June 24, 2022

In the US, we began hearing the reports of a mass shooting in a gay bar around 7 pm, on the night of June 24, 2022. Two people were dead and several wounded. (It was predictable.)





The shooting took place at locations associated with Oslo Pride, the local LGBT pride event hosted by the Oslo branch of the Norwegian Organisation for Sexual and Gender Diversity, the night before the planned Pride parade in Oslo. The first shooting occurred at London Pub, a popular gay bar and nightclub. A journalist from the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, stated he witnessed a man arrive with a bag, who then picked up a weapon and started shooting. The journalist thought it was an air gun at first, until the bar next door had glass shatter. According to one witness, the perpetrator shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he started shooting. He was identified as 42-year-old Norwegian Iranian Zaniar Matapour.

The perpetrator then moved to two more nearby locations, including Per pÃ¥ hjørnet, a bar popular among the adult LGBT community, and a takeaway. Police were called at 01:15 local time, and arrived minutes later. The suspect was detained five minutes after the attacks. 80 to 100 people hid in the pub's basement during the attack, and wounded people were lying both inside and outside the bar with the police describing the scene as "chaotic".


Two people were killed and twenty-one more were injured, ten of whom were critically injured while the other eleven were slightly injured. The deceased victims were 60-year old Kaare Hesvik, a gay man celebrating pride, and 54-year old Jon Isachsen, both residing in Bærum.

According to Eskil Pedersen, many of those present in London Pub, including himself, were also on Utøya during the shooting by domestic terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.

This shooting was said to be the first one in Norway for 11 years.

It also recalled the Pulse shooting. On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man, killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Orlando Police officers shot and killed him after a three-hour standoff.

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June
25,
2022
Bolingbrook,
Illinois
12

WeatherTech shooting: Police were dispatched around 6:25 a.m. to WeatherTech Way after receiving reports that someone was shot. The suspect, identified as Charles C. McKnight Jr. of Chicago, fled the building but was located about three hours later at the back of a home on Larkspur Lane and taken into custody. A handgun was also found at the scene.

According to police, one victim died, one is in critical condition and a third was released from the hospital. All three are WeatherTech employees. The victim who died was identified as Central Hightower, 37, of Plainfield, Illinois. The critical condition victim is a 25-year-old man, and the third victim is a 43-year-old man.
June 30, 2022Allen, Kentucky3472022 shooting of Kentucky police officers: A man fired out the window of his home, shooting seven people, six of whom were law enforcement officers. Two of the officers died at the scene, and a third died in the hospital the day after. The third officer was a canine handler, and his dog also died.

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July 3, 2022: Copenhagen, Denmark mall shooting: On 3 July 2022, a man opened fire at the Field's shopping mall in Copenhagen, Denmark, killing three people and critically wounding three others. The mass shooting is the first in Denmark since the 2015 Copenhagen shootings.


The shooting took place at the Field's shopping mall located in Ørestad, a developing city area on Amager in Copenhagen. A man carrying a hunting rifle entered the mall sometime before 5:30 p.m. A photo showed him wearing knee-length shorts and a vest or sleeveless shirt. Police received the first shooting reports at 5:37 p.m. and arrested a man 11 minutes later. A witness said the shooter seemed violent and angry, running and shouting. During the attack, a number of people attempted to shelter in a KFC restaurant in the Field's Centre.


Three people were killed, and four more were wounded. Three people went to the Rigshospitalet trauma center. The deceased victims were a 17-year-old girl, a 17-year-old boy and a 47-year-old Russian man. Four of the wounded were seriously injured, including two Swedish citizens and two Danish citizens, and one remains in critical condition.

There are reports the white male chased Muslims to shoot them.

===============================================

4th of July 2022

July 4, 2022Highland Park, Illinois6+24+30+2022 Highland Park parade shooting: Six people were killed after a shooting during Highland Park's Fourth of July parade and a further 24 were injured.

Lake County sheriff’s office deputy chief Christopher Covelli said at the press conference Monday that the suspect was an 18- to 20-year-old white male with long black hair who should be 
considered "armed and dangerous."

The original name of Highland Park is St. John's.


Highland Park has several landmark structures listed in the National Register of Historic Places, notably the Willits House by Frank Lloyd Wright. In addition to several houses designed by Wright, the National Register lists homes designed by prominent architects including John S. Van Bergen, Howard Van Doren Shaw, Robert E. Seyfarth, and David Adler. Landscape architect Jens Jensen lived in Highland Park and designed a number of projects in the community that are listed on the register.

Highland Park, Illinois is known as the original home of Fate Magazine.



"About a third of the 30,000 residents in the suburb along Lake Michigan about 25 miles north of Chicago are Jewish, according to some estimates, and they include many Israelis. There are synagogues from multiple denominations, and substantial Jewish populations in many of the neighboring suburbs," notes The Cleveland Jewish News.

The suspect has been identified as 22-year-old Robert "Bobby" E. Crimo.



Below is Crimo photographed at a Trump rally in 2021.










Saturday, June 25, 2022

George W. Earley Passed Away in 2020

George, of course, was a wonderful correspondent. He would talk about his quiet life down the isolated lane where he lived near Mount Hood, and recall the glory days of Ufology. I was sorry to hear he left us a couple years ago. I ran across this notice recently of his passing.




George Whiteford Earley, 93, of Mt. Hood, Ore., died peacefully at home on Oct. 28, 2020. His death was eased by the presence of family members nearby and a glorious view of Mount Hood in the distance.

George was born to Carol and Guy Earley in Warrenton, Va., on Feb. 15, 1927. He attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., received a B.S. degree in aeronautics from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and earned his M.A. in political science from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. He served in the Air Force during the Korean War, including a year of overseas duty.

George married Margo Griffith in 1951 in Washington, D.C., and they made their first home in Wilmington, Del., before moving to Bloomfield, Conn., where they raised their four children. He worked as an administrative engineer for United Technologies in the early days of the Space program, and returned later to join the team of scientists building the very first large wind turbines. Between tenures at UTC, he served as the business administrator of First Congregational Church in West Hartford and as the energy auditor of public buildings throughout the state of Connecticut. His commitment of mind and heart to alternative energy gave him deep satisfaction for the rest of his days.

George spent every summer vacation backpacking with his family into wilderness areas all over the west, an adventure which led almost inevitably to the choice of Oregon for his retirement. In the Hood River Valley, he and Margo built a spacious home to welcome friends and family members throughout the year. He became a talented handyman indoors and out, plunged into the life of his new community, and spent many happy hours on snowy forest roads with dogsled and his beloved malamute, Thunder.



For 50 years, George was a prolific freelance writer, exploring a wide range of interests: Science fiction, space exploration, photography, Dixieland jazz, conservation, and what he termed “unexplained phenomena” — UFOs, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster. In 1968, he published an anthology of science fiction titled Encounters With Aliens. He wrote letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, and other articles for newspapers on both coasts. He formed a Connecticut chapter of the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena, served as president of the Connecticut Writers League, worked with writers’ groups in Hood River County, served as secretary of the Hood River Valley Residents Committee (now Thrive), and for 15 years was an enthusiastic member of Friends of the Hood River Library. His curiosity and witty humor never waned, and his speech was peppered with puns both good and bad, to the delight of his friends and the dismay of his wife.

George is survived by his wife of 69 years, Margo; his children and their spouses, David and Angela Earley of Wooster, Ohio, Steve and Anne Earley of Gisborne, Australia, Kate and Ken Downes of Shelburne Falls, Mass., and Christine and Todd Strickland of Lakewood, Colo.; 13 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.


Columbia Gorge News, November 6, 2020.



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George was a member of various Fortean organizations, and his work was often via reviews and critiques of cases. 

With regard to the account of the 1976 Bigfoot tracks in the Agawam, Massachusetts area, George was instrumental in finding and photographing the teenager's track cutouts. Here his daughter Christine displays them so George can photograph one cutout.




This photograph was in the November-December 1977 issue of INFO, the publication of the International Fortean Organization. Share by Paul Bartholomew.


Here is a photograph of Margo, George, and Christine from Facebook in 2014.


***



The UFO Hunters, Season 1, Episode 1, "The UFO Before Roswell," broadcast January 30, 2008.

Curt Collins of UFO Updates writes: "Here's a tribute to the life and work of George W. Earley that includes some of his rare newspaper articles."

see also

George's last published Fortean thoughts:


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Margo, George's wife of 69 years passed away within a few months of his death. 

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Margo Earley (Margaret Dyckman Griffith), born June 24, 1931, in Syracuse, N.Y., died peacefully at home on Feb. 5, 2021, with family by her side and in view of Mount Hood, as she wished. Margo grew up in Washington, D.C., graduating from Sidwell Friends School, before attending Oberlin College in Ohio, where she majored in zoology and minored in music. Four months later, on Sept. 8, 1951, she married George Earley, her husband of 69 years.

After a brief time in Wilmington, Del., then West Hartford, Conn., she and George moved to Bloomfield, Conn., where they lived for nearly 35 years, raising David, Steve, Kate and Christine. An avid hiker from childhood, for the next three decades Margo organized family summer camping and backpacking trips, initially in the Appalachian and Adirondack mountains, and then throughout the Rockies, Sierra Nevadas, and northwest Cascades, as well as into Canada, Alaska, and the European Alps. At home, she sang in the church choir — including a number of years as a paid soloist — served on school parent committees, volunteered at an inner-city hospital in Hartford, performed in a local theatre/operatic group, and began a lifetime commitment as a blood donor (more than 25 gallons).

An accomplished cook, Margo sustained her family on delicious meals, homemade bread and brownies, and well into their adulthood, she mailed to each child her divine homemade birthday cake, made tastier for the time in transit. Thanksgiving and Christmas were not complete without her traditional Baked Alaska.


In 1989, Margo and George moved to Oregon to begin a new life, pursuing a love of the wilderness and a passionate advocacy for the environment, while living on the lower slopes of Mount Hood. Together they raised a number of beloved malamutes, graciously welcomed countless friends from all over the world, hosted family gatherings, as well as the Lincoln High School Constitution Class’ annual winter retreat, community meetings, and First Aid and CPR training courses.

Over many summers, Margo volunteered on trail maintenance crews (Mazamas and Sierra Club) and, for more than 15 years, led numerous backpacking trips in the Northwest (including for the Sierra Club). During this time, she maintained certification in either Wilderness First Aid or Mountaineering First Aid, serving as First Aid Shepherd for Oregon Wild, the Wilderness Society and Friends of the Gorge on local hikes up and down the Columbia Gorge.

Margo also served for 15 years on the board of the Hood River Valley Residents Association (now THRIVE), and for 10 years on The Wilderness Society’s president’s council. She summited Mount Rainer (once) and Mount Hood (three times) and hiked more than 800 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, including all of the John Muir Trail. She could recite elevations of mountains she had climbed decades earlier and had an encyclopedic knowledge of almost every trail she had hiked.


Margo was also a gifted writer with a poetic turn of phrase — and some poetic license! — and her annual Christmas letters and family emails (written by hand, before typed) were always a delight to read.

A Sierra Club trip to the Everest region inspired Margo to support a Nepalese village 50 miles from Mount Everest, funding healthcare there for more than 15 years, eventually assisting the community to establish a medical clinic several years ago. It is no surprise that her two final tasks, before calling for an ambulance, were to finish casseroles for upcoming guests and send her 2021 donation to Nepal.

Margo is predeceased by her husband, George, her sister, Julia, and her grandson, Shawn. She is survived by her two brothers, Larry and Steve and their wives, four children and their spouses, 13 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. 


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Bookseller and friend Bob Gavora observed that as Margo was dying: "The family set up a bed in the living room facing Mt. Hood. She passed away peacefully viewing her mountain."

Thursday, June 23, 2022

Will A Ufologist Die On June 24, 2022?

by Loren Coleman, posted June 23, 2022, 2:37 pm EDT.



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In response to one of my past postings on ufologists dying on June 24ths, Robert Sheaffer, a skeptical author of Bad Ufos (2016), wrote to me, firmly tongue in cheek, at 1:28 pm, June 22, 2014:

"June 24th is coming up soon, so I'm going to be hiding under the bed."


The topic of the deaths of ufologists is oft-discussed in the field of ufology. 

In 1971, UFO author Otto Binder claimed that at least 137 UFO investigators had died under mysterious circumstances during the 1960s. Binder's 1971 Saga article, "Liquidation of the UFO Investigators," summarized his findings.


Tied to the specific date of St. John's Day, Otto Binder (1911-1975), as well as John Keel (1930-2009), noticed a number of “seemingly coincidental deaths in the UFO field on 24 June.” 





I have written about this special day in my first book The Unidentified (Warner Books, 1975, with Jerome Clark), in Curious Encounters (1985), and in Mothman and Other Curious Encounters (Faber and Faber, 2002). June 24th, every year since 1947, gets special attention from anniversary death watchers.

The past is prologue to the future.

Here is a quick overview of the notable ufo-related deaths on June 24:



June 24 (or 23?), 1964, Frank Scully, 72, author of one of the first crashed-saucer books, Behind the Flying Saucers (1950), dies.





June 24, 1967, two British UFO contactees, Arthur Bryant, a contactee, and Richard Church, an author and chairman of CIGIUFO, die. 



June 23, 1967, Frank Edwards, 55, popular UFO author and radio personality in the 1950s, dies a few hours before Arthur Bryant. James Moseley stunned the delegates assembled for the 1967 Congress of Scientific Ufologists at New York City’s Hotel Commodore on June 24th, with the news of the sudden death of Frank Edwards.



June 24, 1969, Willy Ley, 62, a rocket scientist and Fortean author, dies. Willy Ley was one of the first respected modern scientist to attempt to answer the question of what is a flying saucer. In 1952, he was one of the first, if not the first person, to say that 85% of UFO sightings are misidentified craft, leaving the other 15% open to notions of "interplanetary travel," that he began writing about in 1926.





June 24, 1973, Bud Westmore, 55, dies of a heart attack. 

Bud was a renowned Hollywood make-up artist of the famed Westmore family, and has been credited with doing make-up for 592 films, including It Came From Outer Space (1953), This Island Earth (1955), Tarantula (1955), The Deadly Mantis (1957), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), and scores of mainstream films, like Spartacus (1960).



The Westmore family has dominated make-up departments in Hollywood since Bud's father George created the business in 1917. They have kept visible in recent years due to McKenzie Westmore, who since 2011, has served as the host of the Syfy original series Face Off, a reality competition featuring makeup artists. Bud was the uncle to Michael Westmore, famed for his Star Trek work and the father of McKenzie.


June 24, 1978, Robert Charroux, 69, the best-known pen-name of Robert Joseph Grugeau dies. Charroux was a French author known for his ancient astronaut theories and writings on other Fortean subjects, in such books as Masters Of The World: Groundbreaking New Revelations About The Ancient Astronauts (1979).



June 24, 1987, Jackie Gleason, 71, the actor, who was an early advocate of flying saucer research, dies. Gleason's known interest in UFOs allegedly prompted President Richard Nixon to share some information with him and to disclose some UFO data publicly.




June 24, 1997, Brian Keith (see here), who starred in Meteor (1979; with Sean Connery and Natalie Wood), dies by suicide. 





June 24, 2006, Lyle Stuart, 83, the renegade publisher who published anomalist writer Frank Edwards’ Fortean book, in 1959, Stranger than Science, a paperbook full of information on ufology and other unexplained accounts, dies.


June 24, 2013, James Martin, 79, a former rocket scientist, computer scientist, and author of After the Internet: Alien Intelligence (2000), is found floating dead in the waters off Agar's Island. Dr. Martin bought Agar’s Island in 1977 and made his home in Bermuda. The multi-millionaire kept a relatively low profile in Bermuda.


June 24, 2013, Alan Myers, 58, the most prominent drummer (1976-1987) of the band Devo, dies of stomach cancer in Los Angeles. Devo played punk, art rock, post-punk and new wave music, and performed stage shows that mingled kitsch science fiction themes, deadpan surrealist humor, and mordantly satirical social commentary. Devo recorded at their own self-named "UFO Studios." More.


June 24, 2015, Mario Biaggi, 97, dies. The former Bronx congressman was involved in the "UFO disclosure" movement, and was once pictured on the cover of Ideal's UFO Magazine, December 1978, Number 4. Within the periodical, there appears the article, "Interview: Mario Biaggi 'There Is A UFO Cover-Up By The Government.'" On the cover, an image of Biaggi is shown with President Jimmy Carter. More.



June 24, 2018, RoswellX-Files, and The Shining television guest star Stanley Anderson dies. 


June 24, 2018, the Voice of New York radio during the Great Northeast Blackout (caused by UFOs?), Dan Ingram dies. See further information on Anderson, Ingram, and others who died in 2018, here.




June 24, 2019, news reporter Sean Dunleavy, dies. The journalist was a witness to and a participant in the famed Linda Cortile UFO abduction case of November 30, 1989, Manhattan, New York. Read more.




June 24, 2020, Wan Gengyu (Chinese: 万庚育) died at 98. She was born January 29, 1922, in Gansu. She was a Chinese painter, librarian & dunhuangologist [i.e. prominent scholar student of the Mogao Grottoes or Caves (also known as the Thousand Buddha Caves) built in the 4th-14th century. Caves appear to clearly show UFOs over the Buddhas, and Giants.]



Who will die on June 24, 2022, with links to ufology?