Twilight Language

Dan Rather's "Fib"

2012-01-30T08:02:00.001-05:00

Reporter Dan Rather, who was in Dallas, was able to see the Zapruder footage and later narrated the film to CBS national television coverage, claiming that he saw President John F. Kennedy's head "went forward with considerable violence."

Rather failed to mention the actual backward motion made famous in the Oliver Stone movie, JFK.

Rather's omission seemed to confirm that the single shooter theory with just Oswald firing from the rear.

When the Zapruder film initially became became public (in part due to Freddie Prinze's assistance to Geraldo Rivera in securing a copy to screen first), Dan Rather was forced to apologize, saying it was "an honest error."

Blue Balls Fall as Fortean Dies

2012-01-28T14:43:00.001-05:00

A long and true friend has died. Lou Farish of Arkansas, whom I corresponded with for years, said to me in the 1960s, "You write very good letters. You should write articles."

So I did.

I directly link that one kind statement from Lou as the spark to my formal writing to share my thoughts, resulting in getting published, via articles, books, blogs, and more.

When letters were the welcome gifts of friendship and exchange that came in my mailbox on a daily basis, I would look forward to the long communiques from Lou, filled with his thoughts, links, news clippings, and insights.

Some people may call Lou Farish a ufologist. But when I recall Lou, I think of fish rains, frog falls, and all types of Forteana. He would share the best tidbits with me in the 1960s-1970s. I shall always remember Lou as a Fortean, an archivist, a correspondent, and a good friend. Lou was interested in historical cases, and made a speciality of researching the 1890s airship cases. He took over the UFO Newsclipping Service, which also carried Forteana and Cryptozoology articles, from Rod Dyke, keeping in touch with his friends for years via that invaluable resource.

With the separate deaths last July 2011 of archivists Hilary Evans and Bill Corliss, then Bob Girard of Arcturus Books dying in August 2011, it does feel like Lou Farish's departuare signals another great passing of an incredible generations of old guard researchers who all were basically historical Forteana collectors.

The reports of Lou's death coming via that new instant communication tool, emails, informed me of the specific details of his passing.

My old co-author friend, Jerry Clark, like me, was an early 1960s' correspondent of Lou's. Jerry wrote about Lou: "We shared many interests, including pre-1947 ufology and Forteana. Some of the first 1897 clips I ever saw came from him, culled from newspapers in his native Arkansas. He was a wonderfully courteous, soft-spoken, friendly individual -- really, a gentleman of the old school. He was always a presence in my life and in the larger world of ufology. I was quite fond of him, and his passing, though not unexpected, saddens me."

Lou Farish had been suffering with cancer for some months, and was placed in hospice care last September 2011. He passed away on Thursday, January 26, 2012, at 4:55 pm, surrounded by friends, wrote another friend of Lou's, Jerry Blackburn. Blackburn, in his remembrance of Lou, shared this: "Since Lou did not have a wife, children or siblings, he left his estate, including 80 acres of land, to a trust to be used to encourage UFO research and education through awards, fellowships and mini-grants over the next several years."

Perhaps it is only a coincidence, but on Thursday afternoon, in Dorset, United Kingdom, a fall of mysterious small blue spheres from the sky occurred. About a dozen of the 3 cm round balls showered into Steve Hornsby's garden. (Thanks to Greg Taylor's Daily Grail Twitter feed, yet another form of communication hardly imagined in the 1960s, I was alerted to this strange Fortean fall happening so temporally close, a few hours, before Farish's death.)

Lou's memorial service will be held on Saturday, February 4th, at the Harris Funeral Home, 118 S. Moose Street, Morrilton, Arkansas. Harris Funeral Home published this official obituary:

Lucius O. Farish, age 74, of Plumerville, died January 26, 2012 at the River Chase Rehabilitation and Care Center in Morrilton, AR. He was born April 27, 1937 in Plumerville, AR, and was preceded in death by his parents, Claude D. Farish and Ruby Harris Farish Hubbard. Lou was known and respected for his intelligence and integrity by friends in Arkansas and around the world. He retired from both the U. S. Postal Service and the Arkansas National Guard with twenty years of service. He was an avid reader, and early in life developed a curiosity about UFOs and other unexplained phenomena. For almost twenty years, he edited the UFO Newsclipping Service, a monthly compilation of the best newspaper articles about UFOs from around the world. Also for twenty years he directed the Ozark UFO Conference, held each April in Eureka Springs, AR, drawing several hundred attendees annually to hear leading UFO researchers from the United States and other countries. A memorial service will be held at the Harris Funeral Home in Morrilton at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 4, with Rev. Don Erwin officiating. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society, P. O. Box 22718, Oklahoma City, OK 73123, or to the charity of one's choice.

Lou Farish, left, in November 2011, in hospice care, being visited by his good friend Jerry Blackburn. Photo: Jerry Blackburn. Used with permission.

Touch+23+5

2012-01-26T09:46:00.002-05:00

Interestingly, the new series Touch (from Heroes creator Tim Kring) screened their pilot on January 25, 2012. It happened to be the same day that Boing Boing, coincidentally, also decided to publish my essay, "23 + 5: Robert Anton Wilson Again."

As I wrote, "The 23s, 33s, and yes, 11s, heighten our awareness of the twilight language surrounding us."

Touch goes there too.

Touch is an American procedural and science fiction television series written and created by Tim Kring and starring Kiefer Sutherland. Fox officially picked up the series for a 13-episode season in September 2011. The series premiere is scheduled for Monday, March 19, 2012, Kiefer Sutherland's old 24 spot, with a preview on January 25, 2012.
Here are the characters, and their plot lines, thusfar:
Kiefer Sutherland as Martin Bohm – a former journalist and luggage handler whose wife was killed in the September 11 attacks.
David Mazouz as Jacob "Jake" Bohm – a mute boy who is obsessed with numbers and can predict future events. Mazouz will also serve as the narrator of the series.
Danny Glover as Professor Arthur DeWitt – an expert on children who possess special gifts when it comes to numbers.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Clea Hopkins – a social worker who is sent to do an evaluation of the Bohms’ living situation.
Roxana Brusso as Sheri – a former biker and the director of the facility that Jake attends.
Karen David as Kayla Graham – a woman who works at a call center and whose dream is to become a singer.

Martin Bohm (Kiefer Sutherland), is a widower and single father who is haunted by an inability to connect to his emotionally challenged 11-year-old son Jake (David Mazouz). But when Martin discovers that Jake can predict events before they happen, everything changes.

Will it be worth watching to see how the notion that "connecting the dots" can have favorable outcomes? The challenge is, can a form of narrative visual fiction about numbers and the twilight language be created for television, similar to the movies Knowing and The Number 23, without episodes ending in constant disasters? That is, something with a bit more humanity beyond Numb3rs.

"What Touch is trying to sell viewers, in the words of Kring, is 'social benefit storytelling.' Now, that’s different. What he means is that Touch will mostly (but not always) be infused with hope — that the interconnectivity of people in the universe can be used for good, that it can produce positive results (as the pilot clearly proves through a series of international, interconnected storylines set off by Jake’s numbers)," wrote Tim Goodman in The Hollywood Reporter.

Giglio: Costa Concordia-Titanic Link

2012-01-20T11:25:00.004-05:00

Off the Island of Giglio, on Friday, January 13, 2012, the cruise liner Costa Concordia ran aground just off the shore. Most of the more than 4,200 passengers and crew were rescued and taken to the island, as well as to the mainland. At least 11 people died and 64 were injured, with 22 or more still missing.

In this blog's previous posting, several links were noted between the Costa Concordia's sinking of 2012, and the Titanic sinking of 1912.

A new item discovered links to the name Giglio and deserves to be unfolded in this examination here.

Isola del Giglio or Giglio Island is an island and Italian comune situated in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coast of Tuscany, part of the Province of Grosseto. The island is one of seven that form the Tuscan Archipelago. Giglio means "lily" in Italian, and though the name would appear consistent with the insignia of Medici Florence, it derives from Aegilium, "Goat Island," a Latin transliteration of the Greek word for "little goat" (Aigýllion).

The name Giglio has a direct and significance connection to the Titanic, which is visibly and historically right in front of our eyes, literally, as played out in the reality and fictionalized versions of that disaster.

In chronicles of the 1912 tragedy, it is generally agreed that the most famous victim of the sinking of the Titanic was Benjamin Guggenheim (1865-1912). Benjamin Guggenheim, who lived in New York City and kept an apartment in Paris, was the fifth of seven sons of the wealthy mining magnate Meyer Guggenheim (1828–1905) and Barbara Myers (1834–1900).

Today, the name "Guggenheim" is well-known due to the art museum named after Benjamin's brother, Solomon R. Guggenheim (1861-1949), and the art collection donated to it by Benjamin's daughter, Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim (1898–1979). The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, founded in New York City, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The building has become a cultural icon and can be seen widely throughout popular culture. It is featured in Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle, Bye Bye Birdie, Men in Black, When in Rome, Downtown 81, Ugly Betty and prominently in The International, where a major shootout occurs in the museum. In fact, a life-size replica of the museum was built for The International's scene.

Benjamin Guggenheim's valet was named Victor Giglio (1888-1912), and therein the name game linking the Titanic and the Costa Concordia comes clearly into focus.

Guggenheim (pictured) boarded the RMS Titanic and was accompanied by his mistress, a French singer named Madame Léontine Aubart (1887–1964); his valet, Giglio; his chauffeur, René Pernot (1872–1912); and Madame Aubart's maid, Emma Sägesser (1887–1964). His ticket was number 17593 and cost £79 4s (other sources give the price as £56 18s 7d). He and Giglio occupied stateroom cabin B82 while Aubart and Sägesser occupied cabin B35. Pernot occupied an unknown cabin in second class.

Madame Aubart

Guggenheim and Giglio slept through the Titanic's encounter with the iceberg only to be awakened just after midnight ship's time by Aubart and Sägesser, who had felt the collision.

Sägesser later quoted Giglio as saying, "Never mind, icebergs! What is an iceberg?"

Guggenheim was persuaded to awaken and dress; Bedroom Steward Henry Samuel Etches helped him on with a lifebelt and a heavy sweater before sending him, Giglio, and the two ladies up to the Boat Deck.

As Aubart and Sägesser reluctantly entered Lifeboat No. 9, Guggenheim spoke to the maid in German, saying, "We will soon see each other again! It's just a repair. Tomorrow the Titanic will go on again."

Realizing that the situation was much more serious than he had implied, as well as realizing he was not going to be rescued, he then returned to his cabin with Giglio and the two men changed into evening wear. The two were seen heading into the Grand staircase closing the door behind them. He was heard to remark, "We've dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen."

He also gave a survivor a message saying, "Tell my wife, if it should happen that my secretary and I both go down, tell her I played the game out straight to the end. No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward."

Titanic's actual Grand Staircase, above.

Guggenheim and Giglio were last seen seated in deck chairs in the Staircase sipping brandy and smoking cigars. Both men went down with the ship. Their bodies, if recovered, were never identified. Guggenheim's chauffeur, René Pernot, was also lost in the disaster.

Chris Cragnotti's role of Victor Giglio in Titanic was uncredited.

The actor Michael Ensign plays Guggenheim and Chris Cragnotti plays Giglio in 1997's Titanic; they are shown drinking brandies, seated in chairs on the Grand Staircase as the flooding consumes the ship. Guggenheim and often Giglio are depicted in films about the Titanic in grand style, going down with the ship.

What do we know about the real-life Giglio? The notes on victim Victor Giglio at the Encyclopedia Titanica give the known summary:

Mr Victor Gaeton A. Giglio was born in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, England in 1888/89. He was probably of Italian extraction. Giglio was valet to Mr Benjamin Guggenheim they embarked the Titanic at Cherbourg (ticket number17593). Mr Guggenheim and Mr Giglio occupied cabin B-84. Mr Guggenheim's French chauffeur Mr Rene Pernot travelled second class. Shortly before the Titanic went down Giglio returned to his room and changed into his finest evening wear, his master, Mr Guggenheim did likewise. Mr Giglio, Mr Pernot and Mr Guggenheim were all lost in the sinking.
The Guggenheim family believed he was an Egyptian.

The assistant steward in the first cabin of the Titanic, James Etches, directly recounted to the Guggenheim family Benjamin Guggenheim's and Victor Giglio's last moment (see here). Etches thought Giglio was Armenian.

Giglio? Was he Italian, Egyptian, Armenian? The origins of the name, nevertheless, appear to be Italian.

Should we be surprised the Costa Concordia shipwrecked at Giglio Island?

Titanic Tragedy: Costa Concordia

2012-01-18T13:20:00.014-05:00

The ship that sank 100 years ago, on April 15th, was named RMS Titanic. But it had several nicknames: The Unsinkable Ship, The Last Word in Luxury, The Millionaire’s Special, The Wonder Ship, and The Ship of Dreams. It is doubtful we will see any ships with those kinds of nicknames ever again.

In the next few months, I thought, various essays would begin to appear about the Titanic.

Therefore, it was a surprise to receive a "breaking news" email from a friend about the events of last Friday the 13th, hinting at a new Titanic mess.

Brad Steiger is a well-known author of Fortean and related books. I wrote a "Foreword" to his reprinted edition of Strange Guests (NY: Anomalist Books, 2006), and recently have assisted with a bit of data in his and his wife Sherry's forthcoming updated edition of Conspiracies and Secret Societies.

I had been too busy to watch most of the news last week. But then something in the background was alerting me to be aware. News was beginning to tell of a cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, having hit rocks Friday night just off Italy's western coast. As I was just beginning to hear about the wreck, my buddy Brad sent this along: "Our daughter Kari's husband, Daniele, is a ranking officer in the carabineri, the Italian military police. For the last several years he has commanded a patrol boat. In the note [below] from Kari, who teaches English in Italy, she points out that the patrol boat in this news photo of the capsized cruise happens to be Daniele's."

6:50pm Jan 14

Last night at about 11:15, Daniele was awakened for an emergency. A cruise ship was in distress near the the Island of Giglio, about 2 hours from here. He was sleeping as they were scheduled for a normal night shift starting at 3am. They had no information, so I was was online and getting info off news reports before they arrived on scene. As you can see, the ship is totally on its side. The little boat happens to be Daniele's. They were finally relieved late this afternoon, so they could eat and sleep. Almost everyone is accounted for, but a couple hours ago, two more people were found on board the ship, still alive.

I began looking at photos being sent from the site of the wreck, and quickly saw this one (below), also apparently showing Steiger's son-in-law's boat.

It was one of those "small world" moments that drew me into this story more deeply. After all, this was not your ordinary story, as passengers were beginning to describe a chaotic and surreal scene as they rushed to evacuate the Costa Concordia (= "Coast Concord"). And now I was getting word that the degrees of separation from this awful scene were hardly a world away.

I was immediately reminded of how shocked I also once was to discover that another Fortean friend, author (of over 100 books) and correspondent Daniel Cohen was tragically tied to the Lockerbie tragedy. His daughter Theodora was a passenger on Pan Am Flight 103, and Daniel and his wife Susan would become major spoke people on behalf of the families of the 270 victims of that Lockerbie terrorism attack.

Irony? Coincidence? Fortean? "A passenger has revealed that the Celine Dion song 'My Heart Will Go On,' made famous by the 1997 film Titanic, was playing in one of the ill-fated cruise ship's restaurants at the very moment the [Costa Concordia's] hull was ripped open," wrote the Huffington Post. (The ear witnesses were said to be two Swiss brothers, Yannic and Keven Sgaga.)

Andrew W. Griffin has covered much of the comparative ground between the Titanic and the Costa Concordia at his insightful blog posting, "A night to remember in a year we'll never forget."

His comparison photos are worthy of reproducing to entice you to go read what he has to say:

An image of the Costa Concordia starting to sink off the Italian island of Giglio.

Red Dirt Report/Gawker.

A rendering of the Titanic [the movie version?] as it sinks bow-first into the

North Atlantic on April 14-15, 1912. Red Dirt Report/Dimensions Guide.

As the weekend went by, other photographs from the wreck of the Costa Concordia appeared that were remarkable to view, especially, as the images naturally reminded many of us of the Titanic.

One of the rocks in the hull.

A longer view of the damaged area.

The location of the disaster.

The stories of panic and less-than-organized efforts from the crew to rescue the passengers have been reinforced with images from cellphones.

The local police and coast guards were the heroes of the day. Meanwhile, the ship's captain allegedly left the ship before all were accounted for.

Some tales were truly scary.

Several passengers recounted how they had been watching a magic show when the ship ran aground, and the magician ran offstage leaving his assistant in a box. Finally, after some frantic moments, she was able to get someone to undo a latch releasing her. Rosalyn Rincon (shown above), from Blackpool, was trapped in the magic box as the Costa Concordia began to sink.

Crew, such as this young woman, were in other parts of the ship, when it went aground. Dancer Rose Metcalf, 22, was one of the last people to leave the Costa Concordia.

Captain Francesco Schettino is under arrest and may face charges that include manslaughter, shipwreck and abandoning a ship when passengers were still on board, chief prosecutor Francesco Verusio said. Abandoning ship has a sentence of 12 years in prison for a full conviction in Italy.

Costa is a subsidiary of the American-Israeli company, Carnival Corporation & plc. Its Israeli-born chief executive, Micky Arison, said on Twitter that his thoughts and prayers were with the passengers and crew.

Reports are still giving confusing totals, in terms of the dead and the missing. As of Wednesday, January 18, 2012, the death toll is reported to be at 11, and the number of missing is said to be 22 or 24 or 28, in various accounts. The bodies of five adult passengers — four men and one woman, all wearing lifejackets — were discovered in the wreckage Tuesday, raising the death toll to 11. Italian authorities on Wednesday identified the 24 passengers and four crew still missing, a number that includes the six bodies found since Monday. None of the dead have been identified. The missing included 13 Germans, six Italians, four French, two Americans and one person each from Hungary, India and Peru.

Another Titanic "coincidence" was mentioned in the London Telegraph's article on January 18, 2012:

News about the Titanic theme tune followed the revelation on Tuesday that an Italian grand daughter of a Titanic survivor was on board the Costa Concordia when it capsized.
"It was like reliving history, it was horrible, I was really shocked," said Valentina Capuano, 30, who managed to escape when the giant vessel foundered.
"I am still shaken up and get very upset when I think about what I've been through, I have heart palpitations," said Miss Capuana, who escaped the sinking vessel along with her fiancé, her brother and his girlfriend.
Her grandmother also survived the Titanic disaster but lost her brother....
The Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in 1912.

Valentina Capuano

Capuana's grandmother's brother Giovanni, who had been working as a waiter on the Titanic and hoped to begin a new life in America, was one of the 1,517 people who died in the disaster. In the official list of victims of the sinking of the Titanic, there is a Sig. Giovanni Basilico, 27, waiter, who died, but his body was never recovered. Valentina Capuano mentioned her grandmother's name was Maria. (No "Maria Capuano" or "Maria Basilico" or anyone with the first name "Maria" born in Italy is to be found in the list of survivors. She must have used a different name.)

The first victim of the wreck of the Costa Concordia has been identified as violinist Sándor Fehér, 38, who was among 11 people confirmed dead from the ship that carried 4,200 passengers.

Sándor Fehér

Fehér had helped a number of crying children to put on lifejackets, and he was wearing a lifejacket himself when he apparently went back to his cabin to pack his violin, pianist Jozsef Balog said, according to Laurie Niles at Violinist.com. Niles also noted that Fehér came from a musical family -- both his father and grandfather played the violin -- and started playing the violin when he was six years old. He graduated in 1998 from the Franz Lizst Academy in Budapest, where he studied with László Dénes.

In reality in 1912 and as shown in the James Cameron film Titanic, as the great ship sank 100 years ago, the musicians played "Autumn" and died. They were honored for their courage with large funerals (some numbering 40,000 attendees) and memorials.

The difference in death tolls between the two ships is great and this need not be overlooked. The Titanic’s death toll was 1,517. The Costa Concordia’s death toll, at the time of this writing, is eleven. Relative percentage of Deaths: Titanic 68 percent vs. Costa Concordia .25%, one-quarter of 1 percent.

The Costa Concordia was actually bigger than the Titanic. The Titanic was 882 feet and 8 inches long (268 meters) and had a tonnage of 46,000. The Costa Concordia was larger, with a tonnage of 114,500 and a length of 951 feet and 5 inches (290 m). The width of the Titanic was 92.5 feet (28 m), compared with 118 feet (36 m) for the Costa Concordia.

PW: Ritual America

2012-01-17T10:21:00.014-05:00

Publishers Weekly has published this review:

Ritual America:
Secret Brotherhoods and Their Influence on American Society:
A Visual Guide

Adam Parfrey and Craig Heimbichner, foreword by Loren Coleman. Feral House (Consortium, dist.), $29.95 paper over board (380p) ISBN 978-1-936239-14-6

There have been hundreds of clandestine clubs in America, but as Coleman notes in the foreword, we “[do] not know much about the hidden landscape in which we live everyday.” In unmasking this “widespread covert reality”—a motley group of secret societies from Elks and Masons to the Ku Klux Klan, the Bohemian Club, and the Rosicrucians—Heimbichner, a contributor to Paranoia magazine, and Parfrey (editor of Apocalypse Culture) survey secret passwords, garments, handshakes, songs, and initiations to show how these offbeat orders and brotherhoods have shaped America. The pages are packed with unusual images, many not previously printed, in paper ephemera, postcards, cartoons, sheet music, and art by numerous illustrators, along with kooky costumes and helmets. Controversial figures such as Scientology’s L. Ron Hubbard and “Masonic Pope” Albert Pike are profiled. One bizarre section has ads for items (like axes) used in hazings and sadistic initiation pranks. The military is described as “a bastion of Masonic membership,” and a dubious connection is drawn between waterboarding and “fraternal traditions.” The total effect is that of a tattered, bulging scrapbook of outré oddities on high-quality slick paper with an attractive graphic design. (Mar.)

Top Ten Evil Clowns of 2011

2012-01-08T13:05:00.004-05:00

Top Ten Evil Clowns of 2011
by Loren Coleman, Author of The Copycat Effect. (New York: Paraview Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2004.)

Following in the tradition of my list from 2008, my notes on evil clowns (and Joker clones) that turned up in 2009, and my documenting of real killer clowns in 2010, here is a random "top ten" gathering of "evil clown" stories for 2011.

(1) Clown Caught on Tape Stealing Cash Register

An evil clown stole a cash register on December 8, 2011, from the K-Mart at Mohawk and Huron streets, Corpus Christi, Texas.

(2) Insane Clown Hits Hobo Pantry

According to a Dothan, Alabama police statement, a robbery took place around 12:45 a.m. on Tuesday, April 26, 2011, at the Hobo Pantry store. The police reported a man armed with knife stole some cash and ran from the store toward Westgate Parkway.The robber as a white male, about 6 feet tall, who weighed 175 to 180 pounds, had blue or green eyes, wore desert camouflage pants, a black hooded sweater with red and green animated pictures on it along with the black and white Insane Clown Posse mask over his head.

(3) Kent Clown Caught At Chatham

Mitchell Woods, 17, of Thrasher Close, Haggerston, East London, was sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court on Monday, May 9, 2011, after pleading guilty to possessing a prohibited firearm and possessing ammunition without a certificate, to three years in jail. On January 29, 2011, Woods was arrested by a Kent Police Armed Response unit at Higham rail station, after officers were called to the station by a concerned member of the public, who, while waiting for a train at Chatham, overheard Woods talking to some friends about carrying a gun. The Hackney teenager was caught carrying a loaded gun and a clown mask (seen above) on a train in Kent. The gun had been previously used in three gang-related shootings in London, one in which someone had been shot three times with the weapon, according to media accounts.

(4) Clown Uses Car To Hit & Drag Person

On Tuesday, May 10, 2011, Andrew Joseph Davis, 20, was arrested for running down a person with his car and dragging the individual 100 feet. The Oklahoma incident resulted in the above mug shot of Davis, which was published by Smoking Gun.

Police were called after eyewitnesses saw a driver wearing the distinctive face paint swerve across the road near Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and hit a pedestrian before accelerating. Nearby residents reported that the two men in the black-colored sedan shouted "Woop! Woop!" as they zoomed away from the scene.

(5) Northern Irish Clowns Attack

At about 8 PM local time (2000 GMT) on Tuesday, March 22, 2011, two men with baseball bats called to a flat in Barnagh Grove and assaulted the 42-year-old who lives there. The man's arm was broken and he suffered other injuries. He was taken to a hospital for treatment, according to the BBC.

Police said the attackers were wearing "clown-type masks" and black clothing. This assault by two men wearing clown masks took place in Donaghadee, a small town (population about 6,500) in County Down, Northern Ireland. The town lies about 18 miles (29 km) east of Belfast. Donaghadee is known as a significant site from the Irish Rebellion of 1798. On the morning of Pike Sunday, June 10, 1798, a force of United Irishmen (a guerilla force, not unlike the revolutionaries contemporary in America and France), mainly from Bangor, Donaghadee, Greyabbey and Ballywalter, Ireland, attempted to occupy the town of Newtownards. They met with musket fire from the market house and were defeated.

(6) Clowns Want To Be Plez'ed

Law enforcement officials in Anderson, South Carolina, said a robber wearing a clown mask held up a convenience store at gunpoint on Wednesday night, December 28, 2011. Employees at the Plez U on Concord Road were playing cards when a 5' 7" person with a male voice walked in around 9 p.m. wearing a green and white mask with red hair, a brown hoodie, and gloves.

The person showed a silver revolver and demanded money from the cash register. The person then left after telling everyone inside that they had five seconds to get on the floor.

The robbery is one of three during December 2011, in Anderson County, involving someone wearing a mask and holding up a store at gunpoint. On Old Williamston Road, a High Volume convenience store was robbed Dec. 14 by a man also wearing a clown mask. Investigators say the mask is similar to the one worn by the person at the Plez U. Surveillance video also shows that on Dec. 8, a Stop-A-Minit in Belton was robbed by a man wearing an alien mask and carrying a gun.

(7) Serial Killer Clown's Paintings Go On Sale

In May 2011, it was announced that the paintings of John Wayne Gacy were trying to be sold. Gacy is the Evil Clown come to Earth; he raped and murdered 33 young men and boys in the 1970s. Yes, he also did some art in prison. During 2011, according to the Big Picture, "an art gallery in Las Vergas [sic] is trying to selling [sic] the paintings to raise money for the National Center for Victims of Crime."

The organization, however, petitioned to have its name removed from any connection to this auction, to the Las Vegas gallery, and to the artwork.

(8) Californian Kier Charged With Attempted Montana Murder

Dante Kier called himself "Refry Demon" online.

A California man faces three felony charges, including attempted murder, after police say he stabbed a Kalispell, Montana, homeowner during a December 12, 2011, home invasion because “it felt good.”

Prosecutors with the Flathead County Attorney’s Office have charged Dante Kirpal Kier, 19, of Santa Barbara, Calif., with attempted deliberate homicide, aggravated burglary and assault with a weapon. All three charges are felonies.

Homeowner Brian Bay was fixing the dishwasher in his southeast Kalispell house when he went out to the garage to get a tool. His wife and children were home as well. When he returned inside, Bay said he saw Kier in the hallway. Bay confronted the intruder, who had a weapon in his hand. During the confrontation, Kier allegedly stabbed Bay in the upper arm and inside his mouth. Kier then tried to stab Bay in the ribs numerous times with what turned out to be a wood-handled steak knife. Investigators said the blade was “bent severely” after the stabbing. Bay wrestled Kier to the ground and held him while his wife called the police at about 9:35 p.m. Officers arrived and arrested Kier. Police say Bay’s wife and children were unharmed during the incident.

When police officers canvassed the neighborhood, several of the Bays’ neighbors said they found notes on their windows that said, “Your house is being watched tonight by … the creeps.”

Kier also allegedly told police that he is a member of the Insane Clown Posse gang, and referred to himself as a Juggalo. (There's a long documented history and debate about ICP-inspired crime, see here and here, but this specific list is about the clown aspect, please note.)

(9) Clown Arrested On Rape Charges

A cold case of a clown raping a young girl was solved in Fullerton, California, in October 2011.

See the video report here.

(10) Killer Santa Strikes Again

My 2008 list ended with the ultimate evil twisted clown-like finale to the year of 2008, when a costumed man, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, 45, plotting revenge against his ex-wife, dressed up in a Santa Claus suit, went to his former in-laws' Christmas Eve party and slaughtered nine people. He then burned their house down before killing himself hours later. The Killer Santa killings took place on East Knollcrest Drive, Covina, California.

It happened again, in 2011.

Grapevine, a Dallas suburb, is dubbed the "Christmas Capital of Texas." It was there where a Christmas Day rampage occurred. A gunman who killed six people and himself at a family Christmas celebration was dressed in a Santa Claus suit when he opened fire, local police said. The dead were four women and three men, ages 15 to 59. The victims appeared to have just opened Christmas presents when the shooting started in the Lincoln Vineyards, a middle-income complex near Colleyville Heritage High School, one of the area's most highly regarded schools.

Authorities later identified the shooter as a 56-year-old Persian man, Aziz Yazdanpanah, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife, with whom he was having marital and financial problems, like Aziz, was born in Iran; their children were American-born.

(+ 2012) Santa Again

The Daily Star is reporting that on Christmas Eve, Friday, January 6, 2012, (the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem is one of the Orthodox churches that celebrate Christmas on January 7th, following the Julian calendar), there has been another Santa suit murder.

Six Israeli Arabs have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Christmas Eve killing of a prominent Christian leader in Jaffa by a man reportedly wearing a Santa suit, police say. Lawyer and accountant Gabriel Cadis was stabbed fatally on Friday after a parade in the historic Mediterranean port district marking the day before Christmas, according to the calendar followed by the Greek Orthodox Church in the Holy Land.

Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri noted, "The killer could have been disguised as Father Christmas but we're not sure."

"Initial inquiries suggest that there was not a nationalist motive to the murder, that is to say that it was not connected to the Arab-Jewish conflict. We are following all leads, including rumours of a dispute within the Greek Orthodox community in Jaffa over the victim's recent re-election as leader of the Jaffa Orthodox Church Association," she said.

Top Ten Evil Clown Stories of 2011

© Loren Coleman, 2012

P.S. Hopkinsville

2011-12-21T19:54:00.001-05:00

P.S. Hopkinsville

After finishing my earlier posting (see here), about Hopkinsville and Budd Hopkins having temporal links for August 21st, a postscript presented itself about other people links and "coincidences," regarding that situation.

"Hopkinsville hobgoblin" attacks a member of the Sutton family, 1955.

Budd Hopkins during his early lectures, as in this one from 1967, began to develop the concept of "missing time" and "alien abductions" due to the "intruders."

"Hopkinsville," as the tagging label grew to be known, is all about the Kelly-Hopkinsville "hobgoblins," reported in 1955.

Two of the most mentioned investigators linked to that incident are (1) J. Allen Hynek (May 1, 1910 - April 27, 1986), ufologist who developed the close encounter scale and consulted on the making of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (released on November 16, 1977), and (2) Isabel Davis, ufologist who authored Close Encounters of Kelly and Others of 1955 (1978).

Davis was from New York City, and investigated the Kelly-Hopkinsville event a year after it happened. Hynek, living in the Chicago area, examined the details of the case by talking to Davis and one other investigator. Who was that person and how did Hynek and Davis learn the most about the Kelly incident? They received their most credible firsthand data from an individual they would call a friend years later: Andrew "Bud" Ledwith, an announcer-engineer at a Hopkinsville radio station.

Yes, another Bud.

Bud Ledwith was there first. On August 22, 1955, it was Andrew "Bud" Ledwith of WHOP radio who interviewed the seven adult witnesses in two different groups. He judged their accounts as consistent, especially in their descriptions of the strange glowing beings. It is Bud Ledwith's drawings that are most often reworked and used when talking about the Kelly creatures.

Bud Ledwith's sketches were made under the instructions of the eyewitnesses.

Now here is the strange part. Years later, in 1977, I met Bud Ledwith, face-to-face. He was working as the host of a small Boston-area radio station talk show. He invited me to come into his studio so he could interview me about the April 21-22, 1977, sightings of the Dover Demon. Only after I was there, after we began to talk, did I discover that he was the same Bud Ledwith who was in Hopkinsville in 1955.

What a strange coincidence, I thought. The Dover Demon was so very bizarre in description, I had already researched seemingly similar isolated historical cases of small creatures. Naturally, I had compared the Dover Demon with the Kelly hobgoblins. And then I find I stumble into the primary investigator in that case? It all seemed rather unbelievable.

Walt Webb, then the Assistant Director of the Hayden Planetarium at Boston's Science Museum, would write, in his special report, about this overlap that all of us were discussing back then: "Loren was the first to note some resemblance between the Dover entity and the famous Kelly, Kentucky, 'little men' incident of 1955," (see page 55, in Mysterious America).

So, there I found myself, sitting with Bud Ledwith, 22 years after he interviewed the Kentucky creature witnesses. I was talking about the bright orange Dover Demon, and then we discussed the silvery Kelly creatures. It all seemed a little weird at the time, and still does today.

To think now of the links between Budd Hopkins/Hopkinsville, and Bud Ledwith/Hopkinsville, in the context of Bud, me, the Dover Demon, and Budd, is beyond strange.

I met Bud Ledwith in April 1977, because of the Dover Demon, and met Budd Hopkins for the first time at the Mass UFO Show/Mass Monster Mash in 2008. I had spoken at the previous Mass Monster Mash, presenting a 30th Year Anniversary Dover Demon PowerPoint presentation in 2007.

Digging a bit, the links from Isabel Davis, through Bud Ledwith and Hopkinsville, to Budd Hopkins are rather direct, historically. It all has ties to the old CSI.

The Civilian Saucer Intelligence (CSI) was an independent unidentified flying object research group founded in New York City in 1954. It was initially called Civilian Saucer Intelligence New York, but the "New York" was quickly dropped from their name.

Jerome Clark writes, "Though its membership was small, what the organization lacked in quantity it made up in quality of its personnel," (Clark, Jerome, The UFO Encyclopedia: 2nd Edition; Volume 1, A-K; Omnigraphics, Inc, 1998, page 188). CSI's core personnel were Ted Bloecher, Isabel Davis, and Alexander Mebane.

Though the group never formally disbanded, CSI was defunct by 1959. However, Davis and Bloecher were active in UFO research into the 1980s, Davis as a NICAP associate. Notably, Bloecher investigated an early 1970s UFO sighting made by young New York City painter, Budd Hopkins; in later years, Hopkins would become a key figure in the alien abduction scene.

I truly am not sure what any of it means, but it is worth a little Fortean pondering.

Kelly-Hopkinsville hobgoblin (1955)

Dover Demon (April 1977)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (November 1977)

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Gremlins (1984); Gremlins 2 (1990)

Hopkinsville + Budd Hopkins / August 21st

2011-12-20T11:24:00.006-05:00

Peter Park sends along the following:

One curious twilight-language coincidence I myself have long noticed but which I've never to my recollection seen in accounts of the 1955 Sutton farmhouse alien siege is the fact that Hopkinsville, KY, was the birthplace and home town of famous psychic and "sleeping prophet" Edgar Cayce. I've long been a little surprised that Christian fundamentalists who see anything "occult," "New Age," or "psychic" as "of the Devil" haven't picked up on the Sutton case, with its decidedly demonic-looking "goblins," as just some of Edgar Cayce's buddies paying a rerturn visit to his home town!

Several twilight insights can be said about this.

First off, in January 2008, Mac Tonnies (pictured above) looked at the Hopkinsville + hobgoblin 1955 invasion + Edgar Cayce "name game" link, here.

(Mac Tonnies was found dead on October 22, 2009, the same day that American comedian and television personality Soupy Sales died. October 22, 362 is remembered for a mysterious fire that destroyed the Temple of Apollo at Daphne outside Antioch.)

One of the 1955 creatures attacks. Illustration from Mysterious America.

The time period of the Kentucky sightings occurred between 8:00 p.m. and 4:45 a.m Central Time. This "attack" occurred on, please note this date, August 21, 1955, through the morning of August 22nd. Tonnies also mentioned Budd Hopkins in conjunction with the Hopkinsville event. The name game is a natural with Hopkinsville and Budd's last name.

Tonnies wrote at his blog: "Skeptics will point out that 'Hopkins' is hardly an unusual name. But there are enough cases of synchronicity within UFO research alone to justify a closer, more rigorous analysis. Perhaps Fortean events unfold in a barely glimpsed 'Matrix,' their manifestations only partially perceptible to baseline human consciousness."

In my book Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation's Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures, I dealt with the 1955 events, the name game (like Lafayette = “the little fairy” or “the little enchantment”), the devil meaning behind "hob" and "hobgoblins," and my further interest in links to dates.

William Mott, rephrasing and extending my notes, shared the following at Mac's blog,

"Hob" is an ancient appellation for a demon, goblin, or devil. The stretch to "Hobkin" or "Hopkin," i.e., "goblinkind" or "devilkind," is another connection in all this. Hobyahs, hobgoblins, etc. bear this out.

We have here a Fortean case of names and dates colliding across time and space.

Budd Hopkins died on, get this, August 21, 2011, at 1:35 p.m. ET.

What gives with August 21st? Hopkinsville hobgoblins in 1955 and Budd Hopkins' death in 2011.

Dipping into the events of August 21st, I find these quick examples: In 1945, on August 21st, physicist Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the Demon core at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, near the 33 degree north latitude. In 1968, Soviet Union-dominated Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia. In 1971, Black Panther George Jackson was killed (some say "assassinated") in a shootout with police at the Marin County Courthouse, the last commissioned building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1983, Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. is assassinated at the Manila International Airport.

For more on Tonnies's ideas, see his book, The Cryptoterrestrials: A Meditation on Indigenous Humanoids and Aliens Among Us (NY: Anomalist Books, 2010), which was published soon after his death.

I have to point out that the "Hopkinsville invasion" actually took place in Kelly, Kentucky, located 8 miles north of Hopkinsville, and Cayce was born 10 miles away, in Beverly, south of Hopkinsville, straight down Lafayette Road.

Nevertheless, Cayce is most often said to have been born in "Hopkinsville," and the "little silver hobgoblins" were remembered as having attacked in "Hopkinsville," because of the 1955 newspaper and Air Force accounts associating that town with those events.

Meanwhile, Happy Winter Solstice everyone. In Hopkinsville, Kentucky, this year, that's December 21st. In 2011, the December solstice takes place on Wednesday, December 21 at 11:30 p.m. CST (Thursday, December 22 at 5:30 UTC).

Korea's 9/11 Twin Towers: What Were They Thinking?

2011-12-14T14:40:00.003-05:00

Will these two buildings appear in Seoul, South Korea in 2016? What were the people that put together these plans thinking? A mere coincidence? The twilight language working overtime in a Dutch firm? What's going on here?

South Korean developers may be backing down from plans to erect two luxury apartment buildings that some say resemble the World Trade Center buildings exploding as they were hit by planes on 9/11.

The building design had been pitched by Dutch architecture firm MVRDV for erection in Seoul, South Korea.

But according to new reports, the design is on hold now.

After the uproar online and beyond, telling of the controversy about the design of the buildings, MVRDV issued apologies on its website and Facebook page. The Facebook entry reads as follows:

A real media storm has started and we receive threatening emails and calls of angry people calling us Al Qaeda lovers or worse.

MVRDV regrets deeply any connotations The Cloud projects evokes regarding 9/11, it was not our intention.

Florence Attack by Author of The Key of Chaos

2011-12-13T20:28:00.002-05:00

Leige, Belgium, was shaken by a seemingly random lone individual's attack on the city. Something similar happened in Florence, Italy, on the same day.

Photos from Leige (above) and Florence (below) looked eerily similar on 13 December 2011 (13.12.11).

The killer in Italy was a right-wing author who published a newsletter for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien.

An Italian far-right author shot dead two Senegalese vendors and wounded three in Florence on Tuesday (13 Dec. 2011) before killing himself in a daylight shooting spree that prompted outpourings of grief in the historic city.

Witnesses said they saw the gunman calmly getting out of a car at a street market on Piazza Dalmazia, north of the city centre, and firing off three shots that instantly killed two vendors and seriously wounded a third.

The white assailant was identified by authorities as 50-year-old Gianluca Casseri.

The International Business Times ran this profile of Casseri:

Expert of right-wing European culture and passionate about fantasy and conspiracy books, the middle-aged man published many articles on the Germanic folklore, before founding literary magazine La Soglia or The Threshold in 2001. Issues included monographic volumes about Conan, Dracula, Tolkien, Lovecraft and other fantasy authors.
His favourite authors were Ezra Pound, Friedrich Nietzsche and Julius Evola. In 2010 he wrote along with Enrico Rulli Le chiavi del caos or The Key of Chaos, described as "a kind of alchemical play in the magic Prague of Emperor Rudolf II".
Initial reports suggest that he belonged to Casa Pound movement.
Named after the American Fascist poet Ezra Pound, Casa Pound is a neo-fascist movement born in Rome in 2003, when it squatted a state-owned building in the central neighbourhood of Esquilino. It soon developed as a national organisation and then proceeded to branch out into numerous cities in the country.

After Casseri's initial attack, he moved on to the San Lorenzo market in the centre -- a popular destination for the thousands of tourists who visit Florence every day -- where he wounded two more vendors.

Casseri then turned the gun -- a Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver according to news reports -- on himself after he was surrounded by police.

Around 200 Senegalese marched through the city in an angry protest after the shootings, shouting "Shame!" and "Racists!"

Hundreds of immigrants were later seen praying on their knees in tears in front of Florence's famous cathedral.

"The heart of Florence is crying today," Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi said in a Twitter message, declaring the city would hold a day of mourning Wednesday and would pay to repatriate the bodies to Senegal.

"I think the pain for the lives that have been cut short is not only for the Senegalese community but for all the citizens of our city," Renzi said.

International Cooperation and Integration Minister Andrea Riccardi and a Senegalese imam will attend a ceremony at Florence city hall on Wednesday.

"The Senegalese are good people, people who never get into trouble, who work every day," one Senegalese man told news channel SkyTG24.

Another man said: "These lads who were killed were only earning money for their wives, their fathers, their children."

Roccangelo Tritto, a spokesman for local Carabinieri police, told AFP that the man wounded at Piazza Dalmazia would live but remain paralysed for life.

The other two men were also in a serious condition -- one with a wound to the abdomen and another shot in the chest.

Casseri was the author of fantasy novels including "The Key of Chaos" about a wizard, a mathematician and an alchemist, which enjoyed some popularity.

He also wrote an academic paper about Dracula folklore and was the editor of a niche magazine about fantasy and horror fiction and comics.

Casseri lived on his own in the Tuscan countryside near Pistoia.

He was also a member of Casa Pound, a right-wing community group that is seen as more intellectual than other far-right organisations.

"He was a bit strange, a bit of a loner but he didn't seem crazy. He was living in his own world," said Fabio Barsanti, a regional coordinator for Casa Pound.

"He didn't seem capable of doing something like this," he said, adding: "We are against any type of violence. We consider the Senegalese humans like us."

Barsanti said Casseri was known locally mostly as a World War I buff.

While Casa Pound distanced itself from Casseri's actions, left-wingers were quick to pin the blame on a climate of racism in the country.

Walter Veltroni, a lawmaker from the centre-left Democratic Party, said the shootings were "a terrorist attack by a right-wing extremist."

"What happened in Florence is the product of a climate of intolerance against foreigners that has grown over the years," he said.

Nichi Vendola, leader of the Left, Ecology and Liberty party, condemned what he said was "a racist and fascist Italy that sows hatred."

At the scene of the first shooting in Piazza Dalmazia, eyewitnesses quoted by Italian media said they were in shock and a newspaper seller said the gunman told him: "Get out of the way or I'll bump you off next."

"I heard the shots but I thought they were fireworks. Then I turned around and I saw three men on the ground in a pool of blood," one vendor said.

Another man said: "There are often Senegalese guys here who sell the usual stuff, they don't bother anyone and no one was expecting this."

African vendors can be seen on the streets of Italy's main cities selling sculptures, trinkets and fake designer handbags. They are often selling their wares illegally but are popular with tourists and local residents.

Last summer in Norway, a Norwegian man apparently motivated by a hatred of immigrants went on a bomb and shooting spree that killed 77 people.

Leige Attack: 4 Dead, 123 Hurt

2011-12-13T14:54:00.001-05:00

Number of people injured in Liege, a city situated in the Meuse River valley, due to today's attack, now stands at 123 - AP

Belgian prosecutor says death toll in Liege attack is now 4, including 2 teenagers - AP

A gunman has opened fire in the centre of the Belgian city of Liege, killing at least four people and wounding 123.

The man also threw grenades into a crowded square from a rooftop before killing himself, reports say.

He was named as Nordine Amrani, aged 33. He was known to police for firearms offences. Officials said the attacker acted alone, ruling out terrorism.

Medical sources later said two other injured, including a baby girl, had died. This has not been confirmed.

The central square in front of the Palais de Justice remains cordoned off this evening.

The Christmas market is dark and empty, but it was very different this lunchtime. Scores were enjoying a festive shopping experience when the man now named as Nordine Amrani began shooting and throwing explosives. People began running, screaming, children amongst them.

While the 33-year-old attacker was known to the police, having previously faced drug and weapons charges, officers say they currently don't know why he carried out this terrible act.

Amrani was jailed for 58 months in September 2008 for possessing firearms and drugs, media reports said.

Officials did not confirm this, but said they were aware he had spent some time in prison.

Belgian Prime Minister Elio di Rupo, visiting the scene, described the attack as "horrible".

"There are no words to describe this tragedy," he said.

"We think first and foremost of the innocent victims, their family and friends. We also think of all the people working at the scene and more generally of the people of Liege.

"The whole country shares the pain of the families affected. We share the shock of the population."

Belgium's King Albert and Queen Paola also came to pay their respects.

Amrani had been asked to come for an interview at a police station in connection with charges against him.

A resident of Liege, he left home with a rifle, a pistol and three grenades in a bag, prosecutors said.

Greg Ienco, a journalist at local newspaper La Meuse-Liege, described the scene of the attack.

"We saw four explosions. I was in a building 200m from Saint-Lambert Square," he said.

"It was quite incredible. We saw one man on the roof who tried to kill people. This man killed himself with a grenade."

Two of the people confirmed dead were boys aged 15 and 17, the third a 75-year-old woman.

TV images showed blood splattered across the cobblestones of the square.

Several people are reported to be in a serious condition.

Medical staff at a field hospital at the scene treated 52 of the injured. Some others made their own way to other hospitals.

Roads into the centre of Liege were sealed off but vehicles are now coming back into the city.

Explosives experts were called in to search the area for unexploded grenades. People were initially told to stay in buildings but are now returning to the streets.

Place Saint-Lambert is a busy intersection, served by hundreds of buses daily. It hosts an annual Christmas market which attracts some 1.5 million visitors a year.

"Le Quinze Août" celebration takes place annually on August 15 in Outremeuse and celebrates the Virgin Mary. It is one of the biggest folkloric displays in the city, with a religious procession, a flea market, dances, concerts, and a series of popular games. Nowadays these celebrations start a few days earlier and last until the 16th. Some citizens open their doors to party goers, and serve "peket", the traditional local alcohol. This tradition is linked to the important folkloric character Tchantchès (Walloon for François), a hard-headed but resourceful Walloon boy who lived during Charlemagne's times. Tchantchès is remembered with a statue, a museum, and a number of puppets found all over the city.

Liège hosts one of the oldest and biggest Christmas Markets in Belgium.

The Saint Nicholas festival around the 6 December is organized by and for the students of the University; for 24 hours, the students (wearing very dirty lab-coats) are allowed to beg for money for drinking.

Ritual America

2011-12-12T20:09:00.004-05:00

The end of the year is a good time to look ahead to forthcoming books. Three new 2012 books noted here have "forewords" by me.

For this blog specifically, I would like to mention a fourth book. This one is due on Valentine's Day 2012, and is a "twilight language" offering with a "foreword" in line with much of what you have read on these pages.

That new book is entitled Ritual America: Secret Brotherhoods and Their Influence on American Society: A Visual Guide by Adam Parfrey and Craig Heimbichner (Feral House, 2012).

VA Tech's Garuda Again?

2011-12-11T08:15:00.002-05:00

This was the week of a powerful lunar eclipse on December 10, 2011 (beginning at 6:06 am PST) followed by the deadly Mexico City to Acapulco 6.5-6.7 earthquake, which struck almost exactly twelve hours after the eclipse. Added to those events, the previous week's wave of WV, CA, MA, FL and other multiple shootings, plus the NH mall attack, and one has a general uneasy sense that it was, indeed, a weird and stressful time.

Now in the midst of all of this, the links to Garuda and VA Tech present themselves again into our consciousness. Let's take a quick connect-the-dots detour around this landscape.

An Indonesian student activist died late Saturday (December 10, 2011) after setting himself ablaze in a political protest, according to news sources: "Police say an Indonesian student activist has died after setting himself on fire in front of the presidential palace. Sondang Hutagalung, 22, set himself ablaze across from the palace in downtown Jakarta….The activist was last seen joining a Sept. 7 protest demanding justice for Munir Thalib, a prominent activist who died in 2004 of arsenic poisoning during a flight with national carrier Garuda."

National carrier Garuda?

How was Munir Thalib assassinated?

"Munir was poisoned with arsenic on a flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam on September 7, 2004. He was travelling on state-owned airline Garuda Indonesia. It was concluded from Munir's autopsy and eye witnesses during the trial, that he had died two hours before arrival in Schiphol, Amsterdam. He took the arsenic during his flight transit in Singapore, or sometime near that time." Source.

Garuda Indonesia?

"PT Garuda Indonesia..., publicly known as Garuda Indonesia, is the flag carrier of Indonesia. It is named after the mystical giant bird Garuda of Hinduism and Buddhist mythology." Source.

Garuda?

"The Garuda (Sanskrit/Javanese/Balinese/Indonesian: गरुड garuḍa, 'eagle'; Pāli garuḷa; Tamil: கருடன் karutan; Thai/Lao: ครุฑ khrut; Malay: geroda; Mongolian: гарьд garid) is a large mythical bird or bird-like creature that appears in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology." Source.

I have previously discussed the overlap between this airline, a tragic crash (on March 7, 2007), Garuda, and Mothman here.

Following the Garuda Airlines crash, less than a month later, the April 16, 2007 massacre at VA Tech, which left 33 dead, occurred. As the events of that day unfolded, I was struck to learn that in local lore at VA Tech, the school's mascot, the Hokie Bird is referred to as "Blacksburg's own Garuda." I wrote of my thoughts about that strange coincidence in "VA Tech's Garuda."

VA Tech seemed to be a pivotal touchstone to notice when the world seemed to have gone a little haywire. It will be recalled that on Wednesday, January 21, 2009, police reported a woman was beheaded on the Virginia Tech campus, when she was decapitated while calmly eating. Xin Yang, 22, was killed only a couple weeks after arriving at the campus from Beijing on January 8 to begin studying accounting, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.

Now again, the VA Tech's Garuda has appeared, above, in news articles about a new tragedy. On December 8, 2011 (the anniversary date of John Lennon's assassination), "Ross Truett Ashley, a 22-year-old part-time business student at Radford University, about 10 miles from the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg" went to VA Tech, "walked up to officer Deriek W. Crouse (39) after noon and shot him to death as the patrolman sat in his unmarked cruiser during a traffic stop. Ashley was not involved in the stop and did not know the driver, who is cooperating with police, they said. Authorities said Ashley then took off for the campus greenhouses, ditching his pullover, wool cap and backpack as police quickly sent out a campus-wide alert that a gunman was on the loose. Officials said the alert system put in place after the nation's worst mass slaying in recent memory worked well, but it nevertheless rattled a community still coping with the day a student gunman killed 32 people and then himself. A deputy sheriff on patrol noticed a man acting suspiciously in a parking lot about a half-mile from the shooting. The deputy drove up and down the rows of the sprawling Cage parking lot and lost sight of the man for a moment, then found Ashley shot to death on the pavement, a handgun nearby." Sources 1 & 2.

I must remind my readers, John A. Keel’s The Mothman Prophecies was initially to be entitled The Year of the Garuda. Keel preserved some notion of what he was feeling with his subtitle, An Investigation into the Mysterious American Visits of the Infamous Feathery Garuda.

The disaster that ends Keel's book is the collapse of the Silver Bridge, which spanned the Ohio River, between Kanauga, Ohio, and Point Pleasant, West Virginia. That event took 46 lives, occurring 45 years ago, on December 15, 1966.

"Suicides" Linked To Penn State

2011-11-18T13:58:00.008-05:00

Dev Meyers of the Pittsburgh History Examiner has written an item entitled "Another Suicide at Penn State," on November 17, 2011.

Christian Amos Goodall (July 3, 1981 - November 2, 2010)

Meyers notes, in part:

The law firm Goodall and Yurchak may soon be the next subject of investigation in the Penn State child molestation scandal. This is the firm that Judge Leslie Dutchcot belongs to. [On November 16, 2011], Judge Dutchcot was removed from the Jerry Sandusky case. Attorney Amos Goodall recently represented Ray Gricar's daughter in declaring him dead. This conveneniently happened just several months before the Penn State scandal broke.
What has been kept as quiet as a mouse is the suicide of Amos Goodall's son Christian Amos Goodall.... He was 29 years old.
At 29, Christian Goodall would have been the perfect age to have known the Second Mile boys, and to have been familiar with many of the details in the scandal.

Ray Frank Gricar (born October 9, 1945, missing April 15, 2005, declared dead in absentia, July 25, 2011).

What happened to Ray Gricar (above) ~ murder, suicide, or a not-so-simple disappearance? And why? District Attorney Ray Gricar, 59, went missing on April 15, 2005, when he vanished under mysterious circumstances, after his car was left in a Lewisburg parking lot, not far from the Susquehanna River, and he could not be found. Did he kill himself, as his brother Roy seems to have, by drowning, in May 1996?

Cigarette ash and the smell of cigarette was found in Ray Gricar's red and white 2004 Mini Cooper, although he did not smoke and did not let anyone in his car who smoked. Who was in his car before he disappeared? Was he pressured to not charge Jerry Sandusky with sexual molestation when Gricar investigated the 1998 incidents? Could Gricar not live with himself about this? Or worse?

Matt Sandusky, Jerry Sandusky's youngest adopted son, attempted suicide, according to a media interview of Matt's biological mother, Debra Long.

As to twilight language, some bloggers are noting the irony in the title of Jerry Sandusky's autobiography, Touched.

Does Sandusky Have Links To Hellfire Groups?

2011-11-16T15:06:00.007-05:00

If you live under a rock or are outside the influence of American media manias, you may not be aware of the fact that there is a major sexual abuse/molestation scandal involving Penn State.

The details of the scandal incidents are horrific. The Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal involves allegations made in 2011 against former Pennsylvania State University football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and allegations of a university cover-up of those incidents. Sandusky, a longtime defensive coordinator under head coach Joe Paterno, retired in 1999 but retained access to Penn State's athletic facilities.

A 2011 grand jury investigation and other accounts have reported that Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant, who found Sandusky raping a young male, stopped the interaction, allegedly talked to the police (via Penn State V.P. Gary Schultz, who oversaw the PSU police department) and told Paterno in 2002.

What McQueary said he reported to Paterno is that he had seen Sandusky performing a sex act on a 10-year-old boy in Penn State football's shower facilities. Paterno then reported the allegations to Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and Schultz was informed. Reportedly, Curley and Schultz (both indicted for perjury) interviewed McQueary.

In November 2011, Sandusky was arrested on 40 counts of molesting eight young boys over a 15-year period. (See 23-page transcript here; warning, the contents are graphic.)

These alleged sexual assaults may date back to, at least, 1995, see here, but could they really have begun in the late 1970s, when Jerry Sandusky created his Second Mile charity, which has allegedly been the recruiting grounds for his alleged youthful victims?

Is anyone trying to connect all the dots in the Penn State sex scandal?

The time has come to inquiry more deeply than some wish to go.

Why are so few people talking about the questions surrounding the victims?

How many have vanished? How many have died by suicide? Been murdered? Are in prison?

Are all of Sandusky's alleged victims African Americans? Why is it only a few people (see here) in the African American community the only ones talking about Sandusky's alleged fetish for "black boys"? Was his choice of black young males because of Jerry Sandusky's sexual preferences or something more sinister? Was part of Sandusky's possible master plan to keep his alleged sexual assaults as quiet as possible, by taking advantage of the underlying racial, power, and macho issues?

Eight victims are noted in the Grand Jury report. How many more are there? Ten, twenty, or the estimated average of 260, noted by professionals as the number per molester?

What happened to Ray Gricar (above) ~ murder, suicide, or a not-so-simple disappearance? And why? District Attorney Ray Gricar, 59, went missing on April 15, 2005, when he vanished under mysterious circumstances, after his car was left in a Lewisburg parking lot, not far from the Susquehanna River, and he could not be found. Did he kill himself, as his brother seems to have, by drowning, in May 1996?

Cigarette ash and the smell of cigarette was found in Ray Gricar's red and white 2004 Mini Cooper, although he did not smoke and did not let anyone in his car who smoked. Who was in his car before he disappeared? Was he pressured to not charge Jerry Sandusky with sexual molestation when Gricar investigated the 1998 incidents? Could Gricar not live with himself about this? Or worse?

Did Gricar, who set up the sting against Sandusky, learn of a group of men who are rumored to have partaken of Jerry Sandusky's alleged pimping of African African youth for their sexual "Hellfire Club-like" pleasures?

Why, really, did Joe Paterno (right) force Jerry Sandusky (left) to retire in 1999, after the first hints of the sexual abuse was revealed to police in 1998? Why would no one hire Sandusky elsewhere?

With what kind of people does Jerry Sandusky surround himself? How about someone like Sandusky's lawyer who made a past major questionable judgement about sexual boundaries?

Joe Amendola (above), Jerry Sandusky’s attorney, impregnated a 16-year-old client and married her in 2003. They separated later. Amendola was around 49 when he met the girl. During the Bob Costa's interview, Amendola said he would leave his children with Sandusky. The children's mother was horrified to hear this.

What will further investigations of the Sandusky scandal discover about any links to the alleged nationwide groups of pedophiles using code words like "the hook" and "Peter Pan" (see here)? How far does the coverup reach?

+++

The New York Times posted an article ("Inquiry Grew Into Concerns of a Cover-Up" by Jo Becker) for their November 17, 2011 print edition, which has new information of some import. Here are some intriguing points.

The article appears to disagree with the probable African American profile of the rape victims. Becker writes: "Sandusky engaged in what experts on child predators call 'grooming' behavior, law enforcement officials asserted this month, making his first approach when children were 8 to 12 years old. He tended to choose white boys from homes where there was no father or some difficulty in the family, investigators said, and he drew them in with trips to games and expensive gifts like computers."

But did Sandusky publicly appear with "white boys" and yet allegedly have anal intercourse with "black boys"?

A lingering question remains, what caused Joe Paterno to hasten the 1999 exit of Jerry Sandusky from the Penn State football program by telling him in 1998 that he, Sandusky, was not to be the Nittany Lions' heir apparent? It does not take a genius to figure this one out. Anyone who has worked in an academic setting knows that information moves through the university halls quickly. Wasn't Paterno just possibly trying to save himself from a future problem by showing Sandusky the door, after it became clear that Sandusky's certain kind of likings were coming out in the open?

So, what happened in 1998? The record is clear, and Becker retraces this, with new details about how big the university investigation was and how large the file literally is.

Becker writes: "In 1998, an 11-year-old boy, now known as Victim 6, had come home with wet hair and told his mother he had showered with Sandusky at Penn State’s athletic complex. She immediately reported it to the university police, the grand jury report said.

"As investigators leafed through the old report — it ran close to 100 pages — they came to believe that the campus police officers had truly wanted to make a case against Sandusky, according to people with knowledge of the current investigation. The officers had gone so far as to set up a sting operation in which the boy’s mother called the coach, and, with the police listening in, confronted Sandusky.

"According to the grand jury report, he admitted to showering with her son and another boy, said he did not think that his private parts had touched her son, but acknowledged that what he did was wrong. 'I wish I were dead,' he said, according to the grand jury’s findings.

"Ultimately, the district attorney decided against taking the case to trial..."

Why? We already know that the recent judge who granted Sandusky bail was a volunteer and donator to the Sandusky's Second Mile charity. What other connections exist in this case?

Becker notes: "The district attorney in Centre County, where Sandusky was alleged to have molested the boy [Victim 1], passed the case on to the attorney general. The district attorney, Michael Madeira, said Wednesday [November 16, 2011] that his wife’s biological brother had been adopted by Sandusky years before."

Flash from the Past: Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira (right) and Bellefonte police Chief Shawn Weaver address the media about missing Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar. Madeira said investigators would take a fresh look at the case, but "I think the family has understood that this may never be solved. ... He may be alive. He may be dead." Barry L. Reeger/Tribune-Review

Are the foxes guarding the hen house?

Who actually knew what when and how many of this drama's players are linked into the Second Mile charity? And what was going on over there?

Why has it been difficult to identify the Second Mile-recruited victims? Well, because records have been made to disappear.

Becker discovered that "investigators served numerous subpoenas on the Second Mile, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry. Not only did they want the names of children who had been through the program, they also demanded all of Sandusky’s travel and expense records.

"Much of the older paperwork was stored at an off-site records facility. The travel and expense records, for instance, had been sent over several years earlier. But select members of the charity’s board of directors were alarmed to learn recently that when the records facility went to retrieve them, some of those records — from about 2000 to 2003 — were missing."

An old boy network, missing records, and a coverup. What else is being hidden?

Pascagoula Creature Abductee Dies

2011-09-14T10:56:00.001-04:00

Charles E Hickson Sr (left above), one of two men who reported they were abducted from the banks of Mississippi's Pascagoula River by aliens in 1973, has died at the age of 80.

Mr Hickson died on Friday, September 9, 2011, in Ocean Springs, officials with O'Bryant-O'Keefe Funeral Home in Gautier said.

He spent nearly 40 years reliving the reported encounter. He also co-wrote a book, UFO Contact at Pascagoula.

On October 11, 1973, Mr Hickson and Calvin Parker were fishing on the Pascagoula River. What seemed to be the beginning of a peaceful night turned to chaos when the pair said they suddenly found themselves in a close encounter with an alien craft and its occupants.

Mr Hickson, then 42, and Mr Parker, then 19, did not want their account publicised, but a reported leak to the newspaper made publicity inevitable.

After reporting their account to the sheriff's office, Mr Hickson and Mr Parker both passed lie detector tests and were even questioned under hypnosis. Investigators are on record saying the pair's story never wavered.

Mr Hickson said in a 2008 interview with WLOX-TV: 'I am not trying to force anybody to believe anything. I just simply tell them what happened to Calvin and me, and they make up their own minds if they want to believe it or not.'

Mr Parker, who was last reported living in Louisiana, has declined to discuss the matter.

According to Mr Hickson's account, two of the creatures from the ship seized him and another grabbed Mr Parker, who fainted.

He said the aliens held them for about 20-30 minutes.

'Something came out of that wall, like a big eye. It came up in front of me, it went under me, and it came back up my back side. The next time I saw it, it came over my head in front of me. They turned me around and carried me right back out where they pick me up.'

Then, Mr Hickson said, within the blink of an eye, it was all over. He said the UFO was gone, and the men were left wondering what had happened.

A native of Jones County, Mr Hickson served in the Army during the Korean War.

He is survived by two sons, three daughters, a brother and a sister; and 10 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

A graveside service will be held on Thursday at 1pm at McGill Cemetery in Sandersville.
Source.

Pascagoula is a major industrial city of Mississippi, along the Gulf Coast. Prior to World War II, the town was a sleepy fishing village of only about 5,000. The population exploded with the war-driven shipbuilding industry. Although the city's population seemed to peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s as Cold War defense spending was at its height, Pascagoula experienced some new growth and development in the years beforeHurricane Katrina. Today, Pascagoula is home to the state’s largest employer, Ingalls Shipbuilding, owned by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems. Other major industries include one of the largest Chevron refineries in the country; Signal International, an oil platform builder; and Mississippi Phosphates.
The Pascagoula, Mississippi, Incident
Hickson/Parker Abduction
October 11, 1973


Charles Hickson (42)	Calvin Parker (19) Case

Preliminary: Witnesses were fishing after dark off a pier in an abandoned shipyard. Heard or happened to turn and detect something behind them.
Initial activities: Beings floated toward them from a hovering craft, grabbed Hickson by his arms causing pain in left shoulder and immobilizing him. Another being grabbed Parker by the arm and he lost consciousness. Hickson recalled being lifted off the ground and floated with the beings into the craft. He saw Parker go limp.

Air Force sketch depicts the alien being as
Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker described it.Craft/Beings: Domed oval object descended, hovered just off the ground emitting a buzzing noise. A door opened revealing a brightly lighted interior. Three robot-like beings just over 5 ft. (1.5 m) tall emerged and floated toward them. They had no visible neck, slit mouth, pointed nose, and ears. Eyes not prominent, maybe slits. Rough gray skin, mummy-like appearance. Unusually long arms with clawlike hands. Feet were elephant-like.
Onboard features: Interior was brilliantly lighted. No furniture seen, only a screenlike device on the wall. Hickson seemed to hang suspended in the air at an angle of 45 degrees as an eyelike device appeared out of the wall.

In a state of shock, Charles Hickson does not
attempt to resist the silvery-looking creatures who
lead him into the examination room of their craft.Onboard activities: The device circled Hickson, first moving down his front, then up his back and over his head, stopping in front of his face. The beings moved in a stiff, mechanical way as if robots, but worked quickly and efficiently. One made a buzzing sound. When they were through they disappeared for a while.
Communication: Hickson "heard" a message in his mind that the beings were peaceful.
Termination/Return: The beings returned and grasped Hickson again, floating him through the opening in the craft and back to the pier. His legs collapsed when he touched the ground. Parker was standing rigidly with a look of terror on his face. Hickson shook Parker and they watched the craft and blue light shoot straight up emitting a whistling sound and quickly disappear
Aftermath: Next day Hickson suffered bleeding from his left arm where the being had grasped him, and later he had nightmares. Parker suffered a nervous breakdown, Over the past 20 years Hickson has had an obsession about the encounter and its meaning, leading him to attend UFO conferences as a speaker and observer. He has reported follow-up communications and encounters.
Source: Volume II, The UFO Evidence, A Thirty Year Report, Richard H. Hall, Page 534-535. Source: NICAP.

Arkansas Shooting

2011-09-13T18:30:00.000-04:00

According to Van Buren Police a lone shooter entered the Crawford County Courthouse in Van Buren, Arkansas, around 4:00 pm. Police say the suspect then shot a secretary who witnesses have identified as Vicki Jones.

The shooter was shot and injured by Van Buren Police. Both have been transported to the hospital for their injuries. A Van Buren police officer was also injured by flying glass as police exchanged gunfire with the shooter. Van Buren Police are currently not releasing the name of the suspect.

Lt. Brent Grill with the Van Buren Police Department said police were called to a disturbance at the courthouse, and one person was possibly shot inside. A gun battle involving the suspect, VBPD and the Crawford County Sheriff’s Department then ensued outside the courthouse, Grill said.

Sebastian County deputies are at a local hospital guarding the suspect, who is undergoing surgery, Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck said.

Elaine Stanfield, administrative assistant to County Judge John Hall, said she first heard the shots at 3:30 p.m.

“I heard girls screaming upstairs; this all started upstairs,” said Stanfield, whose office is on the first floor of the courthouse. “I pushed the panic button — everyone has panic button under their desk that goes to sheriff’s office — and I picked up the phone and dialed 911.”

The suspect shot off multiple rounds while moving, Grill said, striking a nearby Van Buren police cruiser. Veteran Van Buren police officer Dave Passen received minor injuries from glass, Grill said.

Stanfield says she saw the suspect, a “heavyset man between 35-40 years of age” who was wearing a long duster style coat. Stanfield was still on the phone with 911 and heard a dispatcher say “our guys are being fired at,” then heard the shooting stop.

“This has changed our lives,” Stanfield said.

Fort Smith police Capt. Jarrard Copeland said a call about the shooting came through dispatch at 3:44 p.m.; 20 to 30 officers from Fort Smith were dispatched to the scene.

Hollenbeck said security at courthouses in Fort Smith and Greenwood has been increased as a precautionary measure until law enforcement officials can confirm no one else is involved in the courthouse shooting in Crawford County.

County Judge John Hall says the courthouse will be closed Wednesday but will try to open Thursday morning.

“We’re probably looking at getting security guards,” Hall said. “We have six entrances at the courthouse. Yes, there is going to be a change in security. The days to free access to the oldest courthouse west of the Mississippi is over.”

Crawford County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas. It is part of the Fort Smith, Arkansas Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the population was 61,948. The county seat is Van Buren. Crawford County was formed on October 18, 1820, and named for William H. Crawford who was United States Secretary of War in 1815.

Thousands of self-claimed "Western Band of Cherokee" (or Arkansas Cherokees) fought for state and federal recognition as a political entity of Native Americans. Crawford County was historically part of the Cherokee Nation, which lost its tribal sovereignty status as a result of the U.S. Civil war in the 1860s. The Cherokee Nation was subsequently relocated to the west in the present-day state of Oklahoma.

The area was settled by David Boyd and Thomas Martin in the year 1818. After Arkansas became a territory in 1819 Daniel and Thomas Phillips constructed a lumber yard in the community to serve as a fuel depot for river traffic. In the year 1831 a post office was constructed for the community, at the time known as Phillips Landing. This post office was named after the newly appointed Secretary of State, Martin Van Buren. The city of Van Buren is a result of that legacy.

9/11's Maine Link

2011-09-09T13:18:00.004-04:00

The mystery of what Mohammed Atta was doing in Portland, Maine, on 9/10 has been compounded by the disappearance of most of the locations that Atta visited that evening.

As you may recall, Atta on September 10, 2001, picked up another 9/11 terrorist, Abdul-Azzia Al-Omari (or Alomari), at the Milner Hotel (78 Charles Street South) in Boston.

They drove a rented Nissan Altmia to Portland, Maine, and arrived at the Comfort Inn Hotel, 90 Maine Mall Road, South Portland, Maine, at 5:43 p.m. The Comfort Inn, in 2001, was the nearest inexpensive hotel to the airport.

Financial records and bank video show Atta and Al-Omari made two ATM withdrawals in Portland, and the men were reportedly spotted at an area Wal-Mart, allegedly purchasing box-cutters, as well as in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut restaurant. The ATM was down the road from the Comfort Inn, at a gasoline station in South Portland, and the local Wal-Mart was in Scarborough, a short 10 minute drive down that same road from their motel.

Specifically, a local article detailed their movements on September 10, 2001:

After checking in at the motel, Atta and Alomari were seen several times between 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Between 8 and 9 p.m., they were seen at Pizza Hut; at 8:31 p.m., they were videotaped by a KeyBank automatic teller machine, and videotaped again at 8:41 p.m. at a Fast Green ATM next to Pizzeria Uno.

At 9:15 p.m., the two stopped at Jetport Gas on Western Avenue, where they asked for directions, and at 9:22 p.m., Atta was caught on videotape in the Wal-Mart in Scarborough. The FBI reports he spent about 20 minutes there.

Also published was a ...

CHRONOLOGY

MONDAY

5: 43 p. m.: Atta and Alomari check into the Comfort Inn, 90 Maine Mall Road, South Portland.

8-9 p. m.: Two men described by the FBI as "Middle Eastern" males are seen at Pizza Hut, 415 Maine Mall Road, for about 15 minutes.

8: 31 p. m.: Atta and Alomari are photographed at a Key Bank driveup ATM at 445 Gorham Road, South Portland.They are driving a 2001 blue Nissan Altima rental car, Mass.license 3335VI.

8: 41 p. m.: The suspects are photographed by a Fast GreenATM in the parking lot of Pizzera Uno restaurant, 280 Maine Mall Road.

9: 15 p. m.: Atta and Alomari are at Jetport Gas Station, 446 Western Ave., South Portland. Atta wears a half-dark, half-light colored shirt with light-colored slacks.

9:22 p.m.: Atta is at Wal-Mart, 451 Payne Road, Scarborough, for about 20 minutes.

Tuesday

5: 33 a. m.: Atta and Alomari check out of the Comfort Inn.

Source: “The Night Before Terror,” Portland Press Herald, Portland, Maine, 5 October 2001.

In ten years, businesses close, open, and close, of course. Intriguingly, the physical links to the visit to the Portland area of Atta and Al-Omari have, with the exception of the Comfort Inn, mostly vanished as separate entities or have been physically torn down.

One of the first to go was the Fast GreenATM. It was removed and a nearby gasoline station was torn down, soon after 9/11. Today, a jewelry store sits on the site.

The Key Bank driveup no longer exists, as it was in 2001. The Wal-Mart on Payne Road, Scarborough, closed, although other Wal-Marts continue successfully in the Portland area. The Pizza Hut is gone too.

The Comfort Inn remains, although there are various rumors that no one is allowed to check into Room 232, anymore, where Atta and Al-Omari stayed, or that the room number has been changed.

On the morning of 9/11, Atta and Al-Omari drove to Portland International Jetport (below) and boarded a 6 a.m. commuter flight to Boston's Logan International Airport.

At Logan, they boarded American Airlines Flight 11 on a passenger plane, which, for them, would continue on to the World Trade Center's Twin Towers.

Click on chart above to read.

Even today, the reason behind Atta and Al-Omari being in Portland, Maine, remains a riddle.

IHOP Shooting: Update 5 Dead

2011-09-06T15:05:00.007-04:00

The International House of Pancake (IHOP) site in Carson City, Nevada, where a mass shooting occurred on September 6, 2011. Photo: KOLO-ABC News.

This is another view of the same IHOP restaurant in Carson City, Nevada, where multiple people were shot. Photo: Reno Journal Gazette.

With bullet holes seen in a window, officers look for evidence at the scene of a shooting at an IHOP restaurant in Carson City, Nevada. Photo: Cathleen Allison.

Three people are dead after a gunman opened fire at a Nevada IHOP restaurant Tuesday morning, wounding himself and nine other people.

The shooting happened at about 9 a.m. local time at the Carson City restaurant, located in a strip mall on the state capital's main street.

At least two of the three people killed were National Guardsmen in uniform.
++++++
UPDATE September 7th
A third National Guard member, an as yet unidentified woman, has died from injuries suffered in a shooting rampage that took place at a Nevada IHOP restaurant, according to the Carson City, Nevada sheriff. The shooting spree has now left five people dead, including the shooter, and left seven wounded.
++++++

It wasn't immediately clear whether the gunman had any connection with the military or the guard, said Nevada National Guard Sgt. Mike Getten. He said guard members were meeting at the restaurant.

Witnesses said a man pulled up in a blue minivan around 9 a.m. at the IHOP restaurant in a strip mall on Carson City's main street. He shot a man on a motorcycle, then walked inside the restaurant and started shooting, said Ralph Swagler, owner of Locals Barbecue in the same strip mall as the IHOP.

Swagler told the Reno Journal Gazette that after several minutes, the man walked outside and began firing into the Locals Barbecue and an H&R Block in the strip mall.

Law enforcement officers responded but fired no shots during the ordeal.

One victim died at a hospital in Carson City. Seven additional victims are now being treated at area hospitals, authorities said.

A man with an AK-47 assault rifle shot an entire group of five uniformed National Guard members eating breakfast at a Nevada IHOP, killing two of them and a woman nearby in a hail of gunfire.

The suspect, 32-year-old Eduardo Sencion of Carson City, also shot himself and later died at a hospital.

Local and state police and FBI agents descended on the scene on South Carson Street, also called U.S. 395. Yellow tape surrounded the parking lot near a Kohl's department store in a shopping complex across the street from a casino and hotel.

The area formerly known as Eagle Valley was "discovered" by John C. Fremont (who would later be a presidential candidate of the Radical Republicans in 1864) and his exploration party in January 1843. Fremont named the river flowing through the valley Carson River in honor of Christopher "Kit" Carson, the mountain man and scout he had hired for his expedition.

Carson City is the capital of Nevada and it is the source of a long history. For example, Carson Lodge # 1 has the distinction of being the first Freemason's lodge in the State of Nevada. Its first records date back to early 1862 (when Nevada was still a Territory). Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) visited this Lodge during the time when he was in Carson City.

IHOPs have been the site of previous shootings.

In temporal context:

Monday (September 5, 2011) night...Fairchance, WV and then into Lewis County, KY...6 dead (including shooter)

Also Monday night (September 5, 2011), near Lake George, into Warren County, NY...3 dead (including shooter)

Then Tuesday morning (September 6, 2011), Carson City, NV...5 dead (including shooter)

Finally, Tuesday evening (September 6, 2011), shooting at Lorena's, West Philadelphia, PA...3 dead (apparent robbery)

("Lewis" and "Warren" are two names tied to Freemasonry onomatology.)

++++

Official IHOP Statements:

A senseless shooting at our IHOP restaurant in Carson City, Nevada earlier this morning resulted in a tragic loss of life. I’m on my way there now to assist in any way possible. Our hearts go out to the victims, members of their families and all those affected. Thank you for your continued thoughts and support for those in need. —Jean Birch, President, IHOP Restaurants. 9/6/11, 1:31 p.m. (PDT)

Our hearts ache for all the victims of this senseless act of violence. I am in Carson City and am grateful to the public safety officials and first responders here. They could not be kinder or more professional. The people of Carson City have also shown incredible support for the victims and IHOP’s team members. I am grateful tp all and to the IHOP team members for their tremendous resolve during this tragedy. Thank you.
Jean Birch
President, IHOP Restaurants

9/11/11: Small Planes Into Buildings?

2011-09-03T22:35:00.006-04:00

Bank of America, Tampa, Florida, 2002.

Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., in the Global Politician on September 26, 2005, wrote, "the September atrocities [of 9/11] provoked a wave of copycats and renewed awareness of such risks."

Pirelli Tower, Milan, Italy, 2002.

Mentioning the January 2002-Tampa and April 2002-Milan incidents I wrote about in my "Planes into Buildings" chapter of The Copycat Effect (2004), Vaknin also cited another one: "At the beginning of May 2002, an Indian air force jet crashed into a bank building in northwestern India. Eight died in the ensuing fire."

It all began with the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers.

World Trade Center Complex; image of replica by InFocusTech (10% of sales to the American Red Cross).

Could a copycat event occur at the world's other twin towers in the future?

Petronas Towers are located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Image of replica by InFocusTech.

Were you aware there have been other possible and actual small-planes-into-buildings copycat events in the last decade?

On Monday, September 12, 2005, a father in a "too large for the detectors" wheelchair dodged a checkpoint and smuggled grenades onto a plane. The father and son hijackers surrendered five hours after commandeering an Aires airliner around midday on that Monday after it departed from the southern city of Florencia on a flight headed to Colombia's capital, Bogota. All passengers and crew were eventually freed unharmed before the hijackers, 42-year-old Porfirio Ramirez and his 22-year-old son, Linsen Ramirez, gave up and were arrested.

As to Porfirio Ramirez, one realizes that he had his own motives and reasons, but the copycat factor comes into play regarding the whole theme of my posting - he picked the day after a September 11th. I don't consider hijackers heroes, no matter their reasons or how many movies are made of them.

On the morning of Tuesday, September 13, 2005, Adane Bayu Arage, an Israeli youth attempted to get a disassembled gun and 22 bullets, hidden inside a tool, onto a plane. He allegedly planned to hijack a passenger plane, Ethiopian Airlines Flight Number 424, in the capital of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The youth was born in Ethiopia and later immigrated to Israel. The Israeli Foreign Ministry questioned whether the suspect was Israeli.

On Saturday, September 17, 2005, a man hijacked a plane in "New Zealand’s commercial capital and biggest city," in direct copycat of 9/11, which occurred in America's commerical, financial, and media "capital," New York City. The N.Z. hijacker said he was going to fly it into Auckland's tallest building, the Sky Tower (shown directly above). Instead, he crashed the plane into the sea on that Saturday night and was rescued and taken to a hospital. Not coincidentally, September 17th is New Zealand's General Election Day. The leaders of the parties were awaiting the election results in Auckland, not in N.Z.'s capital city, Wellington.

On January 5, 2002, Charles Bishara Bishop, 15, crashed a plane into Tampa's Bank of America Building (above and at top), in a copycat of the 9/11 attacks. Bishop died by suicide during that event. It can be done. A sixteen-year-old boy was arrested by FBI agents for plotting to hijack a plane as part of his own bizarre suicide bid, as reported on January 25, 2008. FBI spokesman George Bolds said the teenager was removed Tuesday night (January 22, 2008) from Southwest Airlines Flight 284 by authorities at Nashville International Airport and found with "suspicious" items (handcuffs, rope and duct tape in his bag). The juvenile was alone and suicidal. He remains unidentified.

The airliner reportedly was suppose to be crashed into the "Hannah Montana" concert performing on Friday, January 25, 2008, in Lafayette, Louisiana, at the Lafayette Cajundome (above).

On February 17, 2010, in Palo Alto, California, a twin-engine Cessna 310 crashed in a residential neighborhood (above), killing three employees of electric-car maker Tesla Motors (logo, below) who were aboard the plane. The accident caused a major power outage in Palo Alto, including at the office of Facebook, but no one was injured on the ground.

The pilot was Doug Bourn, 56, a senior electrical engineer who had worked for the electric carmaker for five years and who mentored others. The other two passengers have been identified as Andrew Ingram, 31, of Palo Alto, an electrical engineer; and Brian M. Finn, 42, of East Palo Alto; a senior manager of interactive electronics. Finn reportedly lived with his one-year-old daughter just two blocks from where the plane went down in East Palo Alto. Chief Executive Elon Musk noted: “Tesla is a small, tightly-knit company, and this is a tragic day for us.”

On February 18, 2010, Joseph Andrew Stack, flying a Piper Cherokee PA-28 (registration N2889D) plane, crashed into Building I of the Echelon office complex (above) in Austin, Texas, United States. An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) field office is located in the seven-story office building along with other state and federal government agencies. Stack had posted a manifesto dated February 18, 2010, to his business website. The pilot was killed in the incident along with Vernon Hunter, a 67-year-old Revenue Office Manager for the IRS. Thirteen people were reported as injured, two of them critically. Debris from the crash reportedly struck a Lexus sedan being driven on the southbound access road of U.S. Route 183 in front of the building and shattering the windshield. Another driver on the southbound access road of U.S. Route 183 had his windows and sunroof shattered during the impact and had debris fall inside his car yet escaped uninjured.

The Copycat Effect (2004)

What should you look out for on the 10th anniversary of 9/11? Will there be more copycats?

The FBI and Homeland Security have issued a nationwide warning about al-Qaida threats to small airplanes, just days before the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Authorities say there is no specific or credible terrorist threat for the 10-year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. But they have stepped up security across America as a precaution.

According to a five-page law enforcement bulletin issued on September 2, 2011, as recently as early this year, al-Qaida was considering ways to attack airplanes.

The alert, issued ahead of the summer's last busy travel weekend, said terrorists have considered renting private planes and loading them with explosives.

"Al-Qaida and its affiliates have maintained an interest in obtaining aviation training, particularly on small aircraft, and in recruiting Western individuals for training in Europe or the United States, although we do not have current, credible information or intelligence of an imminent attack being planned," according to the bulletin obtained by The Associated Press.

The bulletin also says al-Qaida would like to use sympathetic Westerners to get flight training, then get them to become flight instructors.

Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, described the bulletin as routine.

"We shared this information with our partners to highlight the need for continued awareness and vigilance," he said.

Aviation security is much tighter than it was a decade ago, but al-Qaida remains keenly interested in launching attacks on airplanes, believing large attacks with high body counts are more likely to grab headlines.

Threats to small airplanes are nothing new. After the 2001 attacks, the government grounded thousands of crop dusters amid fears the planes could be used in an attack.

In 2002, U.S. officials said they uncovered an al-Qaida plot to fly a small plane into a U.S. warship in the Gulf. And in 2003, U.S. officials uncovered an al-Qaida plot to crash an explosives-laden small aircraft into the American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan.

And, of course, there were all the very real incidents above, as well.

+++

List analysis

September 11, 2001 – Four plane events: two fly into two separate buildings at the World Trade Center's Twin Towers; one flies into the Pentagon; one bound for a DC building crashes in Pennsylvania. (common knowledge, referenced in blog and detailed in The Copycat Effect - TCE)

January 5, 2002 – Small plane into Tampa's Bank of America Building (in blog and TCE)

April 18, 2002 – Small plane into Milan's Pirelli Tower (in blog and TCE)

May [4], 2002 – Indian air force jet crashed into Indian bank building (this was in the scholarly paper linked to my two examples above, noted in blog, but this Indian event merely may have been caused by mechanical failure - still it was a bank during a time when banks were being targeted);

November 17, 2002 – Attempted hijacking of plane in a stated "9/11 copycat plan" to fly into a Tel Aviv building (detailed in TCE)

November 27, 2002 – Attempted hijacking of plane by a man saying he was with al-Qaida on Bolonga, Italy to Paris flight (detailed in TCE)

January 7, 2003 – Frankfurt, Germany man stole plan and threatened to fly it into the European Central Bank (detailed in TCE)

September 12, 2005 – Attempted hijacking of plane from Florencia to Colombia's capital, Bogota (in blog)

September 13, 2005 – Attempted hijacking of plane from Addis Ababa to Tel Aviv (in blog)

September 17, 2005 – Small plane hijacked, threatened to be flown into Auckland, New Zealand's Star Tower (in blog)

January 22, 2008 – Attempted hijacking of plane to be flown into the Lafayette Cajundome in Lafayette, Louisiana (in blog) (Note: This is a young man who mirrored Charles Bishop's age and whose plot somewhat copied that January 2002 event.)

February 17, 2010 – Small plane crashes into Palo Alto, California neighborhood (by Telsa senior engineer) (in blog) (p.s. in TCE, majority of single plane crashes are suicides)

February 18, 2010 – Small plane (with homicidal-suicidal pilot) crashes into IRS field office in Austin, Texas at Building 1 of the Echelon office complex (in blog)

Details on the September 3, 2011, Homeland Security warning advisory on small planes. They include these two uncovered plots: "In 2002, U.S. officials said they uncovered an al-Qaida plot to fly a small plane into a U.S. warship in the Gulf. And in 2003, U.S. officials uncovered an al-Qaida plot to crash an explosives-laden small aircraft into the American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan." (in blog)

Baseball Suicide: Pitcher Mike Flanagan

2011-08-24T23:53:00.001-04:00

A Major League Baseball champion and award-winning former Baltimore Orioles great was found dead Wednesday, August 24, 2011, apparently from suicide.

Former Orioles pitcher and general manager Mike Flanagan was found dead on his northern Baltimore County property, WBAL-TV 11 Sports Director Gerry Sandusky confirmed through multiple sources close to Flanagan. He was 59.

Flanagan's body was found outside his house in the 15000 block of York Road in Monkton shortly before 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. WBAL-TV 11 News reporter Sheldon Dutes reported from the scene that police had blocked the driveway to the property.

Police did not immediately identify the cause of death, but sources confirmed that Flanagan took his own life "despondent over what he considered a false perception from a community he loved of his role in the team's prolonged failure," Sandusky said.

The soft-spoken and well-liked left-hander grew over the years into a fixture in the Orioles organization. From 2002-08 Flanagan shared or held the top baseball executive position in the organization. During that time Flanagan, according to those closest to him, struggled with not being able to the job the way he wanted to do it, Sandusky said.

A relative confirmed that Flanagan has wrestled for some time now with the perception of fans and colleagues alike of his role in the team's failures. Orioles Managing Partner Peter Angelos issued the following statement at about 10:45 p.m.: "It is with deep sadness that I learned of the death of my friend Mike Flanagan earlier this evening. In over a quarter century with the organization, Flanny became an integral part of the Orioles family, for his accomplishments both on and off the field. His loss will be felt deeply and profoundly by all of us with the ballclub and by Orioles fans everywhere who admired him. On behalf of the club, I extend my condolences to his wife, Alex; and daughters Kerry, Kathryn and Kendall."

Baltimore County police and fire spokeswoman Elise Armacost told WBAL-TV 11 News that police officers discovered a man's body alongside a trail in Monkton late Wednesday afternoon. Armacost did not identify the man.

Police were called to the area for "a person with a suspicious condition." When officers arrived at the scene, they found the man's body along a trail on the property, Armacost said. Police declined to speak about the manner of death until the investigation is complete.

Read more here.

DC Obelisk Tilting?

2011-08-23T19:42:00.000-04:00

Is the Washington Monument tilting due to the earthquake?

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake centered around Richmond, Virginia was felt as far as New York City and New England on August 23, 2011.

Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly reported at 2:30 pm their bureau received information from a producer saying that a Captiol Hill Police officer was saying the Washington Monument may actually be tilting as a result of the earthquake.

Seismologist John Rundle joined Kelly on her show and confirmed that the Washington Monument could very well be tilting as a result of the earthquake and the structure should be checked out.

Two nuclear reactors have reportedly been taken off line near the epicenter of the earthquake.

According to the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A 5.9 magnitude earthquake centered northwest of Richmond, Va., shook much of Washington, D.C., and was felt as far north as Rhode Island, New York City and Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where President Barack Obama is vacationing.The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was half a mile deep.
Shaking was felt at the White House and all over the East Coast, as far south as Chapel Hill, N.C. Parts of the Pentagon, White House and Capitol were evacuated. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
It was centered near Louisa, Va., which is northwest of Richmond and south of Washington.
Obama and many of the nation's leaders were out of town on August vacation when the quake struck at 1:51 p.m. EDT. The shaking was felt on the Martha's Vineyard golf course as Obama was just starting a round.
The East Coast gets earthquakes, but usually smaller ones and is less prepared than California or Alaska for shaking.At Reagan National Airport outside Washington, ceiling tiles fell during a few seconds of shaking.
Authorities announced it was an earthquake and all flights were put on hold.
At the Pentagon in northern Virginia, a low rumbling built and built to the point that the building was shaking. People ran into the corridors of the government's biggest building and as the shaking continued there were shouts of "Evacuate! Evacuate!"

*UPDATE 1: The Hill is reporting that the Park Service is stating there is no serious damage to any of D.C.'s national monuments:

U.S. Park Police in Washington made an initial survey of the city's monuments after a 5.9 magnitude earthquake and found no serious damage.
According to The Washington Post, the Park Police checked the monuments by helicopter shortly after the earthquake on Tuesday.

*UPDATE 2: (via Real Clear Politics): CNN is reporting that "some stones are loose" at the Washington Monument.

*Update 3: (Via NBC News Washington): National Park Service: Washington Monument is not tilting

The NPS said it is evaluating the structures to ensure that they are structurally sound and safe for all visitors.
Agency spokesman Jeffrey Olson told the AP that there was "absolutely no damage" to the Washington Monument, contrary to media reports elsewhere that it was leaning.
"Absolutely incorrect," U.S. Park Police Sgt. David Schlosser said of media reports that the Washington Monument was leaning. "It stands tall and proud."

However, the Washington Monument, because of its structural complexities, will remain closed until further notice, according to the NPS.

Source: Washington Times, Kelly Picket

Tibetan Monk Immolation

2011-08-15T09:06:00.003-04:00

An act of protest from the Vietnam War lives on in this photograph and in modern incidents.15 August 2011 Last updated at 08:44 ET BBC News

Tibetan monk sets himself on fire in China

A Tibetan monk has set himself alight in China's Sichuan province, amid claims of a crackdown on monasteries in the region.

Western-based activists said the monk, who they named as Tsewang Norbu, had died from his injuries.

A similar action sparked weeks of confrontation earlier this year in another town in Sichuan.

Unrest is fuelled by a widespread belief that the government wants to suppress Tibetan culture.

The argument has been going on for decades, with many Tibetans accusing the government of forcing monks to attend re-education camps, encouraging the migration of Han Chinese to Tibetan areas, and crushing any sign of dissent.

But the authorities say they have brought relative wealth and prosperity to a region that was a rural backwater.

The UK-based Free Tibet movement said the 29-year-old monk had doused himself with petrol and set himself alight at the Nyitso Monastery in Dawu town.

The group said he had been calling out "we Tibetan people want freedom", "long live the Dalai Lama" and "let the Dalai Lama Return to Tibet".

Most Tibetan monks are loyal to the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader who has lived in exile in India for decades.

The state-run Xinhua news agency quoted local government officials confirming that a monk had set himself alight, but gave no details of his condition.

In March, a monk set light to himself in Aba, about 100 miles (150km) from the latest incident.

Local people accused the authorities of locking down that monastery and carting off monks to be re-educated.

The UN later said up to 300 monks may have been illegally detained.

China has denied the accusations.

Freetown Mystery: Missing Woman and Missing Rescuers

2011-08-08T22:57:00.002-04:00

Click on the map to enlarge.

An area of unusual activity within the Bridgewater Triangle is the Freetown-Fall River State Forest. The forest land that formed the town of Freetown was purchased from the Wampanoag Tribe in 1659, and many Native Americans have claimed that the odd and evil events which transpired over the preceding 350 years are the result of a tribal curse. For decades the Freetown State Forest has reportedly been the site of various cult activity including animal sacrifice, ritualistic murders committed by admitted Satanists, as well as a number of gangland murders and a high number of suicides.

Tonight, August 8, 2011, there are reports coming out of the SE Massachusetts area that a woman is missing in the Freetown State Forest.

The woman was finally found, but not before a few people searching for her also got lost and had to be rescued. Media accounts on Tuesday, August 9, 2011, had this summary:

State police say two Fall River police officers and an environmental police officer who went into the 5,400-acre Freetown State Forest to find a lost woman had to be rescued themselves after they lost their direction.
The officers had found the woman, said to be in her mid-20s, by about 11:45 p.m. Monday and intended to guide her out of the woods. But they lost their way and all four needed help getting out.
A state police helicopter which had been involved in the initial search returned, along with state police and a K-9 unit. The officers and the woman were located at about 12:10 a.m. Tuesday.
The forest is located in the southeastern Massachusetts communities of Freetown and Fall River.

VA Tech Gunman? Updated

2011-08-04T11:37:00.001-04:00

Here are the bulletins coming out of Virginia Tech this morning, August 4, 2011, according to CNN:

[Original post, 10:18 a.m.] Virginia Tech, the site of a 2007 massacre, has issued an alert saying someone is possibly carrying a weapon on campus.

Regular classes aren't in session at the moment, but there is summer school. The university in Blacksburg, Virginia, is asking people on campus to stay inside and secure doors. The person was spotted near Dietrick Dining Hall.

In April 2007, Cho Seung-Hui, 23, shot dead 32 people on campus before killing himself.

[Update 10:31 a.m.] Virginia Tech is in lockdown as authorities look for a man three youths said may have had a weapon, possibly a handgun.

The white male was described as having light brown hair and being 6 feet tall and was walking in the direction of a volleyball court. The man was wearing a blue and white striped shirt, gray shorts and brown sandals. He had no glasses or facial hair, according to the report.

[Update 11:09 a.m.] No one is in custody and the campus safety alert remains in effect, Virginia Tech's campus police chief says.

[Update 11:16 a.m.] Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum warned students and others to continue to stay indoors as they search for a person who may be carrying a weapon on campus.
Several people have been questioned but police have not apprehended anyone, Flinchum said.

The suspect was described as 6 feet tall with brown hair, wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt, gray shorts and brown sandals.

Dakota

2011-08-03T15:22:00.002-04:00

The Dakota is located at 72nd Street and Central Park West in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and was completed in 1882. This building was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh and stands 110 feet tall with 10 floors.

The Dakota is infamous for two major events in its history, the filming of the movie Rosemary's Baby, and the assassination of John Lennon.

Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel by Ira Levin. The cast includes Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Maurice Evans, Sidney Blackmer, and Charles Grodin.

Farrow plays a pregnant woman who fears that her husband may have made a pact with their eccentric neighbours, believing he may have promised them the child to be used as a human sacrifice in their occultic rituals in exchange for success in his acting career.

"As the credits roll, the film [Rosemary's Baby] begins with a panoramic aerial view of north-east New York, taken from the roof of The Majestic apartment building across the street from the Dakota.... We finally come to settle on a very low angle view of the beautiful Dakota at 72nd St & Central Park West (called The Bramford in the film)," writes Scout in Scouting New York.

The film's fictional Bramford is portrayed as a Gothic, 19th century New York City apartment building with a history of unsavory tenants and mysterious events.

The actual Dakota houses and has housed many famous entertainers throughout the years. One entertainer, famous musician and peace activist, John Lennon was shot four times in the entrance hallway to the Dakota and died on that very spot on December 8, 1980.

This pewter replica stands 3 inches tall and is finished with a brown stain. This replica building is available from InFocus Tech, here.