Human Earthquakes

This is the scene aboard American Airlines Flight 1561 from Chicago, just ten minutes before arrival at San Francisco's airport, when a Yemeni man attempted to storm the flight's cockpit.

During the last few days, you may have noticed that people are beginning to share questions like, "Is there something in the air?" or "What's in the water?"
Comments such as those usually alert us to the fact there seems to be a strange trend in the news reflecting outbursts of human behavior or what I like to call, "human earthquakes."
There definitely are periods when humans appear to repeat patterns so similar that the copycat effect, behavior contagion, or some mysterious seismic forces seem to be at play. 
Are we in such a period?
First, let us mention the prediction for a massive earthquake occurring today, May 11, 2011. 

Raffaele Bendani, an Italian seismologist, forecast in 1915 that a large earthquake would hit Rome on May 11, 2011.  (Or will it happen on Friday, May 13th?)
Why should people pay attention to Bendani's prediction? Well, of course, because he was right before.  He predicted the earthquake of January 13, 1915, which killed 30,000 people in Avezzano. In 1923, he predicted an earthquake would hit central Italy on January 2, 1924. He was only off by two days. He also forecast the quake of May 6, 1976, in Friuli, which killed 1,000 and left another 45,000 homeless.

An update: Late news reports on May 11th, say a 5.3 earthquake causing eight fatalities hit Spain. See here.

On May 12th, UK's The Telegraph asked, "Was Bendani Correct?"

As the earthquake struck yesterday, there was a sigh of relief in Rome, whose residents had mounted a mass evacuation following claims of a 1915 prediction by Mr Bendandi that the “big one” would wipe out the Eternal City on May 11, 2011….“There is absolutely no link between Spain and Italy, geologically, or with the prediction of an earthquake in Rome,” said the Italian National Institute of Geology and Vulcanology.   

“The earthquake in Spain was not very strong in itself, but it was close to the surface,” said Alberto Michelini, a seismologist at the institute. “The quake happened on the coast, a zone which has not had strong quakes in the past. It is close, however, to the point where the Eurasian plate meets the African plate,” he added.

Meanwhile, what about the human earthquakes?

What is remarkable is the rather high number of incidents of strange human bizarre behaviors of late. Such outbursts are often associated, in the public mind and media, with some form of lunacy, i.e. as if they are caused by the full moon, the new moon, an alignment of planets, or earthquake activity (which, in turn, is blamed on the moon/planets, as well).
The following is a quick roundup of some of these recent incidents.
The one that received the most media notice involved an event that appeared to remind people of the 9/11 scenarios, and, indeed, was frightening to those abroad the involved flight. Rageit Almurisi, 29, a Yemeni man screamed "Allah Akbar" as he stormed the flight's cockpit. He banged on the cockpit door on American Airlines Flight 1561 from Chicago, just ten minutes before the jet was due to land on Sunday night, May 8, 2011. A flight attendant tackled the man to the floor, and the attendant was soon assisted by other passengers.

The incident was another scare during a weekend that saw several similar ones for American air passengers and followed a number of security alerts at bus and train stations and airports across America, following the death of Osama Bin Laden:

A man slipped into the PATH tunnel at the World Trade Center in New York and walked all the way to Jersey before saying he had left a bomb in the tunnel;

A gunman who shot two Houston officers outside a downtown Greyhound bus depot was confirmed dead;

Police blocked off several streets in the Bronx, New York, as the NYPD bomb squad investigated a parked SUV;

The Mockingbird DART station and the surrounding area in Dallas, Texas, were evacuated on Saturday after a police dog alerted authorities to suspicious packages;

Four people were arrested at Denver International Airport after staff noticed someone videotaping security lines;

A 34-year-old Illinois man went berserk aboard Continental Airlines Boeing 737 from Houston to Chicago and tried to open the door at 35,000ft, but a Vietnam veteran and martial arts expert tackled him from behind;

A Delta Air Lines flight from Detroit to San Diego was diverted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, after a flight attendant found a note in the lavatory with the word "bomb." FBI agents ushered the passengers and crew to safety;

A woman stripped naked on a Delta flight;

A half-naked man in Fayetteville, Arkansas, died when a falling incident occurred;

A naked man went berserk on a subway; and

On Tuesday night, May 10, yet another man, this time on a Delta flight, attempted to open an exit door.

More probably will follow.

9/9/9 Hijacking

Aeromexico Flight 576, which is 5+7+6 = 18, thus 1+8 = 9, was hijacked on 9/9/9.

Breaking news is that the plane hijacking in Mexico is over after special forces stormed the jet.

The aircraft was hijacked as it landed in the capital Mexico City from the resort of Cancun. Mexican online media reports said Aeromexico Flight 576 had 104 people on board when it left Bolivia, and made a stopover in Cancun en route to Mexico City.

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Update: Mark Baard at Timenauts.com points out, from CNN:

A 44-year-old Bolivian drug addict and alcoholic who describes himself as a church minister was the sole person responsible for the brief hijacking Wednesday of a commercial jetliner....The suspect — Jose Mar Flores — told authorities he hijacked the Boeing 737 jet because the date — September 9, 2009, or 9/9/9, and 666 reversed — held some significance for him, said Genaro Garcia Luna, the secretary for public safety.

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Intriguingly, earlier reports said up to five men were taken off the jet in handcuffs after it was stormed.

The alleged hijackers reportedly had explosives strapped to their legs and were demanding to talk to Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

They released all the passengers soon after the plane landed in Mexico City.

The passengers left with their hand luggage. They appeared calm and boarded nearby buses.

But the plane's crew were still being held hostage before special forces moved in and made the arrests.

Nobody was hurt and no shots were fired, it is understood.

Transportation and Communications Secretary Juan Molinar said all passengers and crew were safe.

But he would not say how many alleged hijackers were detained or give details of their motivation.

"Various people who participated in the act have been detained and we are investigating," he said.

He said there was no bomb on the airplane, although some passengers said one of the hijackers held a package that resembled an explosive device.

Aeromexico Flight 576 has been on the runway at the capital's international airport after the hijacking.

One of the passengers, Adriana Romero, told Mexican TV she had not realized the flight had been hijacked until the plane landed at Mexico City.

"We realized it was a hijack when we saw the police trucks," she said.

El Universal daily said the men had not been able to get inside the plane's cockpit.

The last hijacking in the region was in April in Jamaica, when an armed man took over a CanJet Boeing 737 due to fly from Montego Bay to Cuba.

All 182 people on board were rescued unharmed when Jamaican police stormed the airliner and captured the mentally troubled gunman without firing a shot.