Aurora: 30 Rock & Bridge

We are forced to pay attention to the name "Aurora," over and over again.

First, a discovery, recently made.

Last Friday, SMiles Lewis sent me this:

Synch or Not? 30 Rock / Aurora Shooting
Hi Loren,
So last night my wife and did our usual dinner in front of the tv routine watching 30 Rock. We've been watching it for the first time and last night's episode caught my wife's eye for the Copycat Effect.
We were watching Season 6, Episode 7: "The Tuxedo Begins," which first aired February 16, 2012.
At the 14 minute 45 second mark the main character, Liz Lemon, is dressed up like the Joker and proceeds to lay out her plan...

"I'm going to the movies. ... I am sick; sick like a fox. I'm going to clear out that whole theater and watch a sneak peak of The Hunger Games by myself. It'll be my greatest triumph."

My wife and I both freaked a little as we verified the air date for this episode as having preceded the Aurora Shooting.
On the other hand ... this series ran on NBC and the whole episode is a spoof of the Batman franchise (titled after the 2005 Batman Begins title) obviously done for the run-up to the 2012 release of The Dark Knight Rises. 

Footnote: "The Tuxedo Begins" was the 111th episode of 30 Rock.

The relationship between Batman and the Joker is referenced, with Liz's anti-social and chaotic behavior reflecting the Joker (made apparent by her crazy-old-woman eye shadow and lipstick applied in a way that parodies the villain, as well as her purple coat and green sweater vest) and Jack's character reflecting the secluded superhero dressed in a tuxedo. Harsh blue and red lighting works to give some scenes a comic book feel. The episode title, "The Tuxedo Begins," is a reference to the movie Batman Begins while the superhero name, The Tuxedo, references The Shadow, also played by Alec Baldwin. Source.

The latest name game for Aurora was also played out on September 24, 2015 - the same day Lewis and his wife was making their old 30 Rock discovery - when a Ride the Ducks vehicle in Seattle, Washington crashed into a charter bus on the Aurora Bridge.

Aurora Bridge (Credit)

The incident killed five passengers on the bus, critically injuring eight, and seriously injuring eight more.

Federal investigators said Sunday, September 27, 2015, that a Seattle duck boat that crashed into a charter bus Thursday, September 24, 2015, did not have an axle repair that had been recommended for some of the amphibious vehicles two years ago. It was also announced that a fifth international college student died from injuries suffered in the crash. Harborview Medical Center said late Sunday afternoon that a 20-year-old woman had passed away. Her name was not immediately released. She had previously been listed in critical condition.
The vehicle involved in the Seattle crash was an Army surplus craft built in 1945. It was refurbished with a General Motors engine and chassis in 2005.
Witnesses described seeing the duck boat's left front tire lock up before it veered into the bus on the Aurora Bridge, and federal investigators announced Saturday that they found the duck boat's left front axle sheared off -- though they said it wasn't clear if the axle had broken before or after the collision.
...
The five who died in the crash were among about 45 students and staff from North Seattle College who were on the bus on the six-lane bridge with no median when the tourist-carrying duck boat swerved into it.
More than 50 people were taken to hospitals. At least 13 people remained at Seattle hospitals Sunday, with four in intensive care and one in critical condition.
The amphibious vehicle tours are offered around the world, including in Philadelphia; Austin, Texas; Miami; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and London. They feature former military landing craft repurposed as tour vehicles. Source.

h/t Michael Schacht & Robert S.

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Auroras have a way of turning up, see a few examples, here, here, here, here, and here. 

See also, "Understanding Aurora As A Synchromystic Fortean" and "The Man Who Predicted The Aurora Shooting."

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Duck Tours: A Short History of Accidents

The first "duck tour" company was started in 1946 by Mel Flath and Bob Unger in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. Flath's company has changed ownership since, but is still in operation under the name Original Wisconsin Ducks. His family continues to operate a duck company called the Dells Army Ducks in the Wisconsin Dells Area.

Thirteen deaths: In May 1, 1999 a DUKW sank in Hot Springs, Arkansas, killing 13 of the 20 people on board.

Four deaths: On June 23, 2002, the Lady Duck, a custom-built vehicle converted from a Ford F-350 pickup truck, sank while a cruise on the Ottawa River in Ontario, Canada. Six passengers, the driver, and the tour guide escaped, but four passengers were trapped under the sunken vehicle's canopy and drowned. A review found problems with regulating such vehicles and defects in the makeshift design and the emergency procedures.

Two deaths: On July 7, 2010, a regulated and modern Ride the Ducks amphibious bus (based on the original design), was disabled by an engine fire and later run over by a barge on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. The operator of the tug pushing the barge was on his personal cell phone. Before the accident the Ride The Ducks captain made numerous calls to the tug to get the tug to change course. Those calls were heard and rebroadcast by other vessels, but there was no response from the operator of the tug. Thirty-three passengers and two crew members were quickly recovered, but two passengers, a 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl, both part of a tour group from Hungary, were killed. The NTSB determined that the probable cause of the accident was the Tugboat mate's (responsible for driving the tug at the time) inattention to his duties. The tugboat mate was sentenced to 366 days in federal prison.

Four injured: On September 5, 2010 a bearing collapsed on a DUKW belonging to The Yellow Duckmarine which resulted in four passengers, including an 80-year old person, being taken to hospital with injuries.

One injured: On October 11, 2011 a motorcyclist was critically injured after a Seattle "Ride The Ducks" vehicle hit and dragged him at a red light. Ride The Ducks has been involved in two other collisions in recent years, in December 2010 and June 2011, when different Duck drivers rear-ended passenger vehicles at Third Avenue and Pike Street and at Aurora Avenue North and Denny Way. No one was injured, but both Duck drivers told officers they didn’t see the cars because of the height of their own vehicles, according to the collision reports.

Twenty-seven injured: On March 3, 2013 a duck boat of The Yellow Duckmarine in Liverpool sank in the city's Salthouse Dock during a tour. All passengers were safely transferred to a pontoon before the vehicle began to sink. In June 2013 another duck boat, operated by the same company, sank in the Albert Dock as it came to the end of a tour of Liverpool. Passengers were forced to jump into the water as the vehicle rapidly took on water. Some were rescued by vessels while others swam to the side of the dock. Out of the 31 people on board, 27 were treated in hospital for minor injuries. The incident resulted in the Maritime and Coastguard Agency withdrawing all safety certificates for the craft owned by Pearlwild and their entering administration. Pearlwild are also under investigation by the North West Traffic Commissioner over the operation of the Duckmarines during 2012.

Unknown injured: On September 29, 2013 a duck boat on the River Thames in London caught fire. Thirty people were rescued, a number of them after having jumped into the River Thames to escape the fire.

Five deaths, 16 injured: A Ride the Ducks vehicle in Seattle, Washington crashed into a charter bus on the Aurora Bridge. All the deaths were on the bus.

History compiled from Wikipedia.

Aurora Name Game & FedEx

Aurora, again?

The Rambo-style shooting at a FedEx facility in Kennesaw, Georgia, Cobb County, made news on April 29, 2014, leaving one dead and six injured.

That called forth this summary from correspondent Robert Sullivan:

March 21st, a FedEx triple tractor trailer seemingly loses control and crashes. Killing 2 people.
7 days later, March 28th a FedEx employee in Nevada, is fatally shot making deliveries.
13 days later, April 10th a FedEx tractor trailer seemingly loses control and crashes into a bus full of high school seniors, killing 10 people.
19 days later, April 29th 19 year old package handler at FedEx arms himself "like Rambo" and shoots 6 people. Injuring 2 critically.

39 days, 13 deaths, one company, FedEx.

The Christian Science Monitor also noted, when the California bus was hit by the FedEx truck, that...

In mid-February, a FedEx truck making a pick up in Sweetwater, Texas, caught fire. Later that month, a FedEx tractor trailer caught fire and was totally destroyed along I-81 near Roanoke, Virginia. In March, a FedEx truck fire shut down a portion of I-80 near Park City, Utah.

Now comes another one for the FedEx file from RS:

On Wednesday morning, April 30, 2014, two Oklahomans were identified as those killed in a traffic accident that involved a FedEx semi-trailer truck (pictured at top) a mile west of Greensburg.

Aurora Diane Balch, 35, and Donald Anthony Barrs, 27, both of Weatherford, Oklahoma, were killed in an accident shortly after 3:30 a.m. at the intersection of U.S. 54 and U.S. 183 in Kiowa County, according to a Kansas Highway Patrol report.

Balch was driving a 2006 Chrysler north on U.S. 183 when she failed to yield the right of way at the intersection. There is a sign at that location that requires U.S. 183 traffic to stop.

The westbound semi struck the Chrysler on the passenger side, where Barrs was sitting. The impact sent both vehicles in a ditch north of U.S. 54.

The semi was operated by FedEx, a highway patrol dispatcher said. The FedEx driver, Anibal Ruiz-Figueroa, 58, of Stratford, Texas, had "possible injuries."

Please note that the driver killed was yet another Aurora. I have written extensively about the moniker Aurora, see, for example, another 2014 incident and from 2012, "Understanding Aurora." The Aurora twilight name game has been on many of our minds since The Dark Knight Rises killings at Aurora, Colorado.

Kiowa County was named after the group of individuals who used the name as a self-referencing term Ka'igwu, meaning "Principal People." Another explanation of their name "Kiowa" originated after their migration through what the Kiowa refer to as "The Mountains of the Kiowa" (Kaui-kope) in the present eastern edge of Glacier National Park, Montana. In Oklahoma, in 1892, the Jerome Commission began enrolling the Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches to prepare for the opening of their reservation to settlement by whites. Kiowa County was formed in 1907. The name shows up, in good twilight lexilinking fashion, via Kiowa Gordon, an actor in three of The Twilight Saga movies.

The City of Aurora, Colorado, is in Arapahoe County, and the suspect, James Holmes, was held in the Arapahoe County detention center.

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FedEx trucks and planes are involved in several relatively 

underpublicized crashes, of course.

This FedEx semi truck caught fire after a crash August 29, 2012, in Aurora, Indiana. The crash occurred just after 11 a.m. in front of the Taco Bell on U.S. 50. The Taco Bell was briefly evacuated while crews put out the semi truck fire. (This is not the first time we've seen this combination of names. See "La Belle Aurore: Casablanca & Looper.")

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On Tuesday, May 6, 2014, a FedEx employee riding a golf cart in the FedEx facility at Shawnee, Kansas, died when he fell off the cart.

Tuesday's accident is the third fatal incident at this same FedEx Ground sorting facility since March 2013. Links to previous reports can be found below.

March 23, 2013 - Tractor trailer kills FedEx security guard in Shawnee
Nov. 20, 2013 - FedEx employee killed after being pinned between loading dock and trailer

Synchromystic Rail Wrecks?

Sometimes writers seem psychic when it merely is being curious that may lead into intriguing insights into "coincidences."



Boston journalist Mark Baard wrote an interesting posting at his blog, Timenauts, on Friday, July 17th, which, in hindsight, is spooky.

Baard made this observation in "Synchronicities strike the rails", "Here’s one for Loren Coleman (The Copycat Effect) and the synchromystics. I’ve noticed several reports of collisions in the heavy and light-rail industries since May 28 – and one intense, and fictitious scene, in Caprica, which appeared online earlier this year, in promos for the new series."

Baard cited for his examples the Washington, D.C. Metro crash, the Boston-area Green Line crash, and the Disney Monorail crash.

Needless to say, events can come in clusters and we have to be careful about Fortean insights or synchro-conspiracy theories based on accidents. But Baard's item was curious. After all, David Phillips behavior contagion research on the "Werther effect" showed that media reports of suicides could lead to small airplane accidents, almost as if the subtle suggestion is placed in the mind of the pilots to crash.

Could the news reports of so many rail wrecks result in more accidents? Who knows? Would you say the media has been "death obsessed" lately ~ with the passing of David Carradine, Farah Fawcett, Gale Storm, Karl Malden, Michael Jackson, and Walter Cronkite? Or even within the Fortean field, with the deaths of John A. Keel, Lou Gentile, Richard H. Hall and Ellie Frazetta?

So what should occur on Saturday, July 18, 2009, thus crowning Baard with the synchromystic award of the month? Another major rail accident took place!

KGO-ABC7 out of San Francisco reported the details, some of which are here:

It was a chaotic scene at a Muni station after two light rail cars collided Saturday afternoon. Multiple injuries were reported in what is being described as a major accident at San Francisco's West Portal station.

The crash happened at around 3 p.m. Dozens of passengers were triaged nearby in the southwest part of the city. At least 47 people were taken to three different area hospitals, three in serious condition.

Officials say a westbound L-train crashed into a K train that was standing still at the platform. The front of the L train is crushed. Passengers in both trains were hurt.

While we know they are undercounting, at least the Associated Press took note of the fact there have been several of these rail wrecks.

The AP, talking of the July 18th news, said:

Saturday's crash was at least the third major transit accident in the United States since May.

Nine people were killed and more than 70 injured June 22 when a Metro train slammed into a stopped train on the tracks in Washington, D.C. The cause has not been determined but investigators say equipment that is supposed to detect stopped trains failed periodically in the days leading up to the crash.

On May 8, more than 50 people were injured when a Boston subway trolley plowed into another train. Authorities say the 24-year-old operator, Aiden Quinn, went through a red signal while typing a text message on his cell phone. Quinn was indicted earlier this month on charges of grossly negligent operation and he faces three years in prison if convicted.

The June 22, 2009, crash of the Metro trains on the Red Line occurred between the Takoma and Fort Totten stations and was the deadliest accident in the system's history. The name "Totten" comes from a Civil War-era fortification, which itself was named after General Joseph Gilbert Totten, the Chief Engineer of the antebellum US Army, regent of the Smithsonian Institution and cofounder of the National Academy of Sciences. Totten was greatly admired by General Winfield Scott, for whom he directed the siege of Veracruz as his Chief Engineer during the Mexican-American War.

(By coincidence, a bridge collapsed at Veracruz, Mexico, sending cars into the Tonalá River and killing at least 8 people, on July 17, 2009. And in a strange wreck, also for July 17th, the date of Mark Baard's blog posting, an Oscar Meyer Weinermobile crashed into a Wisconsin home.)




In March, I wrote about the rather pivotal subway crash in the then-new film, Knowing.

The subway wreck appeared to have been placed in the movie almost as a tribute to the "Fayette Factor."



The "Lafayette Street" subway station, created in Australia, stood in for a fictional New York City subway stop. While there are many "Lafayette" streets, avenues, and more throughout NYC, a Lafayette stop is not one of them. Someone made a conscious decision to use this name in this dramatic scene, no matter what city was fictionally chosen. As we have now seen, this scene was to be repeated in reality soon after the release of Knowing.

The Knowing Nicolas Cage character was named Koestler, an apparent tribute to Arthur Koestler, who was born in Budapest, Hungary, on September 5, 1905. Koestler was a political writer made famous by his one book that focused on meaningful synchronicity – The Roots of Coincidence (1972). As Paul Devereux wrote for Fortean Times in 2005, Koestler's work tries "to find a basis for paranormal events in coincidence, or more precisely synchronicity, so that there is only one phenomenon to explain rather than many."

Knowing opened on March 20, 2009, on the spring equinox, the first Friday after St. Patrick's Day, and before we knew it, rail wrecks were a frequent item in the news.

Let's try to compile a complete list:

March 29, 2009 - A rear end collision in Gulwe - Igandu section (Mpwapwa district), Tanzania, killing dozens of passengers and injuring many others. Equipment breakdown and culpability.

May 8, 2009 - More than 50 people were injured when a Massachusetts Transit Authority subway trolley plowed into another train in Newton, Massachusetts, USA.

June 5, 2009 - A 111-car Canadian Pacific Railway train derailed in Oshawa, Ontario, around 2:15 p.m. CDT. Two locomotives and 27 cars of the train derailed. Some of the cars came to rest in nearby backyards and a schoolyard during recess.

June 7, 2009 - A girl is killed by the locomotive of a regional train, while she was trying to make a picture of a railway bridge, in the Bacau city (Bacau county), Romania.

June 19, 2009 - A major downpour of rain hit Rockford, Illinois, USA, and caused 14 of the 114 ethenol tankers to leave the track and explode into flames. One person at the rail crossing was killed, while several others were burned.

June 22, 2009 - Two rush hour Washington Metro trains collided in Northeast Washington D.C., USA, killing nine people.

June 29, 2009 - A freight train derailed at Viareggio, Italy. Two of the wagons were carrying Liquefied petroleum gas and they exploded. Twenty-five people were killed, five of them when a house collapsed.

June 29, 2009 - Two passenger trains collided at local time 2:34 a.m. at Chenzhou railway station, Hunan Province, Republic of China, killing 3 people and leaving 63 injured. The accident was allegedly caused by a brake failure. But this is disputed.

July 5, 2009 - Two monorail trains crashed around 2 am in the Magic Kingdom section of Walt Disney World, near Orlando, Florida, killing a 21-year-old train operator.

July 9, 2009 - An Amtrak passenger train hit the side of a vehicle in Canton Township, Michigan near Detroit, Michigan, USA. Five people were killed, all of whom were in the vehicle.

July 14, 2009 - A train conductor and engineer were killed in a Dakota Minnesota & Eastern Railroad freight train crash in a rail yard around 2 a.m., when a dozen empty cars derailed in Bettendorf, Iowa.

July 17, 2009 - Two light rail cars (the K and L trains) collided in the SW section of San Francisco, California, at around 3 p.m. with reports of 47 people hurt.

That does seem like a good deal of coincidences and crashes, doesn't it?

Interesting timing on Mark Baard's part.