First Fatal School Shooting of 2018

A 15-year-old boy shot 14 people on Tuesday, January 23, 2018, at the Marshall County High School (below) in Benton, Kentucky. The suspect, a student, entered the school at 7:57 a.m. and soon opened fire with a handgun. The first 911 call came in two minutes later, and police were on scene by 8:06 a.m.

The two people killed include a 15-year-old female student, Bailey Nicole Holt​, who died at the scene. Five of the other victims were airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center​ in Nashville, where another student, Preston Ryan Cope​, later died.

The suspect (pictured at top and below) has been identified as Gabe Parker, a freshman and band member at Marshall County High School. 

This shooting is the nation's first fatal school shooting of 2018. 

The suspect will be charged with murder and attempted murder, Kentucky State Police Lt. Michael Webb said.

Marshall County High School is about 30 minutes from Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, where a 1997 mass shooting killed three and injured five. Michael Carneal, then 14, opened fire there about two years before the fatal attack at Columbine High School in Colorado, ushering in an era when mass school shootings have become much more common.

Meanwhile, yesterday, in the small North Texas town of Italy (pronounced "It'ly"), a 15-year-old girl Noelle “Cricket” Jones was recovering after police said she was shot by a 16-year-old classmate in Ellis County's Italy High School (above) cafeteria on Monday, January 22, 2018, sending dozens of students scrambling for safety.

On Monday, January 22, 2018, Chad Padilla, 16, was taken into custody without incident after the Italy, Texas, shooting​ of a 15-year-old female student in the cafeteria just before 8:00 a.m. with a semi-automatic​ handgun.

Chad Padilla's Facebook Profile Picture.

Auroras

Benton, Kentucky is 15 miles away from Aurora, Kentucky, also in Marshall County.

Italy, Texas is 82 miles away from Aurora, Texas, in Wise County.

Ring of Fire

Are humans effected by tidal forces?

The Pacific Ring of Fire has been very active in the last 24 hours:

Philippines : Mt. Mayon Volcano erupted
Japan: Mt. Kusatsu-Shirane volcano erupted causing an avalanche.
Indonesia: 5.3 or 6.1 Magnitude earthquake jolts Jakarta, Java.
Alaska: 7.9 or 8.2 Magnitude earthquake off the coast of Kodiak, Alaska, causing tsunami warnings.

United States: Two small earthquakes in Missouri, in last few days.

United States: Mount St. Helens, Washington State, placed on "very high" threat level as shockwaves rattle state.

Red Dawn Alert ~ Full Moon on Summer Solstice: Shooting Spree, Assassination, or Quake Coming?

Sources repeating the Farmer's Almanac say it was the Algonquin First Peoples, but I find the Anishnaabe (Ojibwe) and the Sioux are the peoples who call the June full moon, "The Strawberry Moon." In Europe, it is referred to as "The Full Rose Moon."

The June full moon is symbolically "red" because that is when certain crops are seen, not because the June moon is scarlet in the sky. But this twilight language in the name is significant.

In the Northern Hemisphere, 2016's full moon happens to fall on the same day as the first day of summer, the summer solstice.

Strawberries are red. Roses are red. This year, the June full moon, traditionally said to be red, will become full at dawn. A red dawn. Readers of this Twilight Language blog know that the hidden message of "red dawn" is about pivotal violent situations.

For example, in July 2012, the Aurora, Colorado shooting was a "red dawn," a milestone awakening event. Colorado means "red," and Aurora means "dawn." Later in December 2012, in Newtown/Sandy Hook, Connecticut, that "red dawn" event included the actual killing of a Dawn.

In 2016, the June Full Strawberry Moon is at its peak fullness near dawn, at 7:02 AM Eastern Daylight Savings Time, on Monday, June 20. The exact time for the solstice is 6:34 PM EDT. Almost three hours later, the full moon will rise in the East on Monday at 8:10 PM EDT.

Will mass shootings, assassinations, mental health outbursts, suicides, murder-suicides, volcanoes, and earthquakes visit some people on June 20-21, 2016?

One astrologer, Timothy Halloran of the Rasa Lila Healing network, said on 6.16.16, that the alignment of the full moon and solstice will bring about "madness, hallucinations and delusions of grandeur."

Also, Halloran is reported to have said: "People do go on shooting sprees."

The video [is] called Full Moon in Sagittarius, June 16 2016 - Psychic Warfare and Crusading.
In it he said: "Words such as enlightenment and illumination generally are perceived as being wonderful and pleasant things that we should strive for and desire to achieve.
"Yet the light is piercing, and it is hot, and it can be unbearable at times, particularly for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere during the Summer Solstice, when the Sun scorches down and we have our longest day of the year.
"Coinciding with this celestial event (a day before) we have a Full Moon at the final degree of Sagittarius square to Chiron.
"He said at the time Mercury would activate a 'mutable grand cross between Saturn, Jupiter and a stationed retrograde Neptune'.
He said: "To Say that this is a stable time to be awake and aware would be a lie.
"The transitioning occurring now is like a giant wave crashing onto the shore of our own perspectives and beliefs, scattering debris everywhere, and in so doing also ripping a hole through the veil; Exposing a reality we never knew existed underneath."
In a rambling 40-minute video, Mr Halloran said: "We are in the closing square. This is when this s***t starts to fall apart.
"This is what is may going on with this full moon in Sagittarius, the ripping away of veils "This is a critical time energetically. This is a time when people go off the deep end, people lose control." More, read here.

+++
Note the trend of these Wikipedia mentioned events for June 20th:

451 – Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius' battles Attila the Hun. After the battle, which was inconclusive, Attila retreats, causing the Romans to interpret it as a victory.
1248 – The University of Oxford receives its Royal charter.
1631 – The sack of Baltimore: The Irish village of Baltimore is attacked by Algerian pirates.
1652 – Tarhoncu Ahmed Pasha is appointed Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
1685 – Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declares himself King of England at Bridgwater.
1756 – A British garrison is imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
1782 – The U.S. Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States. [Illuminati?]
1787 – Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention to call the government the 'United States'.

Other incidents of significance for the day:

1837 – Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne.
1862 – Barbu Catargiu, the Prime Minister of Romania, is assassinated.
1945 – The United States Secretary of State approves the transfer of Wernher von Braun and his team of Nazi rocket scientists to America. [Operation Paperclip]
1963 – The so-called "red telephone" link is established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis.
1990 – The 7.4 Mw Manjil–Rudbar earthquake affects northern Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 35,000–50,000, and injuring 60,000–105,000.
1991 – The German Bundestag votes to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.
2001 – Andrea Yates, in an attempt to save her young children from Satan, drowns all five of them in a bathtub in Houston, Texas.

Litha / Midsummer celebrations in the northern hemisphere, Yule in the southern hemisphere.

Let us hope that nothing occurs. And let Orlando be safe from any more visitations of violence.

Killer Quake on July 12th? Update: Not in USA

Update: No killer or even big quake hit the USA on July 12, 2014. Small earthquakes did shake Oklahoma greatly, and some were noticed in the Big Bear Lake areas of California. But as to a dawn quake on Saturday, July 12th, we have to look to Japan.

Here is a summary of that event.

A strong earthquake hit Japan's northern coast near the nuclear power plant crippled in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The earthquake early Saturday triggered a small tsunami and injured at least one person.
Japan's Meteorological Agency said the 6.8-magnitude quake struck 10 kilometers (6 miles) below the sea surface off the coast of Fukushima. The 4:22 a.m. [Saturday, July 12, 2014] (1922 GMT Friday) quake shook buildings in Tokyo, about 250 kilometers (120 miles) northwest of the epicenter.
A 20-centimeter (8-inch) tsunami reached the coast of Ishinomaki Ayukawa and Ofunato, about 50 minutes after the quake. Smaller waves were observed at several other locations along the coast. Changes to the shoreline were not visible on television footages of NHK public broadcaster.
In Fukushima, a 68-year-old woman fell down the stairs and broke her leg, according to the prefectural police. No damage was reported. Read the rest of story, here.

Earlier....

Will a large earthquake take place in the United States on July 12, 2014? More specifically, will a quake that will be big enough to kill someone occur between 4:45 am – 7:55 am, or 4:45 pm – 7:55 pm, on the West Coast, in southern California, this coming Saturday?

Earthquake predictor David Nabhan thinks so. In his book, Earthquake Prediction: Answers in Plain Sight: Times and Dates When the Next Great Tremor Might Strike, Nabhan set down the date in print (along with September 9, 2014, as well).

Nabhan's book notes that every earthquake that was powerful enough to be a killer within a 70 mile radius of Los Angeles' city center (between 1933 and 1994) struck within a tight 3 hour window at dawn or a corresponding time interval at dusk. Furthermore, 66% of these events took place within 36 hours of the precise instant of a new or full moon. Other regional examples followed this same pattern.

The Great San Francisco Earthquake (1906) clocked in at 5:12 AM; Loma Prieta (1989) struck almost precisely 12 hours later: 5:04 PM.
Anchorage was destroyed on Good Friday, 1964 at 5:36 PM--47 minutes away from the exact moment when the Moon entered the greatest extent of it's fullness.
The last Big One on the Southern San Andreas (1857) hit Fort Tejon in the early morning.
The May 2, 1996 magnitude 5.4 Seattle earthquake, the largest in that city’s history since 1965, rocked the Puget Sound area no more than 9 minutes outside the time and date forecasted in David Nabhan’s first book....Nabhan suggests there is fairly solid evidence to support the hypothesis that solar and lunar tides working in tandem might actually have a hand in at least helping to trigger tremors on the West Coast. Source.

Needless to say, Nabhan gives himself only a 24 hour range, instead of a 36 hour one, if he predicts for exactly July 12th. But I guess one has to begin somewhere.

The Super Moon of July 12 (which happens to be my birthday) appears to be a powerful one, so perhaps those earthquake preparedness kits would be a good idea for California and Alaska residents. Shop today for water, canned goods, batteries, and first aid equipment. Be careful. Be aware.

I am skeptically open-minded about such predictions, having even written a tribute to Iben Browning upon his death, and a more recent posting on Browning's forecasting.

Actually, I don't wish a large earthquake on any region of the USA, and especially the populated areas of southern California. The "Big One" in Los Angeles could kill hundreds. As it is, my sister Susan lives in southern California, so I hope this is a non-story.

But earthquakes, like death and taxes, do eventually happen. In the end, I think we have to begin to predict earthquakes so people will pay attention.

The Super Moon of July 12th probably will cause some sizable seismic activity, whether it's on the 12th, 13th, or 14th, and whether it is in California, Alaska, Mexico, or Greece.

Be prepared, my friends.

Cinco De Derby Moon

 

Saturday is El Cinco De Mayo ("The Fifth of May" in Spanish), which commemorates the defeat of the French army by the Mexicans led by General Ignacio Zaragoza at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862.

Many cities with significant Mexican and Chicano populations throughout the United States schedule special events on the 5th of May. It has been embraced as a day to celebrate Latino culture throughout Hispanic America, which, of course, today covers all of North America, as well.

In 2012, in North America, look for this to be a powerful weekend, for a lot is going on.

Saturday will also see the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby, a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses held annually at Churchill Downs, in Louisville, Kentucky. It will take place on May 5 at exactly 6:23 pm EST. The race will be televised in the USA on the NBC television network.

Saturday night also features a "Super Full Moon." The full moon will be occurring on the same night that the moon is at its nearest point in its orbit to the Earth, known as perigee. This "coincidence" (thanks RDR) of the full moon and perigee happens once every 14 months, so it is not highly unusual. However, with the full moon looking 25 percent brighter due to this occurrence, people usually notice it, especially if they are outside, for example, celebrating El Cinco De Mayo or the Kentucky Derby. Watch for earthquake activity and volcano eruptions in the wake of the Super Full Moon, over the following days. Indeed, will Mount Popo in Mexico decide this is the perfect time to blow?

I'm not through. There is more to look forward to, for, in my continued tip of my hat to El Cinco De Mayo, we should also celebrate El Chupacabras De Mayo, in honor of the beginning of the season for Chupacabras sightings.

Below is a copy of the original drawing describing one of the first sightings of El Chupacabras ("The Goatsucker") from Puerto Rico.

   

My personal favorite quotation is this often-noted response I gave to a question from ABC News about the then apparently new cryptid.

 Chupacabras: "It's sort of like Jennifer Lopez, kind of cross-cultural." - Loren Coleman, 1999.

Interested in knowing why using "Chupacabra" is just so wrong (in spite of the Skeptic Inquirer's Ben Radford)? See "Chupawhat?".

   

What interesting events do you think will occur this weekend?

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.

Supermoon Rising

Cartoon commentary: Adams, Telegraph.

About a month ago, I posted this: "Look to March 17th this year to be a date linked to much turmoil." 

It is only recently that I was reading what etemenanki has linked to regarding the  "supermoon" event tied to March 19th.

On March 19, 2011, the moon will be closer to Earth than at any time since 1992 - just 221,567 miles away - and its gravitational pull will bring chaos to Earth, some say.

Previous supermoons took place in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005 - all years that had extreme weather events. The tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia happened two weeks before the January 2005 supermoon. And on Christmas Day 1974, Cyclone Tracy laid waste to Darwin, Australia.

Coincidence? Banda Aceh, Indonesia, was devastated by the December 2004 tsunami which took place two weeks before a supermoon.

The Shinmoedake volcano in the Kirishima range in south-western Japan erupted on March 14, 2011.

Is there a relationship between the Japanese 9.0 earthquake of March 11, 2011, as well as the resulting tsunami/nuclear reactor explosions, and the supermoon of March 19, 2011?

How will history record these times?

Giant Butterfly-Mothman Link?

 
Frank Frazetta's Mothman.  


Yes, I am going to be so bold as to predict that an earthquake, large enough for people to feel, is going to hit Los Angeles very soon. You decide what "very soon" means. This weekend, this coming month, in the next, well, thirteen months? Everything is relative, but something big seems to be in the future of the area. 

 

“The Curse Continues” © Charles Berlin, drawn exclusively for Loren Coleman.  

All the indicators are there: Mothman-like sightings, UFO encounters, swarms of Gulf of California quakes, animal attacks (such as the mountain goat killing of the hiker), pet disappearances, and moody people (like a mother stabbing twins). I would not doubt that car chases are on the increase too.  

We certainly know from research that changes in animal behavior and the appearance of earthquake lights are predictors of earthquakes. Could there be more bizarre precusors? You name it and SoCal seems to be generating lots of strange indications of the big one shaking soon. Does Mother Earth foreshadow her events so overtly and covertly? Perhaps.  

Let's look of some of the hints.  

Grant Lawrence has reported in recent days of the sighting of what naturally sounds like a Mothman to me. In his blog entitled "'The Giant Butterfly' Returns to Los Angeles: Witness Describes Amazing UFO Experience," Lawrence notes that a Los Angeles County resident "had an amazing sighting of a giant creature that flew over his home," which was described as "having an appearance of a 'giant butterfly.'"  

The eyewitness, Tim, experienced this incident in Montrose, California, Los Angeles County, just north of the Glendale/Burbank area, between 2:30 and 3:00 pm on October 15, 2010, which was a partly cloudy-partly sunny day. Looking in his backyard, Tim noticed above the tree line, coming from his right, a sizable object that was moving at a steady, moderate pace. It was not soaring fast, but just passing from right to left in the sky. Tim told Lawrence:

It didn't take long to realize that this object was something quite unique. It is hard to deduce the distance that this object had been out in the sky but it was too large to have been a regular bird and did not look like an airplane or anything mechanical. The reason why it was so odd is that although seeing this from my angle looking up at it, I could not make out any real definition but I did see what looked like wings above this mass that flapped like the wings of a butterfly.

It looked like what a gigantic butterfly would appear to be at a great distance in the sky. It was not streamlined or had wings open like a bird soaring. This is what really knocked me over. As it kept passing over I looked at this object that I then considered to be some kind of very large 'bird' because of the 'wings' that I saw flapping but in the motion that a butterfly would flap its wings. So in my mind my first thought was a huge 'bird' because of the many sightings of enormous 'birds' and the thought of a gigantic butterfly was to me, outlandish.

Lastly, I do remember some 'color' in this mass and to the best of my memory, shades of red-orange, possibly reddish-yellow but I did see a hint of color in it. It passed and it was gone. It flew like it was in no rush at all. I went around the building to see if I could see more of it but couldn't. I could not see any real definition like a head or tail but the 'butterfly' type wings and motion were standout in my memory.

Grant Lawrence remarkably makes the connection between this new LA-area sighting and a rather dramatic account that is part of February 24-25, 1942's infamous "Battle of Los Angeles." 

 

Los Angeles Times, February 26, 1942.  

As Lawrence points out, one of the objects reported in the early morning hours of February 25, 1942, looked like a "giant butterfly," a slow moving object, bigger than a Zeppelin that traveled from Santa Monica to Long Beach.  

A total blackout of LA occurred during the 1942 scare. At 3:16 a.m. the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade began firing 12.8-pound anti-aircraft shells into the air at "reported" aircraft; over 1,400 shells would eventually be fired. Three people on the ground were killed by the shells and three people died from heart attacks due to all of the excitement and stress of the "air raid."  

The Reno Evening Gazette, dated February 26, 1942, noted the following: "Still others who watched the spectacle, if it can be called that, sighted no planes in the glare of the army's searchlights. A number, however, reported seeing 'something that looked like a giant butterfly.'"  

Months later, a 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit southern California on October 21, 1942 at 9:30 am, PWT. The Fish Creek Mountains earthquake occurred on the southern section of the Coyote Creek fault, the southernmost section of the San Jacinto fault zone, in a fairly remote area of southern California. Thus, it caused relatively little damage for its size. However, it was felt over a large area of southern California, as well as parts of Baja California and Arizona. The quake caused rockslides in Carrizo Gorge, blocking Highway 80 and the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railroad. It caused minor damage in Brawley, El Centro, Westmoreland, and even San Diego, where at least 40 aftershocks were reported felt in the following eight days. Hardest hit was Jacumba Hot Springs, fairly close to the epicenter.  

During late October 2010, what the Los Angeles area has been experiencing are low-level earthquakes. A couple weeks ago, Santa Monica had one, and in recent days, a swarm of quakes has centered in the Gulf of California. Furthermore, predictions of the "Big One" are being pushed up, according to the local media there. 

I

Illustration by Thom Marsh. 

Is one person's Mothman another person's Giant Butterfly? Is all the activity a clue to big news around the corner? Can "Giant Butterfly" sightings serve as banshee incidents, as has been assumed with the Mothman encounter history? Perhaps only time will tell.  

Thanks to Wil, Chris, and Patrick for info shared.