How Did They Kill Bill?

Did someone Kill Bill, after all? The symbolic imagery was all around him, as seen in the background.

An elementary decoding of the Carradine family's history and ties to certain groups makes David Carradine's death more mysterious than most.

93, 93/93. 09/3/6. Carradine died in 2009, on 3 June, in Thailand. According to his family, he might have been killed because he was investigating "secret societies."

Dr. Michael Baden, the former New York City chief medical examiner and lead investigator of the House Select Committee's review of the JFK assassination, has determined that Carradine's did not die by suicide.

So, what happened?

Is it time to synchromystically observe the man in the movies?

Now comes the tributes in which his films are being screened anew. No marathons of Carradine's series "Kung Fu" yet, but Spike TV is paying tribute to David Carradine with a movie marathon Saturday, June 13, 2009, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m Eastern. Such a movie marathon allows for a thoughtful viewing of the deeper themes of two of his more recent marital arts-related projects.

First up, at 2:00 p.m. is Kill Bill: Volume 1, in which Carradine played the leader Bill of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Bill's codename is "Snake Charmer." The Bride/Beatrix "Black Mamba" Kiddo (Uma Thurman) is a female assassin, a trained killer who has been betrayed by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad led by her former boss Bill (David Carradine) who gunned her down at her wedding, leaving her for dead. The Bride wakes up four years later and sets out to begin her quest for vengeance. With the help of one of Bill's former tutors, retired sword-maker Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba), The Bride sets out to eliminate the first two targets on her list: Vernita Green/"Copperhead" (Vivica Fox), who has retired from the Deadly Viper Assassin Squad and has a daughter and O-Ren Ishii/"Cottonmouth" (Lucy Liu), who is now the kingpin of the Tokyo criminal underworld and leader of the "Crazy 88" crime gang. The major bloodbath of Volume 1 occurs at the House of Blue Leaves.

The number of overtly hidden connections to other films in the Kill Bill movies is phenomenal. From the links to The Manchurian Candidate (1962), where the introduction of the fight between Thurman and Fox parallels the fight between Sinatra and Silva, to the Al Hirt theme music from "The Green Hornet," which is heard when The Bride rides her motorcycle through Tokyo, there are many. The Kato masks worn by The Crazy 88s are also taken from the one worn by Bruce Lee on that 1966 television show, which references Lee's precursor role to Carradine in "Kung Fu." Was it about Lee's death too?



The overall storyline of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill - a woman seeks revenge on a group of people, crossing them off a list one by one as she kills them - is adapted from Lady Snowblood, a 1973 Japanese film in which a woman kills off the gang who murdered her family. The film also references Samurai Reincarnation (1981) by quoting its iconic line "If you encounter God, God will be cut."


Kill Bill: Volume 2 follows at 4:30 p.m. When this chapter in the saga begins, The Bride has already encountered some of her targets, as she continues battling her way up the chain of command, knowing it will ultimately lead her to her main goal: her chance to kill Bill. Elle Driver/"California Mountain Snake" (Daryl Hannah) and Bill's brother, Budd/"Sidewinder"(Michael Madsen) are important characters in Volume 2. (In real life, Carradine and Madsen were good friends.)

Both Kill Bill films are rebroadcast at 7:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.

At 1:00 a.m. is Kung Fu Killer.


David Carradine and Daryl Hannah reunited in a film for the first time since their roles on the big screen in Kill Bill to star in the two-part original movie miniseries, Kung Fu Killer, which was first broadcast on Spike TV in August 2008.

Set in late 1920s in China, before Communist rule, Kung Fu Killer tells the story of White Crane (Carradine), an orphaned son of Western missionaries who was raised as a Wudang monk to become a spiritual leader and master in martial arts, and his ultimate journey for revenge and justice.

In the first installment, Crane’s peaceful world is shattered when Kahn Xin (Lim Kay Tong) and his mercenaries raid his temple and slay his mentor. In search of his master’s murderers, Crane infiltrates the Shanghai underworld where he encounters Jane Marshall (Hannah), a lounge singer from Brooklyn, who is on a mission of her own – to find her lost brother, who is being held captive by Kahn. Realizing that Kahn’s evil plans are more intricate and widespread than originally thought, Crane teams up with Jane in order to enter Kahn’s inner circle. From there, they tread carefully in order to dismantle Kahn’s destructive plans before assassinating him. Soon, Crane’s battle becomes a moral one, as he finds himself torn between his peaceful Wudang upbringing and the cold-blooded life of an assassin.

The second installment, Kung Fu Killer II shifts gears to a more personal drama as Crane returns to help rebuild his shattered temple. However, the peace is short-lived as, back in Shanghai, nightclub singer Jane is kidnapped by Bai Yang, an old classmate and rival of Crane’s who plans to employ her in the sex trade. It is up to Crane and his young protégé Lang (Osric Chau) to save not only Jane, but Lang’s true love Wei.

Kung Fu Killer was shot entirely on location in China at the Zhejiang Heng Dian World Studios and the towns of Fong Yang and Heng Dian. The miniseries marked the first time a production of this scale was produced by a Western production company utilizing an almost exclusively Chinese crew.



Complete schedule for the Marathon, Spike TV, June 13th:

2:00pm

Kill Bill: Volume 1

4:30pm

Kill Bill: Volume 2

7:30pm

Kill Bill: Volume 1

10:00pm

Kill Bill: Volume 2

1:00am

Kung Fu Killer

Holocaust Museum Gunfight

An 88-year-old white supremacist, 9/11 "Truther" and Holocaust denier or revisionist opened fire in Washington D.C.’s Holocaust Museum on June 10, 2009, wounding at least one before being shot in the head by security officers. The gunman gravely wounded a security guard before two other officers returned fire. The assailant, James W. von Brunn, and his victim were both hospitalized. Late Wednesday afternoon, the guard, identified as 39-year-old Stephen T. Johns of Temple Hills, Maryland, died.

Twilight Language, Indeed

Intriguingly, one of the first people interviewed outside the Holocaust Museum, a man with his family who had been inside during the shooting, was shown on full screen by Fox News wearing a tee-shirt emblazoned with the picture of and words The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

The interview, entitled ""Felt Very Secure," was by reporter Steve Centanni of Todd Newman and his wife, Roberta, plus their two daughters. The Newmans were identified as being from Sparks, Nevada.



The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is a drop tower thrill ride at Walt Disney amusement parks and is based upon the television show The Twilight Zone. The original version of the attraction opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios in July 1994, with the California Adventure version opening nearly ten years later, in May 2004.

How subtle is that regarding an overt "twilight language" message of "terror," with an illusion back to 9/11 and more? (Credit is to be given to MAH, S., T. and M. for bringing this to my attention.)

88

James Wenneker von Brunn reportedly was an 88-year-old resident of Maryland. He once lived in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

"Eighty-eight is used as code among Neo-Nazis to identify each other. H is the 8th letter of the alphabet, so 88 is taken to stand for HH which in turn means Heil Hitler," says Wikipedia.

James W. von Brunn, who was charged and convicted in 1981 for running towards the boardroom of Washington’s Federal Reserve building with a shotgun, entered the Holocaust Museum just before 1:00 pm Eastern and opened fire “indiscriminately” with a long rifle.

A guard was immediately hit, before two other security officers at the heavily guarded museum, less than a mile from the White House, hit von Brunn in the head with return fire.

D.C. Police Chief Kathy Lanier said the gunman appeared to have acted alone. He was "engaged by security guards immediately after entering the door" with a rifle, she said.

The episode unfolded inside the museum, which maintains a heavy security presence, with guards positioned inside and out. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.

It was not immediately known whether the gunman made it through the detectors before opening fire.

Anne Frank and The Date

Von Brunn reportedly has claimed that the book The Diary of Anne Frank, about a teenage girl's experiences under Nazi rule, was a hoax. The shooting occurred two days before what would have been Anne Frank's 80th birthday. Other significance events linked to this date include: June 10, 1940 - Norway surrenders to the Nazis; Italy declares war on Britain and France; June 10, 1942 - Nazis liquidate Lidice in reprisal for Heydrich's assassination; June 10, 1944 - Nazis liquidate the town of Oradour-sur-Glane in France. Women and children are burned alive in a church in Oradour-sur-Glane and the men are machine-gunned. The incident has been fictionally transported to additional locations in various movies (e.g. most recently, The Reader) about Nazis (and about the British during the Revolutionary War, The Patriot).

It has been pointed out, by sites as diverse as RevisionistHistory.org and Daily Kos, that on this day at the Holocaust Museum "African-American Attorney General Eric Holder was scheduled to visit the museum to hear a reading of the script of Anne and Emmett, a play about Anne Frank and Emmet Till." Furthermore, the author of this Holocaust Museum play, Janet Langhart Cohen, the African-American wife of former Secretary of Defense, former Maine Senator William Cohen, were also in attendence. (The guard killed is African-American.)

The premiere of Langhart's one-act play imagines a conversation between two teens, Nazi victim Anne Frank and Jim Crow victim Emmett Till. Her play was presented in honor of the eightieth anniversary of Anne Frank's birth.

It is also to be noted that the date of June 11, 2001 is the day on which Timothy James McVeigh was executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building.

Masonic Obelisk


The Holocaust Museum was established almost literally in the shadow of the obelisk of the Washington Monument.

The museum, across the street from the National Mall, and within sight of the Washington Monument, was closed for the day after the shooting. Nearby streets were cordoned off by police.



In a statement, museum spokesman Andrew Hollinger said an assailant shot a museum security officer and "two museum security officers returned fire, hitting the assailant."

At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said he informed President Barack Obama of the events and said the chief executive was "obviously saddened by what has happened."

The museum houses exhibits and records relating to the Holocaust more than a half century ago in which more than six million Jews were killed by the Nazis.

Mark Lippert of LaSalle, Illinois, who was in the museum, said he heard several loud pops and saw several schoolchildren running toward him, three with horrified looks on their faces.

Linda Elston, who was visiting the museum from Nevada City, California, said she was on the lower level watching a film when she and others were told to evacuate.

"It was totally full of people," Elston said. "It took us a while to get out."

She said she didn't hear any shots and didn't immediately know why there was an evacuation. The experience left her feeling "a little anxious," she said.

More on Von Brunn

The Times of London noted:

Von Brunn, who claims on his own website to have been a decorated PT-boat captain and lieutenant in the US Navy during World War II, has written a book entitled Kill the Best Gentiles! According to its preface, its purpose it “to present WHITE YOUTH” with factual information to explain that an “age old CONSPIRACY does exist to destroy Western Civilisation.”

Von Brunn also has a Wikipedia user profile in which he champions the virtues of Western culture and the practice of eugenics. In another article he claims that Holocaust history is destroying Western civilization.

He is clearly a Holocaust denier – a belief decried by Mr Obama during his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last week. Von Brunn bemoans that “Jews control all important sources of information”, and claims that there is a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white gene pool. He also wrote: “America is a Third-World racial garbage-dump – stupid, ignorant, dead broke, and terminal. Whites LOVE their Enemies. Prepare to die, Whitey.” One of heroes he cites is World War II Real Admiral John Crommelin, a notorious anti-Semite who later ran for governor of Alabama.

In 1981, von Brunn entered the Federal Reserve in Washington with a shotgun to make a citizens arrest, he later said, to protest about high interest rates. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail.

On his website, he claims he was convicted by a “Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys, and sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge. A Jew/Negro/White Court of Appeals denied his appeal.”

A Time of "Lone Nuts" or Not?

The Holocaust Museum gunfight follows two shooting incidents last week with political-religious undertones.

George Richard Tiller, MD, a Wichita, Kansas physician who provided abortions and was the medical director of the Women's Health Care Services, was assassinated on May 31, 2009, during worship services at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita. He was serving as an usher and handing out church bulletins. Tiller was shot once in the head at point blank range by a gunman who escaped after threatening two others, then fleeing in a car.

Three hours after the shooting, the anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder was arrested about 170 miles away in suburban Kansas City. On June 2, 2009, Roeder was charged with the first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault in connection with the shooting.

On June 1, 2009, a converted Muslim man shot two new Army soldiers, killing one, at a military recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas. A man in a black SUV drove to the recruitment office and fired "several shots" with an assault rifle at around 10:30 a.m.

The captured suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, reportedly had been under investigation by an FBI joint terrorism task force after he traveled to Yemen and was arrested there for using a Somali passport. The probe was in its early stages and based on Muhammad's trip to Yemen, according to ABC News.

Police Chief Stuart Thomas identified the victims as 23-year-old William Long of Conway, who died, and Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, who was wounded and in stable condition. The two soldiers, both wearing fatigues, had recently completed basic training and volunteered to help attract others to the military.

Carradine: Killed By "Kung Fu" Illuminatus?

David Carradine may have been killed by an illuminatus, a supposed enlightened one, even if the victim also turns out to be the perpetrator. Maybe he was murdered because he had become a "seeker"? Carradine, it appears, was investigating "secret societies." (See update at the end for the latest on the Carradine family's "Kung Fu" conspiracy angle.)



Not Illuminati, but illuminatus

By my reference to "illuminatus," I am not talking about the Illuminati, that Bavarian Order created by Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) in 1776 that was stamped out in 1784. I am not a John Bircher, heaven forbid.

Look, the enlightened have been around for a long time.

Galileo's buddies in the Alumbrados had their run-ins with the Roman Catholic Church, and Weishaupt's Illuminati members had to deal with being banned by Karl Theodor after he became ruler of Bavaria.

Of course, revivals of groups using the name have taken place. These include the "Revived Bavarian Order of the Illuminati," established on March 12, 1901, by Leopold Engel (1858-1931). Then there are Aleister Crowley's sex-magick revivals. The Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) was founded by Theodor Reuss (1855-1923), and later restructured by Crowley (1875-1947), who used the word Illuminati as a grade of initiation within the organization.

John Carradine/David Carradine: OTO?

Here is where the Carradine name pops into the story.



In Craig Heimbichner's Blood on the Altar: The Secret History of the World's Most Dangerous Secret Society, it notes that the cofounder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Jack Parsons was the OTO's Agape Lodge cofounder. The OTO, he characterizes, as a group involved in sex-magick, pedopilia, and other tales of power and perversion. (BTW, agape is Greek for "brotherly love.")

Heimbichner observes (p. 121), "His Agape Lodge was affiliated with many Hollywood writers and actors, including John Carradine, father of [David] the star of "Kung Fu" and the cinematic blood-geyser Kill Bill. The elder Carradine read one of [Aleister] Crowley's poems at the inauguration of the Agape Lodge No. 2 in 1935." (Author Heimbichner also mentions actors Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell, and filmmaker Kenneth Anger, as Thelemites, the term for OTO members.)

Two of the OTO's most famous: Jack Parsons's girlfriend, Marjorie Cameron and Dennis Hopper.

Indeed, the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) is easily researchable online, as clearly having ties with many people, from the actor John Carradine to the gay activist Harry Hay.

The groundbreaking 2000 book, Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons by John Carter and the 2005 copycat work, Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons by George Pendle, give more details, especially in the realm of "following the money."

The Parsons books note that the stimulus for the Agape Lodge came from a visit to the Vancouver branch of OTO, in which Wilfred T. Smith met Aleister Crowley. Soon Smith was sending money to Crowley for the Hollywood OTO. It was Smith who registered and incorporated The Church of Thelema at 1746 North Winona Boulevard in 1934. With Parsons in the background, Smith asked Crowley's permission to form a branch of OTO under the name Agape Lodge.

John Carradine visited the house perhaps because he was a member of OTO, or, as Pendle wonders, for "research purposes: He was soon to play the organist of a satanic cult in the film The Black Cat."

John Carradine (1906-1988) appeared in The Black Cat (1934), playing the "cult organist" who was killed in an explosion (along with the rest of the cultists) when the Bela Lugosi character blows up the cult's headquarters. Lugosi is shown activating the bomb, followed by an exterior shot of the house exploding.

John Carradine's wild sexual ways, as one of The Bundy Drive Boys, is also discussed in Hollywood's Hellfire Club (2007) by author Gregory William Mank and contributors Charles Heard and Bill Nelson.

So, was the father to the clan a dedicated OTO member in the 1930s, or in stereotypical Hollywood fashion, merely getting closer to his topic, as Heath Ledger would do recently with the Joker role, to more deeply understand the forbidden subject matter being researched? Was David Carradine doing something similar in Bangkok and elsewhere?

The elder Carradine, we now know, worked with those who were trying to understand the modern versions of the Illuminati. John Carradine is listed as the narrator for Gary Allen's cassette recording of the tape, "The Establishment - C. F. R." It is noted as an "in-depth look at the 'invisible government' that controls the United States. C.F.R. as a modern manifestation of the conspiracy begun by the Illuminati." ("C.F.R." stands for the Council on Foreign Relations.)

Did the Carradines play the dangerous game of double-agents?

Revelation of the Method

In decoding the alchemical process of this, needless to say, we have to go more deeply into what Michael Hoffman in Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare calls the "Revelation of the Method."

Shall we move onward? The hints are all around, and the story is unfolding. Let's look with open eyes.

On June 4, 2009, David Carradine was found dead in his room (#352) at the Park Nai Lert Hotel in Junfan Mulay, Bangkok, Thailand. Police said he may have been dead for at least 12 hours, dying probably on June 3, 2009.

The early versions of how he was found, tied up with ropes around his neck, hands, and penis, have been revised, changed, and grown more confusing with each retelling of the story. The fact that photographs of the dead are published routinely in Thai newspapers has lead to Americans being shocked to see the images of David Carradine hanging from his hotel room closet.



While this image may be graphic, it seems to have certainly thrown into doubt the "cover story" by local law enforcement in Bangkok that this was a clear-cut suicide. Carradine's hands, bound, are shown over his head, and how one could tie up their own hands is now being questioned.

The news service at Infowars has also added a new wrinkle that flashes back to thoughts of the OTO mind-set. Here's what they have revealed, in part:

During a segment that aired on the Larry King Show, CNN correspondent Jerry Penacoli says the death of David Carradine “was abnormal, the death was not natural. And the evidence shows that there were ropes tied around David’s neck and around his genitalia and that they were tied together. And that there is a report — several reports that there were ropes tied around his wrists.”
* * *
Later in the segment, Penacoli says a filmmaker and director named Damian Chapa, who worked with Carradine, said he “believes that there was foul play” in Carradine’s death. “And he said that no one else knows this but his family — Carradine’s family and friends and people closest to him, but David was very interested in investigating and disclosing secret societies.”
“So whatever that means…”
It means you can end up dead.

Secrets of Place

One aspect of this story that seems to have been under-investigated is where David Carradine died. What of the specifics of this site?

Why would I ask? As Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare notes (p. 54): "Mystical toponomy and alchemical cant language are part of a process which hinges on a marriage between action in time [or recorded history] and physical locations on the earth regarded as 'places of power' by the cryptocracy's magical-geographical vision of the earth as a giant chess board."

The mystical toponomy of obelisks at places like Dealey Plaza and near the Lorraine Motel may be mirrored in a similar overt form of symbolism near the site of Carradine's death.



David Carradine appears to have very carefully picked this spot, or had someone pick it for him. A 5-star luxury hotel in Bangkok, Swissotel Nai Lert Park offers a unique city retreat in Thailand’s bustling capital, with award-winning restaurants, a beautiful eight-acre lush tropical garden, and nice executive rooms, such as the above example shows. Or so the tourist literature reads at first glance. But we must search more deeply.



The hotel's location is key. One of Bangkok's most unique animist shrines resides under the large banyan tree circled in the upper left corner. Here, favors are asked of Tubtim, a water spirit that lives in the adjacent canal. If a wish is granted, devotees leave phallic offerings of all shapes and sizes. Hundreds of colorful examples are lined up around the shrine. And from the hotel parking lot, along a walkway, to the shrine.



The building at right, shown on the above map, is the former Hilton Hotel, which at one time attempted to stop visitors from accessing the shrine. Subsequently they lost their lease. The hotel is now named after the original property owner, Nai Lert. This is the Swissotel Nai Lert Park, or as given in the English-speaking media, the Nai Lert Hotel or the Park Nai Lert Hotel.




Literally hundreds of penises (phalluses) - from small wooden carvings to big stone sculptures that stand ten feet tall and decorated with ribbons - make this shrine quite unique. Sexual imagery, as a matter of fact, is not uncommon in Thailand. The red, of course, relates to engorgement and attraction. The shrine, offerings, and walkway honor Chao Mae Tubtim, a female fertility spirit.



Chao Mae Tuptim image (about 20 cm high) is located in the spirit house.



Women visit this shrine when they are trying to conceive, leaving offerings of lotus and jasmine. Rumors say the shrine has a good success rate. Women will return if their wish is fulfilled, and place yet another phallus at the shrine in thanks. Little is known about the origins of the shrine, which now stands on the grounds of the Swissotel Nai Lert Hotel in the heart of Bangkok. It can only be recalled that a spirit house was built by Nai Lert, for the spirit who was believed to reside in the large Sai (Ficus) tree.



The directions to this area is even given on the hotel website: "Use the main entrance of the Nai Lert Hotel, walk straight through the lobby and enter the quite large garden with swimming pool in front. Exit through a gate on the right to enter parking lot. Exit through the gate and turn right. Walk about 100 meters."

Sex Magick

Was David Carradine a victim of murder? A victim of homicide turned inward, suicide? Or an accidental casualty of sex magick?

David Carradine was born John Arthur Carradine, the eldest son of John Carradine. The elder Carradine we know was involved with OTO. What David Carradine was into, investigating, or in pursuit of remains unknown.

Intriguingly, one of his first roles, when he decided acting was going to be the path he took was in a television production for the Armstrong Circle Theater called "Secret Document."



After "Kung Fu," David Carradine would take on a starring role (still above) in the mysterious underground Roger Corman production - a new kind of action movie - Death Race 2000 (1975).

His final role would be the most enigmatic, however.

Carradine’s family has asked the FBI to investigate if the actor died from auto-erotic asphyxiation or murder. They also are having a second autopsy conducted.

Will new answers lead to more questions? Or merely silence examining further this bizarre "hanging" death, and give some pause to others investigating several questionable "hanging suicides" that may have clues via names and places?

+++
Update

On Friday, June 5th, the Carradine family lawyer Mark Geragos spoke on Larry King Live and dismissed claims of suicide, stating instead that David Carradine could have been murdered by a "secret sect of kung fu assassins," after it was revealed that Carradine had been attempting to uncover groups working in the martial-arts underworld.

The Carradine family released further comments suggesting that David Carradine was killed because he was investigating "Kung Fu crime lords' secret societies."

His ex-wife, Marina Anderson, who has been shopping a book contract about David Carradine, told the media, "If he was involved in secret societies, it was a secret that even I didn't know about. But he did have some big secrets."

Why Thailand, which would mean he was looking into the Muay Thai gangs, right? Or was he doing a more broad-based bit of research on the Hung Society (Society of Heaven and Earth), Chinese Triads and Japanese Yakuza?

The assassin conspiracy theory has remarkable similarities to notions about Bruce Lee's death in 1973. Lee's death reportedly rumored to be heart failure by popular sources like Yahoo News, while most talk was of cerebral edema; there are still others who believe that the martial arts legend was murdered by Chinese Triads. Considering that the "Kung Fu" role was Bruce Lee's before he was replaced with David Carradine by Hollywood politics, it would be an intriguing coincidence.

Outbreak!

The recommended new book, Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior is a massive tome, being a large format paperbound book (8" by 11"), with a total of 765 pages of about 340 entries. The authors are the scholars Hilary Evans, a social historian, and Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist and specialist in collective behavior. The editor-publisher Patrick Huyghe also deserves much credit for being the midwife at Anomalist Books for the birth of this big baby, during the Spring of 2009.

From "Abdera Outbreak of Prose and Poetry" to "Zoot Suit Riots," the book takes the reader on an incredible tour of the topics at hand. The classics of contagion behavior are here, e.g. the "Band Bus Hysteria," "Cargo 'Cults'," "Copycat Behavior," "Phantom Slasher," "Pokemon Illness," "Salem Witch Hunts," "Suicide Clusters," and "Windshield Pitting Scare."

But it may be the more bizarre of the strange that gets some attention for the authors' weird little treks into "Extraterrestrial Tsunami Panic," "Feather Tickling Fad," "Jumping Frenchmen of Maine" (a little more serious than the "kicking horse game" and "cabin fever"), "Masturbation Delusion" (obviously, an in-depth global survey), "Ugandan Running Sickness," and "Wacky Wallwalker Fad."





Some personal Fortean favorites of mine, as well as familiar ufological topics, are to be found in this book. They include "Cattle Mutilations," "Chupacabra Scare" (incorrectly spelled, I must note), "Flying Saucer, Origin of," "Ghost Rocket Scare," "Great American Airship Scare," "Halifax Slasher," "Mad Gasser of Botetourt," "Mad Gasser of Mattoon," "Monkey Man Scare," and "Springheel Jack Scare."



The Jack the Ripper case is discussed under the academic entry heading, "Whitechapel Murders Scare," thus acknowledging the authors' apparent dislike for the "Ripper" label.

Cryptozoology, per se, also shows up marginally in relationship to a "Water Monster Panic" that occurred in Shanghai, China, in August 1947. An "amphibious monster" scare resulted in the death by drowning of a man who jumped overboard when he heard screams of what he thought was the monster. Two other men were beaten to death by a crowd who "believed they were somehow linked to the monster."



The entry for the "Windigo Psychosis" covers pages 726 to 728, and is written much differently than how I would approach the subject. The authors begin by clearly defining where they are going here: "Native Canadians of the Algonquin peoples are subject to periodic outbreaks related to a supernatural naked giant to which they give many names but which is chiefly known as the windigo or wendigo, or weetigo."

The authors tip their hat by using the word "supernatural," and give no basis for how the Windigo, a local name for Sasquatch, is viewed by some First Nations people. The real cryptid or unknown hominid is used as the model for the "boogie man" of the psychosis but does not need to be dismissed, out of hand, in their introduction. The windigo psychosis or wittiko psychosis is real, no doubt, but then too, so may be the "monsters of the woods," the Windigo/Wendigo/Wittiko. The two topics are actually separate but equal, and I see again that the foggy psychosis has caused these writers to pen vague words about the hairy hominid too.

I suppose if you are going to credit an undated article on the "Windigo" psychosis published in the International Journal of Parapsychology for the source of your definition on "Windigo," versus using more folkloric, anthropological, or cryptozoological references on the creatures, you better be prepared for me to not be happy with that entry.

The Windigo (also known as the Wendigo, Windago, Windiga, Wittiko, Wihtikow, and numerous other variants) is an unknown hairy hominid tied to the sightings, legends and folklore of First Nations people linked by the Algonquin languages. The range is much more broad than given in Outbreak!. The Windigo is a bipedal hairy creature, equal to the Eastern Bigfoot, Stone Giant, or Marked Hominid in some classification systems, which is often said to have aggressive behaviors. But the "Windigo Psychosis" has nothing to do with cryptozoology, except that a name is used for a mental disorder.

I do not hide the fact that I have differences in interpretation with these authors, for I find their black and white skeptical approach to a few of the encyclopedia's events as being wholly too psychological-based, without any appreciation for the possible underlying factual reality to be found in some of these encounters. I predict that a few thoughtful suicidologists, social scientists or even ufologists reviewing this book would also have a few comments to make about some of their suicide epidemics or ufological entries, as well. It really depends on your point-of-view.

The book is well-organized, but it does take a few moments to understand the reasoning behind why some incidents are entries and why some items are subcategories under others.

The entries bounce back and forth, between the universal and the incredibly specific, such as, for instance, the worldwide "Streaking Fad" to little collections like the "Sick School Staff Syndrome," and to the minute examples of one event, e.g, the "Ohio Chorus Fainting Fits," which happened on one day, November 23, 1959.

The index is detailed in small print in 10 pages, and it helps a great deal, if, for example, you are looking for the "penis theft attacks" of 2001, which took place in Nigeria and Benin. Those aren't mentioned in the section on "Genital Shrinking Scares," but instead discussed under "Genital Vanishing Scares." Certainly, an important difference.

Such reservations, however, do not distract me from being grateful these two scholars have written such a fine collection of cases, so we may all have this data at our fingertips now.

The book is a masterpiece, that's for sure.

It will become a major reference work for those involved in researching these kinds of events or for those with a casual interest who wish to dive deeper into the literature and stories on such things.

Besides merely congratulating Anomalist Books for taking on the monumental task of publishing this important book, also I congratulate them for keeping the price reasonable, at $39.95 US. I already notice used copies are going for $55.21 on the American site, Amazon.com, so I say, if you are the least bit intrigued, buy it new, now.


Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior

Thank You.

Sirhan: "RFK Must Die."

The date of RFK's assassination, when he was actually shot, June 5th, has twilight connotations. As I detail in The Copycat Effect, the significance of the date is often overlooked.



On June 5, 1968, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, 24, who is generally described in quick historical overviews as a "Jordanian Arab," shot New York Senator Robert Francis Kennedy in the Hotel Ambassador in Los Angeles.

RFK died the following day, but the actual day he was shot – and this is the twilight factor ignored time and time again - was the first anniversary of the first day of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors that began on June 5, 1967.

Charles Bishara Bishop, the young man ~ who modeled himself a warrior in post 9/11 terrorism and who flew into the Tampa bank building on January 5, 2002 ~ labeled the war in his suicide note as "the 1967 Israeli-Syrian war".

The Six-Day War, also known as the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Third Arab-Israeli War, Six Days' War, an-Naksah (The Setback), or the June War, was fought between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria, from June 5 through June 10, 1967.

Sirhan Sirhan's shooting down of a successful presidential candidate is one of the first acts of Palestine or Arab terrorism to take place on American soil, with 9/11 being the most recent major example. Sirhan Bishara Sirhan saw himself as a Palestinian militant.

In a diary police found at Sirhan's home, he wrote: "My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more the more [sic] of an unshakable obsession. RFK must die. RFK must be killed. Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated. .... Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated before 5 June 1968."

Sirhan and his family had been uprooted from their home in Jordan by the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, and prosecutors at his trial claimed Sirhan, who was a Christian Arab, was vehemently anti-Israel.

Charles Bishara Bishop, whose suicide note clearly indicated he was a student of the 1967 Israeli-Arab conflict, may also have been a student of that other Bishara, America's first Palestinian assassin.

RFK was the first victim, via a Bishara, of the terrorism which was repeated on 9/11. It is a terrorism that would see itself visit America again through another plane piloted by another Bishara into a tower in Tampa exactly six months to the day from the June 5th anniversary date.

Don't forget RFK. And don't forget why RFK was shot on June 5th, even though June 6th is recalled as the day he died. Don't forget the motives behind the actions of Sirhan Bishara Sirhan and Charles Bishara Bishop either.

Carradine's Mystery Death

Thai police have reported that actor David Carradine, 72, has been found dead with a rope around his neck and genitals, according to the BBC News. That is how this news is being broadcast globally.



On June 4, 2009, Carradine was found dead in his room at the Park Nai Lert Hotel in Junfan Mulay, Bangkok, Thailand. The initial police report indicated that Carradine had died by suicide by hanging himself; he was found by a hotel maid sitting in a wardrobe (closet) with a rope around his neck and body.

It said a preliminary police investigation found that he had hanged himself with a cord used with the room's curtains. It cited police as saying he had been dead at least 12 hours and there was no sign that he had been assaulted.

Police Lt. Gen. Worapong Chewprecha told reporters that Carradine was found with a rope "tied around his penis and another rope around his neck."

"The two ropes were tied together," he said. "It is unclear whether he committed suicide or not or he died of suffocation or heart failure due to an orgasm."

David Carradine was the star of the 1970s television series "Kung Fu”," lead as the folksinger Woody Guthrie in Bound for Glory (1976), and the title villain of the “Kill Bill” movies (2003, 2004). The United States Embassy in Bangkok noted that Carradine had been found dead in his hotel suite in Bangkok, where he was working on a movie, Stretch.

After a short run as the title character in the 1966 television adaptation of the Western “"Shane,"” Carradine found fame in the 1972 series “Kung Fu” as Kwai Chang Caine, a wanderer raised by Shaolin monks to be a martial arts master. The role was originally to have been for Bruce Lee, but Hollywood wanted an American. They went with Carradine. He enjoyed a career resurgence in recent years when he was cast by Quentin Tarantino in the action movies “Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and “Vol. 2.”

David Carradine was part of an acting family that included his father, John; his brother, Bruce, and half-brothers Keith and Robert; and his nieces Ever Carradine and Martha Plimpton. There has been talk of a "Carradine Family Curse."

During 2009, Carradine was working on the following projects: Portland, Night of the Templar, Money to Burn, Six Days in Paradise, Su Qi-Er (True Legend, English title), The Rain Chronicles, and Detention.

Cat People: Enemy Action?

"Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." ~ said by Auric Goldfinger, in Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger, 1959.

There have been more zoo animal attacks, with one resulting in a fatality in New Zealand and another a death in South Zealand. A cluster of such incidents has occurred since the weekend. What's going on?



First the latest news, and then I'll share a review of recent incidents.

On Wednesday, May 27, 2009, senior zookeeper Dalu Mncube (pictured below, with a lion) was mauled to death by a white tiger at Whangarei's Zion Wildlife Gardens as eight horrified tourists, including two young children, witnessed the attack.



Northland Police spokeswoman Sarah Kennett confirmed that, at about 11am on Wednesday, two keepers went in to clean the white tiger enclosure when the animal attacked Mncube. (The time of 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, May 27, 2009 in New Zealand, converts to 4:00 p.m., Tuesday May 26, 2009, in the Pacific Time Zone/North America.)



Despite the best efforts of the other keeper, the royal white Bengal tiger wouldn't let go. Mncube, who had saved a colleague in an attack earlier this year, died at the scene before an ambulance arrived at the park.

The tiger has since been shot dead. The other keeper was not injured.

The tourists who watched the attack - six adults and two children thought to be from England and New Caledonia - were being offered counselling through Victim Support.


The South African, known as "Uncle Dalu," had been the park's senior cat handler since Craig "The Lion Man" Busch was sidelined following a business dispute with the park's boss, his mother Patricia Busch. Craig Busch says the fatal mauling of a keeper at the park is "absolutely tragic."

Zion Wildlife Park is home to 42 rare lions and tigers.

Mncube had saved fellow park employee Demetri Price during a white tiger attack in February 2009, after he used his hands to open the animal's jaws. Price required surgery after he was attacked by the cat who had been spooked by a pride of lions. The zoo has had a series of incidents in recent years making it "controversial," according to the New Zealand National.

Meanwhile, from New Zealand to South Zealand, as in Denmark, it was discovered on Monday, May 25, that on Sunday, May 24, a zookeeper apparently decided to die by suicide by having Bengal tigers there maul him to death.

The body of a former employee of Næstved Zoo was partly eaten by white tigers after the man broke into their enclosure on Sunday night.


One of the Næstved Zoo's white tigers.

Ekstra Bladet newspaper reports that the remains of the man were found by zoo staff on Monday morning. An investigation showed that the man broke into the tiger enclosure with a flammable substance, where he set fire to the straw and opened the door to the animals’ cage so they could get access to him.

The man had been employed as an animal keeper at the South Zealand zoo for ten months, where he was described as having a deep fascination with the zoo’s Bengal tigers. He developed a mental illness last winter which resulted in him losing his job due to the perceived security risk, according to the Copenhagen Post.

"'Hm,' said Bond. 'Bogeyman stuff.'" ~ Ian Fleming, Live and Let Die, 1954.

The animal incidents constitute a remarkable cluster.

Is what is taking place here merely the reflective factor at work, where humans don't notice how frequent these types of events occur until they are brought to their attention? Is it all coincidence? Or an enemy action?

So, of course, I compiled a list, to ponder the short view of the long weekend.


Jane Randolph, who starred in the two Cat People film noir classics of the 1940s, as the “other woman,” died earlier in the month.

Let's look at this recent animal incidents cluster:

Zookeeper Dalu Mncube was killed by a white tiger at a zoo in New Zealand. Wednesday a.m., May 27 local date. (Tuesday, May 26, USA.)

An elementary-aged girl Bailey Rhine Stine was attacked by a pet mountain lion on Lones Road in Columbiana County, Ohio, near Lisbon. Monday a.m., May 25.

A former zookeeper died (apparently by suicide) from being killed by two Bengal tigers at a South Zealand, Denmark, zoo. Sunday late p.m., May 24.

A 14-year-old female mountain lion escaped from the Brit Spaugh Zoo, before being shot and killed by police at the Kansas zoo. Sunday p.m., May 24.

A moose was killed in Thompson Lake, Oxford County, Maine, after it began swimming around boats. Sunday p.m., May 24.

A female moose wandered into Portland, Maine, and was killed by police when it was deemed a danger to the public. Sunday a.m, May 24.

A zookeeper was bitten in the leg by a 3-year-old Bengal tiger at the Memphis Zoo. Sunday a.m., May 24.

Royal Bengal Tigers have killed 36 people in Bangladesh during the first four months of 2009. The tigers prey on villagers in the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to the Royal Bengal Tigers. In the mangrove forest in Bangladesh, at least 100 people are killed by the Royal Bengal Tigers. The villagers also kill tigers wandering around their village, at the rate of a dozen tigers a year. Sunday, May 24, Digital Journal.

Enemy action, indeed?

A great deal of Bengal tigers appear to be in the mix above, in an ongoing war that seems to be going in both directions.

On May 24, 2009, the The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the Tamil Tigers admitted that its founder and leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, was dead and declared a week of mourning starting the next day. The Sri Lankan war that had begun in May 1976, was over, according to the BBC News.


Or maybe it is only the The Butterfly Effect at work?

Malta Today reports that naturalists have recorded thousands of painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui) migrating over the Maltese islands. Sunday, May 24.

New Moon - Sunday, May 24, 2009, 12:11 Universal Time.

"Love of life is born of the awareness of death, of the death of it." ~ Ian Fleming, The Spy Who Loved Me, 1962.

(Thanks to Cryptomundo correspondent and Aucklander celebrity, Club Bizarre's Mark Wallbank for the Kiwi news tip.)

Added later...

The Butterfly Effect: Moon/Tiger/Temple Attack/N-Bomb/Punjab Riots

On Sunday, May 24th, a New Moon was in the sky, a Bengal tiger at the Memphis Zoo bit a zookeeper, a Sikh religious leader was killed in Austria, and then a nuclear bomb was exploded in North Korea and riots occurred in Punjab.



Meanwhile, on May 24th, Malta Today reported that naturalists have recorded thousands of painted lady butterflies, above, (Vanessa cardui) currently migrating over the Maltese islands.

Charles Hoy Fort, author, skeptic and iconoclast wrote about the interconnectedness of nature and the butterfly effect before the term was coined in his books New Lands and Wild Talents. In New Lands he makes reference to a migration of birds in New York that could cause a storm in China.
Source

Was Charles Fort (August 6, 1874 – May 3, 1932) ahead of his time?

In Lo!, Fort wrote:

Horses erect in a blizzard of frogs -- and the patter of worms on umbrellas. The hum of ladybirds in England -- the twang of a swarm of Americans, at Templemore, Ireland. The appearance of Cagliostro -- the appearance of Prof. Einstein's theories. A policeman dumps a wild man into a sack -- and there is alarm upon all continents of this earth, because of a blaze in a constellation --

That all are related, because all are phenomena of one, organic existence -- just as, upon August 26th, 1883, diverse occurrences were related, because all were reactions to something in common.

* * *

Sweden -- and it was reported that wild fowl began to migrate, at the earliest date (Aug. 16th) ever recorded in Sweden --

Flap of a duck's wings -- and the twinkles of a star -- the star and the bird stammered a little story that may some day be vibrated by motors, oscillating back and forth from Vega to Canopus.

So the birds began to fly.

~ Charles Hoy Fort, 1931.

The idea that one butterfly could eventually have a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent historic events seems first to have appeared in a 1952 short story, "A Sound of Thunder," by Ray Bradbury about time travel.

The term "butterfly effect" itself is related to the work of MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz, and the name stems from Lorenz's suggestion that a massive storm might have its roots in the faraway flapping of a tiny butterfly's wings. His 1972 paper is entitled "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?"

The butterfly effect was first described in the literature by Jacques Hadamard in 1890 and popularized by Pierre Duhem's 1906 book.

The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. This is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.

In the 1990 film Havana, the Robert Redford character, Jack Weil, a 1950s gambler, tells Roberta Duran (Lena Olin), "And a butterfly can flutter its wings over a flower in China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean. I believe it. They can even calculate the odds."

It is a common subject in fiction when presenting scenarios involving time travel and with "what if" scenarios where one storyline diverges at the moment of a seemingly minor event resulting in two significantly different outcomes. The butterfly effect was invoked by fictional chaotician Ian Malcolm so memorably in the novel Jurassic Park and the movie adaptation. Needless to say, the ultimate movie about this is The Butterfly Effect (2004), with Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) attempting to redo or undo his past/present/future.

The larger meaning of the butterfly effect is not that we can readily actually track such connections, but that we can't.

There do seem to be large examples, of course, of "sensitive dependence on initial conditions." One is developing on the world stage in Austria and in India right now.

There was a New Moon on May 24, 2009, 12:11 Universal Time. At the Memphis (Tennessee) Zoo, a 3-year-old Bengal tiger named Kumari bit a zookeeper in the lower calf on Sunday morning.


The Memphis Zoo's Kumari, which was part of May 24th's global events.

Furthermore, the US Geological Survey detected what it called a 4.7-magnitude earthquake in North Korea. The tremor struck at 9:54 a.m. (Korean local time) on Monday, 375 kilometres north-east of Pyongyang at a depth of just 10 kilometres. What had occurred was a major nuclear bomb had been denoted by North Korea in that country, at 8:54 p.m., Sunday, May 24, 2009, (local time in Washington, D.C.).

Elsewhere, thousands protested in the Indian state of Punjab on Monday, May 25, 2009, torching a train, vehicles and shops after a Sikh preacher was killed on Sunday, May 24, in an attack on a temple in Austria's capital Vienna, police told Reuters.

Authorities imposed a curfew on parts of the state and the army was put on standby after members mainly of the Dalit or "untouchable" community protested against the attack in Vienna that killed one of their leaders, according to police.

"The situation remains tense but under control," said senior superintendent of police R.K Jaiswal, from Jalandhar town in Punjab where the violence was centered.

At least 16 people were wounded on Sunday, May 24, 2009, when six armed men attacked two preachers visiting from India with a gun and knives during a ceremony in a Vienna temple.

Guru Sant Rama Nand, 57, died in the night after an emergency operation, police said. The second, Guru Sant Niranjan Dass, 68, is in a stable condition.

Both had suffered bullet wounds.

The Guru who died was said to be from the Dera Sach Khand, a religious sect which draws large support from the Dalit community and is considered separate from mainstream Sikhism.

Sikhism officially rejects caste but social hierarchies still prevail in the state, and followers who protested from the Dera Sach Khand identified themselves as from the Dalit caste.

Activists from a powerful political party, which draws its support mainly from Dalits, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), have joined the protests.

On top of being popular among the lower castes, Dera Sach Khand also differs from mainstream Sikhism on religious points, some of which draw the ire of pious Sikhs, analysts say.

"Sects like the Sach Khand broadly follow Sikhism but make their own diversions and as such cannot be included in Sikhism," Dr. Parmod Kumar, a political scientist, said.

"The Dera Sach Khand follow a living guru which Sikhism cannot accept at all," he said. "Sikhs react strongly to this and that is why the clashes between the Dera followers and mainstream Sikhs occur."

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called upon people in Punjab to "maintain peace and harmony": "Invoking the teachings of the Gurus, I appeal to all sections of the people in Punjab to abjure violence and maintain peace," he said in a statement.

Sometimes the butterfly effect, which is so often misunderstood, seems rather obvious.

Plot Or Not?

"I'm just a patsy," uttered by Lee Harvey Oswald, at 7:55 PM Central Time, Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, per reporter Seth Kantor's notes; located at Warren Commission Hearings, Volume XX, page 366 (20H366).



Associated Press writers Michael Hill and Jim Fitzgerald begin to unravel the story behind the "Temple Plot" headlines of the day, when they write:

The four men accused of plotting to bomb New York City synagogues and shoot down military airplanes with missiles are down-and-out ex-convicts living on the margins in a faded industrial city.

One is a petty criminal who spent a day in 2002 snatching purses and shooting at people with a BB gun from an SUV. His lawyer calls him "intellectually challenged."

Three have histories of drug convictions, one of them for selling narcotics in a school zone. The man prosecutors portrayed as the instigator of the scheme said he smoked pot the day he planned to blow up the temples.

They went to Wal-Mart for cameras to photograph their targets and had to call around to various contacts to get guns, prosecutors said.

But if they sometimes seemed amateurish, the men were dangerous people fueled by their hatred for Jews and America, prosecutors said. The plotters managed to get their hands on what they thought were lethal explosives and a surface-to-air missile system, only to find out that they were inert devices supplied by the FBI....

[More.]

But some in the radical conspiracy and alternative media are not buying it...

"The loudest alarm we should be sounding every day of our lives, in every imaginable forum and street corner, if we would have any hope of halting this black op, false flag, Arlington Road process, is the clarion alert to all Americans that every domestic 'terror' plot or actual attack should always first be assumed to be a U.S. government covert action, until proved otherwise. ~ Michael Hoffman, author of Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare and Masonic Assassination.

The Associated Press has compiled the following list of the known alleged domestic terrorist plots foiled since September 11, 2001, according to American authorities:

- May 2003: A naturalized U.S. citizen from Kashmir living in Columbus, Ohio, is accused of planning to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, pleads guilty to supporting al-Qaida and is sentenced to 20 years in prison.

- June 2003: The FBI charges a group of men in Virginia with being part of a conspiracy to support holy war overseas. In all, 11 men eventually were convicted in what the government described as a "Virginia jihad network" that used paintball games as training.

- August 2004: U.S. authorities announce evidence of a yearslong plot to attack financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J. Eventually, five men plead guilty in London.

- August 2004: Two men are arrested on the eve of the Republican National Convention in New York on suspicion of plotting to blow up a subway station. They are sentenced to prison.

- August 2004: Authorities arrest two leaders of a mosque in Albany, N.Y., and charge them with aiding in a plot to buy a grenade launcher to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat. They are later convicted of counts relating to money laundering and conspiracy.

- August 2005: Four California men, one the founder of a radical Islamic prison group, are accused of conspiring to attack Los Angeles-area military bases, synagogues and other targets. Three were convicted; one awaits trial.

- February 2006: Three men are arrested in Toledo, Ohio, on suspicion of providing material support to terrorists. One is accused of downloading videos on the use of suicide-bomb vests.

- April 2006: Two Georgia men are accused of videotaping buildings in the Washington area, including the Capitol and the World Bank, and sending the video to a London extremist active on jihadist Web sites.

- June 2006: The FBI announces arrests in Miami and Atlanta in the early stages of a plot to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago, FBI offices and other buildings. A federal jury convicted five men of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida. A sixth was acquitted.

- July 2006: U.S. authorities announce the arrest of Assem Hammoud, a Lebanese man they claim was plotting to bomb New York City train tunnels to flood the financial district.

- May 2007: Six men were arrested in a suspected plot to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Five were convicted of conspiring to kill military personnel and four were sentenced to life in prison; another got 33 years.

- June 2007: Four Muslim men are accused of plotting to destroy New York's Kennedy Airport, kill thousands of people and blow up a jet fuel artery. They have pleaded not guilty.

- May 2009: Four men are charged in New York with plotting to attack synagogues and shoot down a military plane.

Spider-Man Suicide

Spider-Man 3 is a 2007 film written and directed by Sam Raimi, with a screenplay by Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent. The character Jennifer Dugan, a reporter in the film, was played by Lucy Gordon.



On Wednesday, May 20, 2009, Gordon died by suicide in her Paris apartment, France-Info radio reported on Thursday. She was found in her flat in the city's 10th (district) arrondissement. Gordon lived in a £2,000-a-month two bedroom rented apartment in that bohemian arrondissement of Paris, an up-and-coming area popular with young professionals on the Right Bank of the Seine.

Gordon took her own life, just two days before her 29th birthday. Police said her boyfriend, told them he woke to find her hanging.

He was still being questioned Wednesday night, but the spokesman stressed it was believed Gordon died by suicide.

Neighbors said the boyfriend told them Gordon had been deeply affected by the recent suicide of a friend in Britain. But one neighbor said she had heard "a couple rowing" the night before her body was found, according to the Daily Mail.

UPI is running with the graphic headline, "U.K. actress Lucy Gordon found hanged."

Lucy Gordon left two suicide notes before hanging herself in the Paris flat she shared with her cinematographer boyfriend, her father said today.

Gordon detailed her last wishes regarding her estate on one piece of paper and left a letter for her parents on another.

Her father Richard Gordon said a post-mortem examination proved she had died from hanging and that no other marks were found on her body. He spoke today to end speculation that the death might be anything other than suicide.

Lucy Gordon’s boyfriend, revealed today as top cinematographer Jerome Alveras, was asleep in the Paris apartment when the actress hanged herself on Tuesday night.

Her father said: "We speak to him daily and he is also distraught."

Almeras - the cinematographer behind last year's Kristin Scott Thomas hit film I've Loved You So Long - has spent two days since the suicide being questioned by police about his 28-year-old lover’s apparent suicide.

Almeras, a Frenchman in his 40s, rushed out of the two-bedroom rented flat and alerted a nearby shopkeeper, but it was too late to save Gordon.

An experienced camera operator, Mr Almeras has worked on numerous films, including Cineman, in which Miss Gordon had a role.

The film, a comedy, is currently in post-production. It was not clear if the couple had met on the set or if they knew one another previously.

Since Gordon's debut in the 2001 movie Perfume, Gordon appeared in about a dozen films, including French director Cedric Klapisch's The Russian Dolls, American filmmaker John Krasinski's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, as well as Spider-Man 3. Other films she did include Frost, The Four Feathers*, and Serendipity.

Lucy Gordon starred with Audrey Tautou in Les poupées russes, The Russian Dolls (2005). Tautou played Sophie Neveu in the 2006 thriller The Da Vinci Code, paired with Tom Hanks.

Gordon recently wrapped production on Joann Sfar's anticipated biopic about late French singer Serge Gainsbourg (April 2, 1928 – March 2, 1991) entitled, Serge Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life. In the film, Lucy Gordon plays Gainsbourg's lover -- actress and film director Jane Birkin.

Gainsbourg died of a heart attack. Birkin, born December 14, 1946, is still alive. Gainsbourg and Birkin are the parents of actress Charlotte Gainsbourg (born July 21, 1971).

Birkin was first married, from 1965 until 1968, to John Barry, an English composer who wrote the musical score to the James Bond movies. Their daughter, the photographer Kate Barry, was born in 1967. In 1982, Birkin gave birth to her third daughter, Lou Doillon, from her relationship with the director Jacques Doillon.

"The film 'Gainsbourg (a heroic life)' owes a lot to Lucy Gordon's generosity, kindness and the immense talent," Sfar and the film's producers Marc du Pontavice and Didier Lupfer said in a press release sent out late Wednesday night in France. The film will hit Gallic theaters next year.

Lucy Gordon (May 22, 1980 – May 20, 2009) was born in Oxford, England.



[Watching Spider-Man getting hammered by the giant Sandman...]
Jennifer Dugan: It's hard to believe what's happening. The brutality of it. I-- I don't know how he can take anymore.
Anchorman: This could be a tragic day for the people of New York. It could be the end of Spider-Man.

*Updates:

The Four Feathers is a 2002 American drama film directed by Shekhar Kapur, starring Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, Djimon Hounsou, Kate Hudson and Lucy Gordon (who played Isabelle), a historical drama about cowardice.



Lucy Gordon is shown at the premiere of The Four Feathers with the poster visible behind her with images of Heath Ledger and Kate Hudson.

Heather Ledger died between Crosby and Lafayette Streets in SoHo, New York City, on January 22, 2008.


Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter.
Rue Lafayette,
Paris, 1891

Thanks for linkages from Todd Campbell and Theo Paijmans, as per the comments.

Also, please see Pseudoccultmedia's Lucy Gordon posting. Notes about the age being the same for Gordon & Ledger, Birkin's father being an intelligence officer, butterfly & other imagery and much more are detailed.

:-) Thank You.