9/11 Widow Dies, Maury Island, and JFK

"Just coincidence. That's the way it goes sometimes." 

~ Mark Mulder in The X-Files

Sandy Dahl Dies

News outlets are reporting that Sandy Dahl, 52, the widowed wife of United Flight 93's Captain Jason Dahl, died on Friday, May 25, 2012. Dahl was found dead in her Jefferson County, Colorado, but the details of her death were not formally released. Her charity is reporting she died in her sleep of "natural causes."

Sandy Dahl had worked intensively running the Captain Jason Dahl Scholarship Fund and her death was a surprise, said David Dosch, a family friend. The scholarship fund gives money to aspiring pilots to help attend commercial flight training schools.

"Sandy and Jason Dahl were my best friends," said Dosch, who also works at the scholarship fund.

Jason Dahl was piloting United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, which crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It is believed that passengers aboard United Flight 93 stopped a plot by terrorists to pilot the plane through the U.S. Capitol dome. The passengers' and surviving crew members' efforts are credited with eventually causing the plane to ditch and crash in the Pennsylvania field.

In an interview last year on the anniversary of 9/11, Stacy Dahl wore their wedding ring.

"I do think about him every day," she told KMGH. "The reason I am doing this (interview) today and the reason that I do this at all is to make sure he is never forgotten."


Jason Dahl and 9/11's Flight 93
Stacy Dahl and her husband lived in Colorado. But Jason Dahl grew up in California. He learned to fly early. At 13, the San Jose, California, native joined the Civil Air Patrol and earned a scholarship for flying lessons. He was flying solo before he was 16, and while working at the municipal airport he grabbed all the flight time he could, including flying photographers over the area.

Immediately following his graduation from San Jose State University in 1980 with a degree in aeronautical engineering, he became a corporate pilot. By 1984, he was a pilot with United Airlines.

Popular with his fellow pilots, Dahl endured good-natured teasing about his height -- he stood a shade under 5 feet, 6 inches. He and another pilot used to stand on the tips of their toes for photos to make themselves appear taller.

Dahl Name Game

You may vaguely remember the name "Dahl" as being a significant one in the early history of ufology, linked to what is called the "Maury Island Incident," as well as connected to the JFK assassination.

The incident took place shortly after June 21, 1947. On that date, seaman Harold A. Dahl, out scavenging for drifting logs, claimed to have seen six UFOs near Maury Island (which is now a peninsula of Vashon Island, in Puget Sound, near Tacoma, Washington, United States; Maury Island is located directly across a narrow section of Puget Sound from Sea-Tac International Airport and Boeing Field). 

Dahl, his son Charles, an unnamed hand and Dahl's dog were on the boat. Dahl reported seeing four, five or six (the initial FBI report says four or five) "doughnut-shaped objects" flying in formation over the area where his boat was. He said he could see blue sky through the holes in the center of the discs, and that there appeared to be port holes lining the inside of the ring. One of the craft appeared to be malfunctioning, Dahl reported, and another craft edged up to it, then retreated. 

At this point the troubled craft began ejecting objects through the inner port holes. Slag-like material began hitting the boat and damaged the windshield, the wheel house and a light fixture, and killed his dog on the deck. He said his son was also slightly injured by falling debris. Dahl claimed to have taken a number of photographs of the UFOs, and recovered some type of slag ejected from the craft that malfunctioned. Dahl also recovered samples of sheaves of lightweight white sheets of metal that fluttered like "newspapers" out from the inner ring of the troubled UFO to the ground.

The next morning, Dahl reported a man arrived at his home and invited him to breakfast at a nearby diner; Dahl accepted the invitation. He described the man as wearing a black suit and driving a new 1947 Buick (classic Men in Black details). Dahl assumed he was a military or government representative. Dahl claimed the man told him details of the UFO sighting while they ate, though Dahl had not related his account publicly. The man also allegedly gave Dahl a non-specific warning which Dahl took as a threat that his family might be harmed if he related details of the sighting.

Some confusion and debate over Dahl's statements have occurred. Dahl later claimed the UFO sighting was a hoax, but has also claimed the sighting was accurate, but he had claimed it was a hoax to avoid bringing harm to his family. There also was the crash of a military plane allegedly carrying the ufo/slag sample, and the death of military personnel. It is a complex story.

Dahl had involved his boss, Fred Crisman in looking into the matter. Dahl brought his partner, Fred Crisman, down the next day to see yet another UFO. The Maury Island incident, even before the Kenneth Arnold "flying saucer" sighting on June 24, 1947, became the first UFO event of the modern era.

In 1968, New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison subpoenaed Fred Crisman as part of his investigation into the JFK assassination, which became the subject of Oliver Stone's 1992 movie JFK. Garrison believed that Crisman was the infamous grassy knoll shooter. He's also the central figure in the "Mystery Tramp" photo of the Dallas rail yard hobos, according to some researchers.

Investigator and author Kenn Thomas (pictured above) brought the story of Dahl and Crisman together in his books, Maury Island UFO: The Crisman Conspiracy (Illuminet Press, October 1, 1999) and JFK & UFO (Feral House, rev. ed., 2011). 

By coincidence, on Thursday, May 23rd, Thomas and I were discussing the overlap between the Men in Black motif and the historical links to Dahl-Crisman and the "three tramps" picked up near Dealey Plaza and the Grassy Knoll on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, immediately after John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Thomas emailed me late on Thursday: "Last footnote for today: one of the three tramps in Dealey Plaza, officially, was named Harold Doyle--sounds like 'Dahl' when spoken with a Texas accent. And there were three tramps, as in the MIBs who travel in threes. So it's truly a weird connection that the victim of the first MIB encounter, Harold Doyle, is suspected of being part of the three man team at Dealey Plaza."

On Friday, Sanday Dahl, widow of 9/11 pilot Jason Dahl, died. 

"Is it possible that there are no coincidences? " ~ Signs (2002)

March Madness 2012

Sometimes the phrase "March Madness" lives up to its name.

There was a Full Moon at 04:41:42 AM EST on March 8, 2012. One of this year's more extremely high tides called Spring Tides occurs in March 2012 from Friday, March 9 through Monday, March 12, 2012. Significant "random" human events have taken place, thusfar, during this full moon-spring tide cycle.


A psychiatric person shoots up a psychiatric institute. A flight attendant disrupts a flight. A frequent court inquirer stabs a judge. An American solider kills civilians in Afghanistan.


If you step back from these incidents, you will observe the unusual irony underlining each of their roles in the sites of their actions. They all actually are extreme behavioral outbursts of people merely doing what they have routinely done, but this time, abnormally and violently.


(1) Oklahoma

Guns in the streets: Tulsa, March 7, 2012.

On Wednesday, March 7, 2012, a man shoot and wounded several people at the Tulsa, Oklahoma courthouse before he was brought down by law enforcement officers' bullets.


Authorities on March 8th were investigating whether the suspected gunman wounded in a shootout near a Tulsa courthouse was trying to commit "suicide by cop" when he drew fire from sheriff's deputies, and they confirmed his brother was shot and killed in 2005 by police officers seeking to question him about a murder.

Investigators said they still didn't know exactly why Andrew Joseph Dennehy fired a handgun into the air Wednesday afternoon in a crowded plaza outside Tulsa County District Court. Dennehy, a sheriff's deputy and a bystander were wounded in the shootout.

"Clearly `suicide by cop' may enter into it," Tulsa police spokesman Jason Willingham said. "Anytime someone goes to a location where you know law enforcement is going to be present and takes out a weapon and fires shots, you have to know you're going to garner attention."

Dennehy's brother Brian Dennehy was shot and killed in August 2005 after investigators say he fired at an officer in the parking lot of a Tulsa apartment complex, Willingham said. Police said then that he was suspected in the beating death of his grandfather, Bernard Dennehy, in Oklahoma City.

Andrew Dennehy, 23, remained in critical condition Thursday, March 8th, at a Tulsa hospital, Willingham said. Police have said he is technically in custody but hasn't been formally charged with a crime.

Authorities identified the wounded deputy as David Fortenberry and the bystander who was shot as Ricardo Manuel, 28. Willingham said both had non-life threatening injuries, but their medical conditions weren't immediately known on Thursday. According to sheriff's office, Fortenberry was shot in both hands and arms.

In the case of Dennehy's brother, Brian, Tulsa police had received a request from Oklahoma City investigators for help in finding a homicide suspect who may have been in Tulsa. An officer found the vehicle of the suspect, identified as Brian Dennehy, and was approaching it when a man who was lying down in the back seat pointed a revolver and shot at the officer.

The officer returned fire, hitting Brian Dennehy twice in the upper torso and once in the head. He died at the scene.

As for Andrew Dennehy, who would have been a teenager when his brother was killed, investigators "may never know why he did what he did," Willingham said.

With brisk winds and unseasonably warm temperatures, it didn't seem too odd that Andrew Dennehy, shoeless and clad in a short-sleeve shirt and short pants, had sauntered onto the plaza between the courthouse and the Tulsa Central Library.

A wedding had ended on the plaza, and about seven family members were still gathered when shots rang out, said Angela Reudelhuber, 36, who ministered the wedding.

"The wedding just finished, and the bride and groom headed upstairs to turn in their marriage license," Reudelhuber said.

Reudelhuber dropped to the ground when she heard the gunshots about 20 feet away and then rushed inside.

Andrew Dennehy lay wounded and bleeding from his upper body onto the patchwork of concrete tiles.

"I'm thinking this is not the downtown I remember working in," said John Fancher, a communications specialist at the regional library who photographed the incident and shared his photographs with The Associated Press and other media outlets. "I start snapping off some shots, and he sits down, just casually sits down, gun in his hand and three sheriffs (deputies) come out of the courthouse and I can't hear what they're saying."


Thanks to Andrew Griffin for the tip.

___

(2) Pennsylvania

Domestic War Zone: March 8, 2012, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

John Shick, 30, opened fire shortly after entering the lobby of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic on Thursday afternoon, March 8, 2012. The assailant walked through the psychiatric hospital's front door with a pair of semi-automatic 9mm handguns around 1:40 p.m. The gunman walked into the Pittsburgh psychiatric hospital and started shooting. Shick was shot and killed by police Thursday, but not before he killed hospital employee. Shick was killed by police officers who told the media they had trained for a Virginia Tech-style shooting.

One of the two 9mm handguns recovered was traced to New Mexico and the other was traced to Texas, the law enforcement source said. It was not known whether the weapons were legally purchased or how Shick allegedly came to have them. Investigators also recovered an extra box of ammunition. The guns generally hold about 15 rounds. It remained unclear how many rounds were fired before the suspect was killed by police.

Four people remained hospitalized on Friday, including a 46-year-old man listed in fair condition, a 64-year-old woman in serious condition, a 35-year-old man in good condition and a 49-year-old man in serious condition. A 54-year-old woman was released from the hospital Friday.

"This is a tragic day, a sad day, a senseless day," Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said after the shooting Thursday at the medical center.

Shick apparently had a history of legally changing his name. Records in Oregon, where he once lived, show he changed his name to either William Hudnpere Schols Kan or William Huhnpere Scholskan – it appears two different ways in court documents – in 2009. In early 2010, a person with that name and the same address as Shick was charged with assaulting a public safety officer. Then, in May 2010, Scholskan petitioned to change his name back to John Frederick Shick.

Calls to homes listed in the names of Shick's parents in Green Cove Springs, Florida, and San Jose, California, went unanswered Saturday.

Duquesne University spokeswoman Bridget Fare said Saturday that Shick was expelled from the school last November after harassment complaints. Shick enrolled in August as a graduate biology student, but soon numerous female students filed a formal complaint. The harassment never contained any threats or indication of violence.

"It was making them uncomfortable," Fare said of his persistent requests for dates or social contact.

Shick was relieved of his duties as a teaching assistant on October 21 and there was a hearing on the harassment charge on November 3. The school told Shick that he was prohibited from campus and from making contact with any of the women.


(3) Flight 2332, over the Midwest USA

Flashbacks of 9/11: Chaos Abroad Flight 2332.

An American Airlines flight attendant disrupted American Airlines Flight 2332, Friday morning, March 9, 2012, as it was about to take off from Dallas-Fort Worth en route to Chicago, saying over the aircraft intercom system that the plane was going to crash, alluding to 9/11 terrorist attacks and ranting about the airline's bankruptcy reorganization, passengers said.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed there was an "altercation" involving American Airlines Flight 2332, which eventually landed at Chicago O'Hare at 11:46 a.m., more than an hour late.

According to reports by passengers, the trouble began Friday morning as the plane taxied to the runway for takeoff. A flight attendant who had been giving preflight safety instructions began speaking incoherently over the intercom system, confusing and startling passengers.

American Airlines Flight 2232 had left the gate in Dallas and was taxiing when the flight attendant started a 15-minute rant over the plane's PA system.

"She said, 'I'm not responsible for this plane crashing,"' Bethany Christakos, passenger, said. "And that's when everybody started freaking out."

"She spoke in and out of Spanish. Talked about the flight crashing, that we were going to go back to the gate," Carolyn Kazmi, passenger, said.

"We were pretty frightened. We knew something was wrong. It was almost like she was talking and didn't realize the PA was on," Stephen Termunde, passenger, said.

"She had said, 'I'm the number one in charge,' something about 23 years being there, started talking about bankruptcy. But it really got everyone's attention when she said, 'There's a problem. We have to go back to the gate,'" Christakos said.

Other flight attendants interrupted and said there were no mechanical issues and that the plane was preparing for takeoff.

The upset flight attendant then said over the public-address system that it would not be her fault if the plane crashed. She began speaking in incomplete sentences, using the words "bankruptcy" and "American Airlines," passengers said. She also referred to the 9/11 terrorist attacks at one point, passengers said.

Some passengers then began using mobile phones to call 911.

Other flight attendants on the plane attempted to calm the woman, but she continued to be agitated. Three or four passengers then left their seats and went to the front of the plane to help restrain her as the plane returned to the gate, a move requested by the pilot, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed.

An airport official in Dallas said he does not expect any charges to be filed against the flight attendant.


(4) Washington State

Domestic War Zone: March 10, 2012, Washington State.

In 2008, Steven Kravetz was convicted in Lewis County, Washington State, of third degree assault and making false or misleading statements to a public servant. He served 102 days on the charges. In that incident, Kravetz was arrested after he refused to cooperate with police after being kicked out of a Centralia public library.

On Friday, March 9, 2012, Kravetz was reported to be acting strangely at the Grays Harbor District Court. Around lunchtime Friday, Deputy Polly Davin responded to a report of a suspicious person at the courthouse and confronted a man (Kravetz). During a struggle, she was stabbed with either a small knife or scissors. Judge David Edwards intervened, striking the assailant, who then stabbed him. Davin reached for her gun, but it was wrestled away by Kravetz, who shot twice, striking her in the shoulder before fleeing.

Both the judge and the sheriff's deputy were treated and released from a hospital hours after the attack. 

Kravetz fled the courthouse with the officer's .45-caliber handgun after the attack and showed up about an hour or so later at the office of his former attorney and asked to the use the phone, who didn't known anything was wrong. He got a ride from his mother, to her home, where police on Saturday, March 10, 2012, arrested the 34-year-old suspect.


(5) Afghanistan

Foreign War Zone: March 11, 2012, Afghanistan.

A United States service member (an Army staff sergeant) walked out of a military base in a rural district of southern Afghanistan on early Sunday, March 11, 2012 (local times) and opened fire on three nearby houses, killing at least 16 civilians, including several children, local villagers and provincial officials said.

Villagers in Belandi in the Panjway district of Kandahar, where the shooting took place, said the service member had attacked three houses, killing at least 16 in total. Five other villagers were wounded, they said.

The governor of Kandahar Province, Tooryalai Wesa, condemned the shooting, although he could not immediately confirm the number of people killed. A coalition spokesman in Kabul, Capt. Justin Brockhoff, said that it was not clear what had led to the incident. He said the civilians wounded in the shooting were taken to a coalition hospital where they were being treated.

One of the houses attacked in the village belonged to a tribal elder, according to a person from the village. “We don’t know why he killed people,” said the villager, Aminullah, who like many Afghans goes by a single name. Aminullah said the soldier was alone. “There was no fighting or attacks.”

The soldier has not yet been identified.

Touch+23+5

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

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

Touch goes there too.


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

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


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


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

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

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


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


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


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


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

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

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

9/11/11: Small Planes Into Buildings?

Bank of America, Tampa, Florida, 2002.

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

Pirelli Tower, Milan, Italy, 2002.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Copycat Effect (2004)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+++

List analysis 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Mind Control" Mass Shooter: Jared Loughner

Jared Lee Loughner, at a book fair recently. Photo: Business Insider

Lee Harvey Oswald.

Gabrielle Giffords, the assassination attempt target.

Gabrielle Giffords, a Democratic Congresswoman, the first Jewish woman representative from Arizona, was shot through her brain in a mass shooting at a Safeway parking lot in Tuscon, Arizona, on January 8th, 2011, at about 10:10 am, local Arizona time. Earlier in the afternoon, CNN and NPR reported that she had died. But later, the news was changed to a report that she had survived. Six other people, including a nine-year-old girl who was born on 9/11, were killed, and a total of 18 were injured.

Federal law enforcement sources said that John M. Roll, the senior U.S. District judge in Arizona, was shot and killed in the incident. An aide of Giffords, a former social worker, also apparently was among those who have died.


A 22-year old man was taken into custody after being tackled by people in the small crowd after the shooting. One pistol was recovered and it had what police described as "an extended clip." One media report said he was firing an automatic weapon, but that conflicted with the pistol account.

The man was identified as Jared Lee Loughner, who appears to have left a trail of Internet postings, including some that express convoluted observations about government, anti-religious rants, and statements against "mind control," according to Fox News, the Washington Post, and others. Law enforcement officials said they believed he was a military veteran, but that was an incorrect early report. Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged shooter, was obsessed with mind control.

Giffords, who in November narrowly won reelection to a third term, was hosting her first "Congress on Your Corner" event when a gunman ran up and began shooting her and others in her entourage with a Glock handgun, according to law enforcement sources.

Eyewitness Steven Rayle, a Tucson doctor, said he saw a young man wearing sneakers and what appeared to be navy blue sweats approach Gifford with a semi-automatic handgun raised. The man shot Giffords once in the face, he said.

After Giffords fell, he said, a number of people near Giffords sought to flee but were trapped--hemmed in by the table and a concrete post. The gunman fired into the crowd, he said.

"It was so close, and sort of a tight thing, there was nowhere easy to run," Rayle said. "So most of the crowd got it, you know."

"People that were there were just sitting ducks," Rayle said. "I don't think he was even aiming. He was just firing at whatever."

After a few seconds, Rayle said, the man stopped shooting and tried to flee.

Details are emerging about the assassin.

The man linked to the shooting today of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others is 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, the Associated Press reported.

Police have surrounded a house at 7700 N. Soledad Ave., which is the address listed by a man with the same name on a variety of online accounts and in the volunteer registry for the 2010 Tucson Festival of Books. The home is near West Magee Road and North Thornydale Road on the northwest side. The house is within a few miles of the shooting scene.

A former classmate of Loughner at Pima Community College said he was "obviously very disturbed."

"He disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts," said Lynda Sorenson, who took a math class with Loughner last summer at Pima Community College's Northwest campus.

She doesn't recall if he ever made any threats or uttered political statements but he was very disruptive, she said. He was asked to leave the pre-algebra class several times and eventually was barred from class, said Sorenson, a Tucson resident.

MySpace, YouTube and Facebook accounts maintained by Loughner suggest he has spent most of his life on the northwest side: His profile says he attended Thornydale Elementary, Tortolita Middle School, Mountain View High School and Pima Community College. Loughner took three semesters of sign language at Pima, according to The Festival of Books volunteer database.

The accounts indicate Loughner had a strong interest in literacy.

In a written message on YouTube, Loughner said: "The majority of people, who reside in District-8 are illiterate - hilarious. I don't control your English grammar structure, but you control your English grammar structure."

In a message posted on his MySpace account, titled "Goodbye friends," Loughner said: "Dear friends...please don't be mad at me. The literacy rate is below 5%. I haven't talked to one person who is literate." It was unclear when it was posted.

In a MySpace profile, Loughner said "My favorite interest was reading, and I studied grammar. Conscience dreams were a great study in college."

He lists among his favorite books Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto. But he also includes a broad variety of other titles, including: Animal Farm, Brave New World, To Kill a Mockingbird, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

In a rambling YouTube message referring to a new currency, Loughner said: "I know who's listening: Government Officials, and the People. Nearly all the people, who don't know this accurate information of a new currency, aren't aware of mind control and brainwash methods. If I have my civil rights, then this message wouldn't have happen."

"In conclusion, my ambition - is for informing literate dreamers about a new currency; in a few days, you know I'm conscience dreaming! Thank you!"

In a youtube.com video entitled "Introduction: Jared Loughner" he describes himself as a U.S. military recruit who had recently filled out an application to join the Army.

The video text mentions "MEPS in Phoenix" a reference to the Military Entrance Processing Station in the state capital that all Arizona recruits from every branch of service pass through before leaving for basic training.

"Every United States military recruit at MEPS in Phoenix is receiving one mini bible before the tests," the video said.

"Jared Loughner is a United States military recruit at MEPS in Phoenix. Therefore, Jared Loughner is receiving one mini bible before the tests.

"I didn't write a belief on my Army application and the recruiter wrote on the application: None."

Jared Loughner has had at least two minor run-ins with police, according to on-line court records.

In October 2007, Loughner was cited by the Pima County Sheriff's Department for possession of drug paraphernalia, a charge that was dismissed in November 2007 when he completed a diversion program.

One year later, in October 2008, Loughner was charged with a "local charge" in Marana Municipal Court, that charge was also dismissed following the completion of a diversion program in March 2009.

Court records indicate the Marana case file is due to be purged in December 2013. It's unclear what the exact charge was.

Late updates tell of a white male in his fifties being a second suspect in the shooting. The suspect (shown in the photo released below) is described as white, about 40-50 years old, with dark hair and was last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark blue jacket.

+++

More from the bio/preferences of Jared Lee Loughner as detailed in his MySpace page:


“Schools: I attended school: Thornydale elementary, Tortolita Middle School, Mountain View Highschool, Northwest Aztec Middle College, and Pima Community College.
Interests: My favorite interest was reading, and I studied grammar.
Conscience dreams were a great study in college!
Movies:(*My idiom: I could coin the moment!*)
Music:Pass me the strings!
Books: I had favorite books:
Animal Farm, Brave New World,
The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables,
The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland,
Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan,
To Kill A Mockingbird,
We The Living,
Phantom Toll Booth,
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,
Pulp,
Through The Looking Glass,
The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha,
The Old Man And The Sea,
Gulliver’s Travels,
Mein Kampf,
The Republic, and Meno.”

Screen capture of a video titled "How To: Mind Controller," ostensibly created by shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner.

(Credit: Screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)

Loughner's odd behavior at Pima Community College in Tucson, along with a disturbing Internet video, had caused officials at the school to suspend him in September, pending a mental health clearance, The Times said in another report.

"The rambling, disconnected writings and videos he has left on the Web are consistent with the delusions produced by a psychotic illness like schizophrenia, which develops most often in the teens or 20s," The Times reported.

Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged shooter.

According to court documents released on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2011, authorities discovered a safe in Loughner's home with a thank you letter from Giffords for attending a Congress on Your Corner event in 2007 -- the same kind of event Loughner allegedly assaulted Saturday. Another envelope said "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and "Giffords" and bofe what appears to be Loughner's signature, the documents said.

Shan said she became friends with Loughner the day the two graduated from high school and also had class together at Pima Community College in 2007. She said the two would hang out often after class but lost touch after the semester ended until they reconnected in the summer of 2010 when, Shan said, Loughner acted radically different.

"I don't know might have caused him to change, but from the way he was talking to me [online]... you can see. It was just questions and questions and random, weird questions that didn't go together," she said. "He wanted to know everything... He would just trip out.

"I don't know why it didn't jump out at me, like, 'Hey, something's wrong."

Shan last spoke to Loughner in October, after he was suspended and dropped out of school and before he purchased a semi-automatic handgun from a gunshop in Tucson. But she said while Loughner was "anti-government," he was never violent and never mentioned plans to buy a gun.

When he was suspended from Pima Community College, the school sent a letter to Loughner's parents stating that if Loughner wished to return to the school, he would have to "obtain a mental health clearance indicating, in the opinion of a mental health professional, his presence at the College does not present a danger to himself or others," the school said in a statement.

The school said Loughner had as many as five run-ins with campus police for "classroom and library disruptions," and was suspended after college police discovered a YouTube video apparently created by Loughner in which he claimed the college is "illegal." Rather than return to school, Loughner dropped out, the statement said.

One Pima Community College student, who had a poetry class with Loughner later in his college career, said he would often act "wildly inappropriate."

"One day [Loughner] started making comments about terrorism and laughing about killing the baby," classmate Don Coorough told ABC News, referring to a discussion about abortions. "The rest of us were looking at him in shock ... I thought this young man was troubled."

Another classmate, Lydian Ali, recalled the incident as well.

"A girl had written a poem about an abortion. It was very emotional and she was teary eyed and he said something about strapping a bomb to the fetus and making a baby bomber," Ali said.

Prima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who only identified the shooter as a 22-year-old white male, said the evidence online and information they've received from two schools that Loughner attended led him to believe the gunman was "unstable."

"There's reason to believe that this individual may have a mental issue," Dupnik told reporters today. "I'm not a psychiatrist so I have no reason to believe the person was insane. Was he unstable? I would agree with that."

===

Six people were killed in the incident:

John Kroll (63) - a Federal Court Judge

Gabe ZImmerman (30) - one of Congresswoman Giffords' aides

Christina Taylor-Green (9) - an elementary school student and granddaughter of Major League Baseball executive Dallas Green; she was born on 9/11; she was the only girl on a boys' Little League baseball team.

Dorwin Stoddard (76) - a pastor at Mount Avenue Church of Christ. Stoddard's wife Mavy was wounded in the leg, but is expected to recover.

Phyllis Scheck (79)

Dorthy Murray (76)

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told reporters that Christina Taylor-Green was pronounced dead at the hospital. The other five fatalities were pronounced at the scene.