211: Darth Vadar & Syria

It was the "coincidence of the day," the spontaneous press conference on Air Force One, when President Donald Trump stuck his head in to talk to reporters about Syria, 4/6/2017.

Star Wars Rogue One was on, and Darth Vadar was on the screen. See the media and their "symbolism" thoughts concerning all the press photographs of Trump with Darth Vadar.

But commentators missed one bigger sync in the shoot. A time on the clock that also "feels" very symbolic: 2:11 = 2/11. It is almost as spooky as watching the Joe Alexander's doc on how often 9/11 shows up in the Back to the Future films.

The media and Twitter went wild with the visual juxtaposition.

2:11 ~ President Trump & Darth Vadar together.

"211" is police code for "robbery in progress."

Later, on April 6, 2017, Trump ordered at least 50 missiles be fired at a Syrian airbase. Russians were on the ground there.

The strike occurred local time April 7, 2017. That coincidentally happens to be the anniversary date in 1946 when Syria received its independence from France.

It also is the anniversary of the USA capturing Baghdad - April 7, 2003.

One hundred years ago, on April 6, 1917, the USA entered World War One.

Fort Lauderdale Shooting: Star Wars vs Star Trek

A deadly shooting at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) has left 5 dead and 8 injured.

A law enforcement source identified the accused shooter as Esteban Santiago-Ruiz, 26, of New Jersey. The source said the recent father had an active military ID for the U.S. Army. Ruiz was part of the Alaska Army National Guard until August 2016 when he was discharged for unsatisfactory performance.

[In Spanish the meaning of the name Esteban is "crowned in victory." Santiago, (also San Iago, San Tiago, Santyago, Sant-Yago, San Thiago) is a Spanish name that derives from the Hebrew name Jacob (Ya'akov) via "Sant Iago," "Sant Yago," "Santo Iago," or "Santo Yago," first used to denote Saint James the Great, the brother of John the Apostle. Ruiz is a patronymic surname meaning "son of Ruy," a short form of the given name Rodrigo. Rodrigo derives from the Germanic name Roderick (Hrodric), from the elements hrod, meaning "renown" and ric, meaning "power." Ruiz is the 21st most common Hispanic surname.]

The shooter claimed his bag at the baggage claim area then took the gun from his bag before going into a bathroom and loading his weapon. He then reportedly came out of the bathroom and began shooting people in the baggage claim area. The accused shooter apparently ran out of bullets and sat down on the ground and waited for law enforcement to come and collect him.

Sources say he had a concealed weapons permit. The source added he had a minor criminal and psychological history.

Law Enforcement sources told CBSNews that in Nov. 2016, he walked into an FBI office in Anchorage, AK claiming he was being forced by the CIA to fight for ISIS but was sent to a psychiatric hospital after police was called. In 2011 or 2012, he was investigated for child porn. Three weapons and a computer were seized but there was not enough evidence to prosecute him.

"The gunman was reportedly wearing Star Wars shirt at the time of the shooting," stated several media sources.

But a view of one of the blurry photographs of his arrest shows the shirt might be a Star Trek shirt.

Authorities said the gunman opened fire around 1 p.m. in the baggage claim area of Terminal 2.

“People yelling, people screaming, everyone in a big pack just running as far as possible away from the shots. Our bus driver wasn’t sure what was going on, he was asking, ‘What’s happening? What’s going on?’ But no one was answering because everyone was in a rush to get safe,” said a traveler named Ben who was at the airport grabbing a shuttle when the shooting happened.

Star Wars Alerts, Incidents, and Security

Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened widely on Friday, December 18, 2015. The film had limited showings earlier in the week, and some events have caused alarm.

Even before the new Star Wars movie was nationally released in the US, the widest, most discussed level of theater security every reported has been noted by the media. Some theaters installed metal detectors, banned backpacks and costumes, and allowed patrons with nothing more than lightsabers to cos-play. In the wake of the Aurora theater shooting of 2012, the Lafayette movie shooting in July 2015, the attack at a performing venue in Paris a few months ago, and the San Bernardino terrorist shootings of last month, the Star Wars movie was considered a major target for trouble.

There seems to have been some, but the media appears to have quieted what is really occurring. And the security is high.

There have been hints of a few instances that have bothered theater owners this week.

In an incident Wednesday night [December 16, 2015], two men in their 20s who were “Middle Eastern in appearance” and “spoke with a heavy foreign accent” entered a theater inside a mall in Tempe, Arizona, without tickets, and one of the men began recording video of the theater with his cellphone “in one slow swooping motion,” according to documentation of the incident obtained by Deadline. When asked what they were doing by theater security, the men replied they had “just wanted to see the restaurant,” pointing to the concession stand, and then exited the theater to a patio, where both men made phone calls.
In a separate incident last week, a man reportedly drove up to a theater in Southern California and began asking suspicious questions including, “When are the most people here?” and “How crowded is it going to be this weekend?” before driving off in a car with no license plates. A second man reportedly drove up to the theater and asked similar questions, before again driving off in a car with no plates. ~ Source.

The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) then sent a notice out to its members about these suspicious incidents, on Thursday, December 17, 2015, to be alert, aware, and heightened security.

One film buyer who has the film booked on the majority of their screens said they have five security guards employed at each theater. “We’ve hired security at every location to be safe,” the buyer said. “We will have five (guards) posted and reserve the right to check (customers’) bags. We will not let anyone walk in with a backpack or anything larger than a purse, and whatever they are carrying will be checked.” ~ Deadline. 

The incidents continued Thursday, December 17, 2015:

Moviegoers were evacuated from the Pacific Theatres at The Grove after a fire alarm was pulled on Dec. 17, 2015. (Credit: Michael Drake)

Hundreds of moviegoers were briefly evacuated from the Pacific Theatres at the Grove in Fairfax on Thursday evening. The evacuation occurred after a fire alarm was triggered inside the building, said Officer Norma Eisenman of the Los Angeles Police Department's Media Relations Section. There was no threat to the theater or "anything else of that nature," she said.Several disgruntled movie fans took to Twitter and Instagram after the incident, which prompted a response from the Los Angeles Fire Department.Showings of the much-anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens were interrupted, according to witnesses."As soon as the previews were over and the movie was about to start -- fire alarm. They evacuated the whole building," said an exasperated Andrew Gouch, adding that he had purchased his Star Wars tickets two months in advance."My kids want to still sit in there but … I don't know," he said. "I don't drink; I may start."The screenings resumed after firefighters determined that no fire had occurred and the building was safe. ~ Source.

A more serious threat occurred on Friday, December 18, 2015:

A showing of the new Star Wars movie was interrupted Friday in New Jersey after a theater was abruptly evacuated during the show. Friday night, police in Freehold Township announced that they had arrested a Middletown man and charged him with making a pair of bomb threats at the AMC Theater.
22-year-old Jesse Carroll of Middletown is charged with two counts of second degree Public False Alarm. He is currently being held in the Monmouth County Correction Institution on $200,000 bail with no 10% option.
On Monday evening, Dec. 14, and again on Friday afternoon, Dec. 18, notes were found in the men's room of the movie complex containing threats to either the theater management or specific threats of bombs inside the theater. One note on Friday afternoon read: "I'm coming for blood; 4pm bomb, 6pm empty mag in guests." ~ Source.

How widespread are these security measures? As of December 17, 2015, Disney (who owns the Star Wars franchise after George Lucas and Lucasfilms sold it to them) ceased the sales, display or brandishing of Star Wars blasters and any other type of toy guns as part of enhanced security policies.

There are also new metal detectors at the entrance of California's Disneyland and Florida’s Disney World. Furthermore, there is now a ban on individuals over the age of 14 wearing costumes or masks on the properties. Similar measures are going in place at Universal theme parks across the nation, reportedly. Random more extensive checks will now occur too, in addition to the bag checks that have been taking place at the parks for years.

Predictions, prevention and preparedness appear to be working.  Sometimes paranoid is really total awareness.

Will ISIS Attempt A Red Dawn?

Will December 18, 2015 be a new Colorado Aurora (which translates, literally, into Red Dawn‬), when Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens? 

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We have been down this road before. 

For more on the overlap between ISIS/ISIL and Star Wars, and this prediction, please read more here.

Beyond San Bernardino: What Force Awakens?

What has been awakened?

The San Bernardino event occurred on December 2, 2015. According to the traditional behavioral contagion/copycat timetable, watch the window of December 16, 2015, for more trouble. In addition, on December 18th, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a worldwide premiere that delivers too large of a publicity opportunity for a terrorist organization or individuals to ignore. Some say Sunday, December 20th is significant because of some Sandy Hook links. 

I don't know, but this is not over.

Be alert. Be safe.

"Star Wars" gets something very right -- the notion of religious authority in Islam.
Take Obi Wan Kenobi, for example, and his relationship with Luke Skywalker -- as well as Skywalker's relationship with Yoda. (Ignore, if you must, the filming of the most pertinent Jedi scenes in Tunisia, an Arab-Muslim country with a very long tradition of Islamic spirituality, or Sufism). The notion of the "Jedi Knights" is built very much on the quintessentially Muslim phenomenon of tariqah Sufism -- or the spirituality of the Sufi order.
Put aside the fact that all the Jedi nights have a garb that is basically a North African djellaba, which became popularized by Western adepts of Sufism in the 70s and onwards -- actually, let's not put that aside. But in any case -- it is abundantly clear that the small, green, Yoda is the Sufi master -- the murshid, or guide, that takes young Skywalker through the different levels of spiritual advancement, as he pursues the Absolute, al-Samad -- one of the attributes and "Names" of God in Islam. Or, if you prefer, "the Force." ~  "'Star Wars' or ISIS: Which is more Islamic?" by H.A. Hellyer, CNN, May 12, 2015.

The original Muslims at the time of Muhammad were in many ways similar to the Jedi of Star Wars. In fact, Muhammad did not himself use the word "Allah" (God), which derives from Christianity, but several different poetic synonyms for the one universal consciousness, or the Creation, which he often referred to as Al-Qaadir = the primal power, the destiny, which is quite similar to the term "the Force."
This word, basically "the Force", remains one of the "99 names of Allah" respected in Islam.
There may thus be an analogy in the collective subconscious between the training of Anakin by Obi-Wan Kenobi, with Anakin later turning to the Dark Side of the Force, and the development of these extremely barbaric and evil Islamist groups from Islam, such as ISIS and As-Shabaab, etc., i.e. the Force Awakens, and unfortunately that means that the Dark Side, Darth Vader/ISIS is trying to build its empire. 

Another noteworthy similarity: The Muslim greeting "May peace be with you" = the Jedi greeting "May the Force be with you." ~ Matthew Deagle

The Tunisian city of Tataouine, which has allegedly become a waypoint for IS fighters coming and going from their Libyan bases, is the inspiration and namesake of George Lucas's desert planet [Tatooine]. Source.


Colonel Mokhtar Hammami of the National Guard added: “I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that all is normal – in fact we’ve seen a big influx of foreign tourists and Tunisians.” He said the area around the sets was being patrolled by 1,500 troops…There are worries the inaccurate report [that Tataouine was overrun with ISIS fighters] will have further damaged the country’s tourist trade, already rocked by the attack [on March 18, 2015] by two Isis gunmen on the Bardo museum in Tunis which left 23 people dead. Source.

A murder-suicidal frenzy does not depend on strategic leadership, but only on the existence of the army of "lone nuts". ~ Maadi

Harrison Ford Plane Crash Foreshadowed?

Star Wars, Blade Runner, and Indiana Jones actor Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) was injured on March 6, 2015, about 2:25 p.m. PT, Thursday afternoon when his vintage single-engine airplane crashed on the Penmar Golf Course shortly after taking off from Santa Monica Airport, Venice, California.

The popular movie star and private pilot reported engine failure and requested an immediate return. He failed to reach the runway, avoided a residential area, and crash-landed instead on the approach to the 8th tee. He was injured, with gashes in his head and a broken arm.

The plane was built in 1942, a vintage training aircraft, a Ryan PT-22.

From 2013, Harrison Ford (in the back seat) is seen above flying his plane, the same one that crashed on March 6, 2015.

Amazingly, then correspondent Tim Hovasse sent along to me, from a 2015 calendar he owns, the following photograph. It shows Harrison Ford's Ryan PT-22 as the symbolic image for March 2015. The calendar was for the support of injured veterans. The pilot of the pictured Ryan PT-22 is seated where Ford was the day of his crash. But it looks like the man who is copiloting the plane in the photo above.

Speaking of the name "Ryan," Ford played the role of Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy's Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994).

News of the Ford crash caused a Twitter storm, and some feared a nerdpocalypse was afoot.

Maurice Hurley, a writer and producer for Star Trek: The Next Generation, died on February 24, 2015, at the age of 75. Former Star Trek executive producer Rick Berman confirmed his death, tweeting, "We lost one of Star Trek's most talented minds yesterday. Maurice Hurley produced seasons 1 and 2 of TNG. He was one of a kind. So very sad."

Harve Bennett (born Harve Bennett Fischman; born August 17, 1930) was an American television and film producer and screenwriter. Bennett was best-known as the producer of four Star Trek films, and the writer on some of those and others. According to his wife, Bennett had been in declining health when he died February 25, 2015, due to complications from a recent fall, at the Providence Medford Medical Center in Medford, Oregon.

Star Trek's half-Vulcan, half-human alien hybrid, Leonard Simon Nimoy (born March 26, 1931) was an American actor, film director, poet, singer, and songwriter. He was known for his role as Mr. Spock of the Star Trek franchise.

On February 19, 2015, having been in and out of hospitals for the past several months, Nimoy was taken to UCLA Medical Center for chest pains. Nimoy died of complications of COPD on February 27, 2015, at the age of 83, in his Bel Air, California, home. 

And then on March 6, 2015, Harrison Ford crashed his plane.

That Jungian Year: 1977

by Loren Coleman © 2012

Thirty-five years ago, 1977 remains a strange one. It may have been a milestone point of change, coming on a synchromystic Jungian wave of passions and promises.

The world's first personal all-in-one computer (keyboard/screen/tape storage), the Commodore PET, was demonstrated for the first time ever at a consumer electronics show in Chicago in January 1977. Then the PETs were on sale by mid-year. On January 3, Apple Computer Inc. became incorporated.  The first Apple II computers were available for purchase later in 1977. NAVSTAR's Global Positioning System (GPS) was inaugurated by the US Department of Defense. The first MRI Scanner was tested in Brooklyn.

President Jimmy Carter pardoned the Vietnam War draft evaders, as the USA tried to move on from that extended conflict in Southeast Asia.

Do you remember 1977?


Star Wars opened on May 25, 1977, and became the #1 movie of the year and the then-highest grossing film of all time. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released on November 16, 1977, and became the year's #2 film. Getting the mainstream flavor of the year, yet? Well, the # 3 movie was Saturday Night Fever and the Oscar for Best Picture went to Annie Hall. Roots was first broadcast on television.

Vrillon of the "Ashtar Galactic Command" hijacked The ITN Nightly News at ITV Southern Television for six minutes. Four Palestinians hijacked a Lufthansa airliner demanding the release of 11 imprisoned members of Germany's Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, also known as the Red Army Faction.

Loren Eisely, an American anthropologist and author of The Immense Journey, died on July 9th. Then the King left the building, when Elvis Presley, 42, passed away on August 16, 1977, never showing up for the concert he was suppose to perform that night in Portland, Maine.

On May 28th, 165 people died in the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire. The New York Blackout lasted for 25 hours on July 13th-14th. The Bucharest Earthquake killed more than 1,500. A cyclone in India killed 20,000 and left 2 million homeless.

   

In 1977, along with Jerome Clark, I finished a manuscript entitled Creatures of the Outer Edge, which would to be published by Warner Books in 1978. It was a paperback book, tightly printed on 239 pages, being part two of our then-radical view of phenomena in terms of Jungian thought way back then. It was hailed as a breakthrough psychosocial look at a wide variety of Fortean, ufological, and cryptozoological accounts at the time. It had some missteps, but the data was great, and remains so.

The book is dedicated, "To John Keel, pioneer." 

Under that, there is this quotation:

There is not wanting a feast of broad joyous humor in this strange phantasmagoria, where pit and stage, and man and animal, and earth and air, are jumbled in confusion worse confounded. ~ Thomas Carlyle.

The book was first completed and submitted in 1976, and then the publisher sat on it. Our previous book, The Unidentified had appeared in August 1975, and reportedly sold 40,000 copies. We never could understand that sales quote, because we never saw much in the way of royalties. But, hey, we were young innocents, and it was just great to have a mainstream published book. Thinking about money was hardly part of the equation.

Anyway, after that second manuscript was accepted, it seemed like it was taking forever for Warner Books to decide when to bring out that next, my second book. I was not happy with the delay and the lack of up-to-date accounts in the approved-for-publication submission, so I sent in a new ending appendix. It was entitled, "Epilogue - 1977: A Year Filled With Monsters."

On the occasion of the middle of the 35th anniversary of the content of that essay, I want to share some words from there, which seem as timely today as they did then. On pages 208-209:

The mystery animals discussed in the preceding pages have continued to creep, crawl, fly, and run through the lives of humanity. As this opus quickly approaches publication, we felt it might be interesting to give a cross-section of a few noteworthy cases of 1977: cases which, in fact, further demonstrate the meanderings of the manifestations of the phenomena.
The year was a good one for sightings of the creatures of the outer edge. Bigfoot was allegedly photographed on Mount Baker in Washington State. The 'skunk ape' was photographed in Florida, but the photographer and his photos soon disappeared. The manimals were active in such widely separated locations as Easton, Pennsylvania, and Abilene, Texas. The so-called Bigfoot of Little Eagle, South Dakota made the Halloween issue of Newsweek.

In the book's epilogue, I continued by talking of the Bigfoot-type creatures being reported in Rising Sun, Ohio County, Indiana.

The phantom felines were active in Allen County, Ohio. I detailed my interview on site with Dog Warden William Reeder. Over 57 sheep had been killed by the mystery cats, locally called Black Panthers.

I spent most of June 29, 1977, traveling with Reeder, from the Nesbaum and Burkholder farms in Richlard Township, to the Richard Etter farm on Pandora Road to the Herman Hilty farm on Lugabill Road, interviewing eyewitnesses to the mayhem, as the black cats seemed to be moving down the roads, closer and closer to Lafayette, Ohio.

Bill Reeder and two officers on the Lafayette Police Department saw the big black panther in a plowed field near Lafayette. When they came up on it, the cat was walking calmly. Then it broke for the woods and ran "150 yards in two seconds flat," said the law enforcement personnel. Click and read more on the "Fayette Factor."

Stopping to give an overview, I wrote on page 217:

1977 is shaping up as a synchronistically interesting year for the cats. 1877 saw mystery feline reports from Ohio and Indiana. During 1977, besides the Ohio events, there have been sightings in Bay Springs, Mississippi; Edwardsville, Illinois; and California, Kentucky. And as we continued our investigations into the matter of the Dover Demon of Dover, Massachusetts, word came of a maned lion's having attacked two dogs near Dover, Arkansas.

I then detailed my fieldwork in April 1977 of the Dover Demon case.

On page 225, I put the year's Lawndale, Illinois, kidnapping of Marlon Lowe in context by mentioning:

The creatures of 1977 seemed to be playing cosmic jokes on a number of people. The 'Big Birds' were at it again during the year. One of these huge things with wings attacked a five-pound beagle puppy belonging to Mrs. Greg Schmitt of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. The 'large bird' snatched a dog from her farm and dropped it in a pond 600 yards away. While local wildlife officials argued over whether or not the dog was attacked by an American Bald Eagle, the dognapping appears to have been a dry run for something more sinister. 

I overviewed the remarkable incident of the twin Thunderbirds that tried to kidnap Marlon Lowe from his front yard near Kickapoo Creek, Logan County, Illinois, in April 1977. My brother Jerry initially investigated the case. I would personally do so later on a trip to Illinois. I wrote about Lawndale, too, in that book. The case, along with many of these creatures of the outer edge from that weird year, have become part of the literature of those times.

The high strangeness of 1977, a mere 35 years ago, still fascinates me.

   

First appearing in 1975 and 1978, these two paperbacks were republished by Anomalist Books, in 2006, as a special double edition with a new introduction. The Unidentified and Creatures of the Outer Edge: The Early Works of Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman is a combined quality paperbound book from Anomalist Books. Near the top is the original cover of Creatures of the Outer Edge.