Hurricane Osama?

With the recent devastating and remarkable assault on Florida by one destructive hurricane after another, some are questioning whether there might not be some yet-unexplained reason behind so much misery. Joseph Trainor, editor of the Webzine UFO Roundup, observed that "The band of high pressure in the Atlantic stretches from Cabo Verde all the way to Florida, which is really unusual ... it creates a kind of 'conveyor belt' carrying the storms all the way across and then shooting them up into the Caribbean" (see www.ufoinfo. com/roundup/v09/rnd0938.shtml). What could be the cause of this? One possibility is suggested by the fact that UFO Roundup received three emails from readers who claimed to have heard the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) broadcasting from Alaska on September 14, on a frequency of 3.390 MHz. HAARP is an unclassified program managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research (see www. haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/faq.html). But according to conspiracy theorists, it is also involved in mind control and weather modification. Wearers of tinfoil hats presumably wear them to block signals from HAARP (which are just high-powered short-wave radio transmissions). "Personally I don't think HAARP has the power to 'steer' a hurricane," said Trainor. "But the Tuesday burst might have deflected [hurricane] Ivan away from its original projected landfall around Tampa."

Yet Trainor can suggest another even more remarkable theory: "Other than aliens, I can think of only one source able to create and sustain that unusual Bermuda High over the Atlantic--Shambhala, the hidden city of mystics in Afghanistan. Shambhala is reputed to have access to the weather-modification technology of ancient Atlantis. There have also been reports of Osama Bin Laden hiding out occasionally in Shambhala. Osama might have persuaded the Shambhalans to use 'weather warfare' against the USA. Is it just a coincidence that the 'hurricane blitz' began on August 3, the same date Allied forces stepped up their offensive in Afghanistan? ... I just find it extremely interesting that Hurricane Ivan's worst fury descended upon the old Jewish synagogue in Pensacola, Fla., as if Osama planned it that way."

Evidence of another quite inexplicable conspiracy at work has just recently come to light. On September 28, Dr. John Mack, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard University and one of the leading promoters of "UFO abduction" stories, was struck by a car and killed while crossing a street in London (see News and Comment, page 9). Mack was in London to speak at a conference about T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), about whom he had written a Pulitzer Prize-winning book (see www.john emackinstitute.org). The incident seems to be a random tragic accident, as Mack was in a crosswalk and the driver was reported to be intoxicated. But almost immediately, some UFOlogists began to speculate that somebody must have wanted Mack dead, apparently because he knew too much about flying saucers. Within a day of Mack's death, a note was widely circulated on the Internet from somebody purporting to be "British Higher Intelligence Agent X." X says, "There's something circumstantially very odd here. Why was Mack alone in a deserted area almost totally unknown to him? For a planned hit, the Totteridge area of Mack's travels from his London dinner would be the perfect time and place. Car accident? You would have to try very hard to get hit by a car at night in this area. It is almost totally deserted at night, being right by three of the biggest reservoirs in Britain. The vast waters would have been a perfect entrance and exit route for a hit team in silent electric dinghies." The San Francisco Bohemian physicist Jack Sarfatti commented, "As Agent X says: What was John Mack doing alone late at night in such a god-forsaken place? I have recently returned from Britain myself and I would never have been alone in such a place late at night. Something stinks here." Now all that remains to be explained is why anyone would want to assemble a hit team to attack an eccentric old professor whose pronouncements about UFOs had gotten so bizarre that practically nobody took him seriously any longer.

Similar conspiracy claims surround the May 14, 2004, death of Eugene Mallove, the editor of Infinite Energy magazine, a major promoter of claims about "cold fusion." Mallove, who had been overjoyed to hear in April that the U.S. Department of Energy had agreed to give "cold fusion" yet another review, was badly beaten while cleaning up a vacated rental house in Norwich, Connecticut, owned by his mother (see News & Comment, Sept./Oct. 2004). Police believe that robbery was the motive. His vehicle was stolen but recovered nearby, and investigators believe that his death may be related to two other murders in the area (see www.wfsb.com/Global/story. asp?S=2092115). Police suspect that his killer may have been Jarion Childs, a former college basketball star who was killed while attempting to rob a Dairy Queen in Connecticut on June 28. Childs was shot while reportedly beating the owner of that establishment with a crowbar. However, many conspiracy theorists insist that Mallove was killed because he knew too much about "cold fusion" (see, for example, www.greatdreams.com/mallove.htm and www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/ thread50762/pg1). Norwich police Lt. Timothy Menard was quoted in The Boston Herald on May 18: "There are tons of people calling saying he may have been on the verge of a great discovery. We don't feel (a conspiracy is) the case at this point." However, Menard added that "We haven't ruled out any possibility."