Officers closed down several blocks of downtown Salt Lake City most of Thursday while they hunted for a phantom second suspect . . . .(Salt Lake Tribune, 4/16/99, page A1)

Come this April a year will have passed since a deranged individual (a schizophrenic we're told) entered the Mormon Church's Family History Library and embarked on a random shooting spree, killing 2 and wounding several more before the SLCPD intervened with deadly force. That trauma was quickly overshadowed -- at least in the national psyche, for which our library shootings were little more than standard fare -- by the carnage on the other side of the Rockies. The aim (excuse the morbid pun) of this writing is to complete the picture of that fatal spring day in downtown Salt Lake City before the entire episode fades into archival obscurity, to inform Salt Lakers of heretofore unreported events related to a second gunman in their midst.

What you likely didn't hear on the afternoon of April 15th, 1999 -- unless you were on the scene or monitoring police-band radio -- was the public demise by gunfire of a second deranged individual (a depressive this time) who purportedly used a .45 caliber pistol to end his own life. This occurred a mere mile or so from the Family History Library, on the plaza separating the old court buildings (now demolished), the County Sheriff's complex and the City Library! That's another dead gunman . . . on the same day . . . in the same square mile . . . close to another library! Does that strain credulity for anyone else?

But there's more! Although the rampage at the Mormon library made national news, the cop convention on the plaza received not so much as a syllable of coverage by even the local media, which gets very interesting when you recall the initial reports from that morning of two suspects. Okay, it's a sad fact of life that shit with guns happens, but how often like this, self-directed in a public display of . . . what exactly? For this confirmed layperson depression and exhibitionism (even in death) don't belong in the same diagnosis, unless our second gunman was making a larger statement of some sort? If so, it would appear to have failed. Based on these objections and a tingling spider sense, suicide does not "feel" like the right or complete answer; now throw in the events having so recently transpired across town and the glaring media omission, and, junior conspiracists, we've got us a z-file!

Before we move by necessity in the direction of conjecture to interpret this tragic addendum to an outright twisted day (maybe T. S. Eliot was right about April!), there are some further details to know regarding shooter number two (S2) which add considerably to the intrigue.

In the wake of S2 the director of the city library sent a brief, consolatory email to the staff explaining how information on the matter was sketchy, with the police inclined towards suicide, and how "[this event did] not appear to be in any way related to the shootings in the Family History Library." Fair enough. Everybody relax.

Yet, when a security guard for the library contacted the detective in charge of the investigation, he was told that S2's backpack contained an "additional but not excessive" quantity of ammunition (and, no, the detective wouldn't give S2's name when requested). As with the slippery proclamations of officialdom in general, this semantic sleight of hand does not stand up well to closer scrutiny.

For instance, one wonders: Just how many rounds does the average suicide by gunshot require? Is reloading in this context likely to be an option? And where exactly does "excessive" fall on the spectrum of "additional" ammunition? Since the first two are offered rhetorically, let's skip straight to concern number three: Publicly carrying a firearm loaded with even a single round seems "excessive" to this writer. However, for someone like our detective who must tote a gun for a living, "additional but not excessive" might mean, oh, let's conservatively say an extra clip (eight large-caliber rounds in the case of a .45) for a total of sixteen potential killshots. And at no time did S2 consider turning his weapon on anyone but himself.

Yeah, sure!

Furthermore, a maintenance worker for the library revealed that S2 was observed sitting for some time, possibly an hour or more, where he eventually died. What was he doing? Enjoying the spring sunshine while working himself up into a fit of despair? In a perverse kind of chronological symmetry the same worker noted that the throng of cops milling around S2 (now deceased) did not see fit to move or cover him for a considerable length of time, as long as two hours, which is what you might expect (?) of a police investigation at the scene of a violent death (plenty of time, in other words, for the local media -- so eager earlier in the day to spread reports of a second suspect -- to get their people on the scene!).

And lastly in the way of curious details, both Library shooters were eventually determined by this writer to have been elderly men, with an average age of sixty-five. Now step back and "admire" the symmetry of the bigger picture: On one side of the mountains (UT) we have two elderly shooters targeting libraries; on the other (CO) a few days later, two teenagers assaulting their high school (with most of the fatalities occurring in the library). These events are like bookends! Not only geographically, but generationally! If S2 had entered the public library with his "additional-but-not-excessive" quantity of ammunition (Salt Lakers will no doubt recall the library gunman/bomber/hostage-taker of 3/5/94 -- this library has some bad karma, folks!), the combined "score" for the Salt Lake old-timers could've rivaled that of the Columbine kids. Had that been the case, picture the psychological trauma for the rest of us (each incident, taken separately, is bad enough!): It would've seemed like we were caught in the cross fire of our old people and our youngsters -- in such an environment no one could be considered harmless; no one safe!

Okay, those are the facts we have to work with; now comes the fun part of turning them into functional scenarios. First then, for your perusal: "The Unbelievable Coincidence and the Cover-up Out of Concern." In this scenario two unstable individuals, residents of the same city, decide independently of each other that today's the day for shooting innocent people at random. Following whatever logic is left to the deranged mind, both select libraries for their venues over shopping malls, schools, public transportation etc. (Plausibly, since he died on a plaza situated between four buildings, S2 may've been en route to shoot up the County Sheriffs or one of the vacant courthouses, while my speculative hunch belongs to the softer and juicier target, the city library). The first to fire achieves his sick objective and makes national news . . . albeit posthumously. Either with or without knowledge of the first shooting -- which, conceivably, could have worked as an instant catalyst on a warped mind already committed to mayhem -- S2 leaves home with his handgun and extra clip, never to return. Approaching his target area, S2 falters for reasons unknown and does himself in after a period of agonized indecision. Enter the "authorities," who decide to serve the public interest by keeping this sad sequel under wraps -- Salt Lakers clearly have had enough excitement for one day! With media complicity the S2 event is simply allowed to die on the plaza. For any witnesses and for the staff of the city library, folks you'd expect to be reasonably concerned, "suicide" is the official line.

Scenario number two: "The Unbelievable Conspiracy and the Cover-up Out of Control." In this one an invisible alliance of elitist control freaks seeks to instill fear in the public at large. To accomplish this -- with but one method at their disposal -- they readily employ mind control (now a documented fact; if anyone's interested, just run it through your library's catalog or your favorite Internet search engine) to program "deranged individuals" to engage in acts of "random violence." For practical reasons these robots are intended to die at the scene from police- or self-inflicted gunfire, which is generally what does occur.

Now suppose that our SLC shooters of April 15th, 1999 were mind-controlled robots such as I have outlined. The first performed satisfactorily. "Kudos, gentlemen, kudos!" S2, however, did not. Perhaps he was "activated" unintentionally (two random shooters at two SLC libraries only hours apart does seem to lack in the subtlety department). Short of that, perhaps S2's programming failed, causing the final scene to become prolog. Then again, perhaps S2 simply pulled up on the plaza for a final (hourlong?) adjustment and capped himself accidentally. "This can not get out, gentlemen. You will see to it, I trust!"

So, fearless reader, what's your take on the S2 incident? Is it: A pointless hoax? (I can assure you it isn't.) An unusual suicide that failed to make the cut on a hoppin' newsday? A demented gunman's abortive shooting spree that went unreported out of consideration for an already jittery public? A failed psyops (psychological operations) venture that by its very nature needed to be covered up less people en masse should start to perceive the covert agenda of a hidden elite? Or a permutation of any of the above? In case you're troubled by this report but can't for the life of you subscribe to anything remotely conspiratorial, please give the following some thought:

The current world runner-up in this increasingly competitive event (random shooting) is Australia's Martin Bryant, alleged perpetrator of the Port Arthur Massacre. A mentally impaired young man with an IQ in the 60s (who is known to have once owned an air rifle), Bryant supposedly shot dead 35 people at Port Arthur, Tasmania, in (we might've guessed it) April of 1996, many of whom were dispatched via a single, "clean" headshot fired from the gunman's assault rifle as he moved through a cafe . . . shooting from the hip! If, like me, you know next to nothing about the science of close-quarters killing (as per counterterrorism), it should still be obvious that the expert handling of weaponry, methodical efficiency and world-class accuracy which this feat required could only be the result of some pretty intensive training. Naturally this aspect of the Massacre was downplayed in the extreme, since Martin Bryant and his mental age of 13 could not be reconciled with such killing efficiency (media complicity -- sound familiar!). The sheer scale of the slaughter, however, was the perfect vehicle to justify immediate and pervasive gun-control legislation that effectively disarmed Australia's law-abiding citizens.

Enter veteran researcher Joe Vialls. After years of independent investigation this concerned Aussie defines the Port Arthur incident as a "highly planned paramilitary operation with geopolitical motives [and a patsy named Martin Bryant], designed from the outset to undermine Australian national security" ("Was Martin Bryant Really a 'Lone-Nut' Assassin?" at http://the-strategy.com). Wow! That's pretty heavy, Joe. Of course that could never happen in the States. Wake up and smell the cordite, America! What do you think happened at Columbine High School? [If you haven't picked up on the neon aura of strangeness surrounding this event, plunge into the deep end at http://columbine.home.dhs.org, homepage to the Columbine Research Task Force, featuring articles by John "NewsHawk" Quinn]. Millions of Americans bear such ardent attachment to their firearms that the agents of chaos will have to administer repeat doses of high-level horror -- e.g., kids shooting kids -- before their gun-control-on-the-way-to-world-control aspirations can produce a fully-fledged New World Order (read "Global Police State"). Expect more school shootings!

From what I can glean, there appear to be three major categories among "random shooters" and "lone-nut assassins." First, obviously, you have the genuine article, the "natural-born-and/or-bred" sociopaths and fanatics. Then there are the "patsy operations" where professionals do the damage and fall guys take the rap (oftentimes posthumously as with Lee Oswald; Martin Bryant, too, almost died, getting himself severely burned during the finale at Port Arthur, a circumstance which, ironically, may have ultimately saved his life). And rounding out the field are the "robot operations" as sketched above, where a mind-controlled "lunatic" commits an atrocity (they also tend to die in the process), with two strong candidates coming from the United Kingdom. Michael Ryan, 1987: Ryan shoots to death 16 people in the village of Hungerford, England, before killing himself. Thomas Hamilton, 1996: (Steel yourself for this one!) Hamilton fatally guns down 16 first graders and their teacher in the gymnasium of Dunblane Primary School, Dunblane, Scotland, before killing himself. (These incidents, particularly Dunblane, have achieved much the same results in the UK as Port Arthur in Australia -- to take away firearms from the private citizen).

Well, that's quite some tour of the English-speaking world! We also could've visited France, Germany or the homeland of the current world-record-holder, South Korea, but I thought it time to get you back to your familiar swathe of consensus reality. And I'll gladly drop you off as soon as you concede that S2's death was strange enough to warrant this closer look. As in: Who was this person? How did he end up dead? Why did this event go unreported? You see, strangeness surrounds us on all sides at all times! And we -- some more than others -- specialize in blocking most of it out, becoming in the process a bunch of made-to-order sleepwalkers, or as David Icke might say, sheepwalkers (the insights of this extraordinary researcher/author/speaker -- as contained by The Biggest Secret and others -- have to represent one of our best hopes for a way clear).

It's time to start waking up, folks! One surefire way to do this is by refusing the narcotic drip of mass media manipulation. Ideally, obey the bumper sticker and terminate your TV with extreme prejudice. Not practical? Then launch regular forays, via the Internet, into the Fringe (e.g., Sightings, Matt Drudge, The Konformist, Chris Ruddy, The Parascope, J. Orlin Grabbe, Leading Edge Research etc. etc..); somewhere between fringe and mainstream you just might get a whiff of that elusive critter "Truth" (almost as pungent, I suspect, as a startled bigfoot). How's a person to recognize truth amongst all the contenders, pretenders and rear-enders? As Richard Sauder writes in his remarkable book Kundalini Tales: "In a word, the truth is not 'out there,' withheld and controlled by sinister authorities. Rather, the truth is 'in here,' and intimately available to the sincere seeker." Sauder is not claiming the nonexistence of "sinister authorities" -- not for a second! He is advocating a type of knowingness barred from the current materialistic/mechanistic worldview -- that of the heart. Spiritual IQ you might say! Or just plain old intuition. Many individuals are beginning to observe this faculty, but we need a societal and then a planetary observance . . . and fairly freakin' soon!

In closing: Don't let yourself be distracted. Yes, gun control is an issue! It is, however, only one of many highly visible signposts pointing away from the issue. The issue is threefold: (1) Who structures your awareness? (2) How? (3) Why? Be absolutely truthful with yourself in this.

Get informed. And refuse to be afraid! Ignorance and fear are the foundation stones of this manipulation. To paraphrase David Icke: NO ignorance + NO fear = NO manipulation. With heart and brain working together, it's up to each and every one of us to determine what we believe and then to externalize it, while respecting the rights of others to do the same. This process of externalization, now repeated six billion times, actually becomes the physical world we live in. Mull on that for a minute! Together, moment by moment, we create our reality anew! Yet, having been thoroughly conditioned to believe in our powerlessness, we mindlessly adhere to someone else's game plan and churn out the ongoing catalog of woe (aka "history") that now sees them serving for the match! What if we all just walked away from their dreary, dark-side caper and invented a loving, light-filled game of our own? Put another way, when we begin to externalize consciously, with joyful reverence for our creative potential as human beings, the gig is up for the fear merchants. They know it, and now you know it. Pass it on.

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AFTERWORD: The Christian-oriented Cutting Edge Ministries (http://www.cuttingedge.org) features an incredible article that began with information provided to David Bay, the website's creator, by a defector from a Satanic group. Prior to his defection, this person had observed a map of the United States posted in a Satanic meeting place. Upon the map were two straight lines connecting the locations of recent school shootings and intersecting in Hope, Arkansas, the birthplace of William Jefferson Clinton (which the informant claimed was marked by a bold blue dot). In recreating this map, Bay found the line running northwest to southeast passed next to or directly touched on Springfield, OR, Littleton, CO and Pearl, MS (all sites of school shootings); that running northeast to southwest, Edinboro, PA, Paducah, KY and Jonesboro, AR (ditto). Furthermore, by extending the NE/SW line into Texas, it approaches within about fifty miles of Fort Worth, where, you may recall, a gunman recently opened fire on young people in a church. Likewise, Salt Lake City, with it's library shooting(s), also falls within fifty miles of the NW/SE line. As strange as this information might appear, it is not without precedent. James Shelby Downard is famous in conspiracist circles for his essay laying out the "mystical toponomy" surrounding the "Killing of the King rite of November [22], 1963."

[I found Downard's essay "Sorcery, Sex, Assassination and the Science of Symbolism" in Secret and Suppresed: Banned Ideas and Hidden History, edited by the late, great Jim Keith.] The intent in both cases seems to be the creation of occult symbolism upon the face of the North American continent. When, in addition, one reads that HAARP was fired up before each school shooting, it's enough to elicit momentary incontinence. If, however, you find yourself oddly unconcerned: (a) you're obviously an enlightened being completing your final incarnation; (b) too much television has clearly eroded your imagination; (c) you're already in on it! [For those of you who prefer a more secular interface, this article can also be accessed through the Rumor Mill News Agency at http://www.rumormillnews.com/pattern.htm.]