Tucson Shooting Suspect Posted On Giants
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 12th, 2011
A Washington Post article by David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post staff writer, on Tuesday, January 11, 2012, dealt with the appearance of Jared Lee Loughner at the Above Top Secret site.
Throughout the ATS site various discoveries, amongst a bit of deleting, appears to be occurring. Jared Loughner, a/k/a Erad3 posted on Chupacabras, NASA conspiracies, and even, apparently True Giants, as can be revealed by some cache finds.
On June 7, 2010, for example, in response to a discussion about whether or not there were giants on the Earth in ancient times, here’s what erad3 had to say in “Giants Really Were Really Giants“::
You’ll tell every poster that these giants are real, and other sources tell the truth, so they must exist!
Everyone on this forum will never believe that they exist.
How sad it is for the size of a toilet.
[edit on 6-7-2010 by Erad3]
[edit on 6-7-2010 by Erad3]
Let’s not forget, as Village Voice Media Executive Editor Michael Lacey observed: Loughner’s actions were more the result of mental illness than ideology. It is from that framework that we should be looking for the behavior contagion triggers, not the cryptopolitical or the cryptid ones, for to do so merely joins Loughner in his mental illness, as noted in my book on that subject.
The Copycat Effect. New York: Paraview Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2004.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I’m disgusted. As I wrote on my own little blog, we’ve all seen this before: trying to find an external culprit for the tragedies, a malevolent influence that causes these troubled individuals to commit such atrocities.
For the Columbine massacre it was Doom and Marilyn Manson. For Jared Lee, it is UFOs, true giants and conspiracy theories.
Dear Red Pill Junkie
Perhaps you lost something in translation, because I was not blaming an external culprit like a True Giant. Quite the opposite. Please re-read the emphasis I place on mental illness, not on cryptozoology, cryptids, or conspiracy theories. Also read the Twilight Language blog which has a hyperlink above. The shooter is the question and the answer.
I posted this to end-run any “discovery” that this sad individual was “cryptozoologically-oriented.” He was not. He merely roamed around in the same landscape to reveal his demons in various ways.
Loren,
Perhaps I did not make myself clear, and for that I am sorry.
I’m blaming the media into labeling this troubled individual as a “UFO-nut” or a “conspiracy-theorist” or a “crypto-enthusiast” because that’s what the media *always* does when these tragedies happen: they pigeon-hole them into these tidy and convenient categories.
“Oh, those kids in Columbine liked to play violent videogames and listen to heavy metal”
“Oh, this Jared Lee guy used to spend his time on forums that deal with all sorts of crazy ideas”
That’s what disgusts me. It’s always a search for an external culprit by the media, instead of looking for the more obvious answer.
This is disgusting. Really it is.
What are the intentions of this post?
As a researcher, I am still trying to figure out why “The Copycat Effect” isn’t REQUIRED reading for a degree in criminology or any other social/psychological science degrees, especially an advanced degree. Overlooking this text is a tragedy.
You can’t dismiss the effect of external stimuli, either. Sensational, polarizing, conspiratorial, threatening material will set off people who for healthy or unhealthy reasons are inclined to uncritically accept and act on such things. If someone is insanely paranoid, claims that the Y2K bug will destroy civilization might make for good tv/radio, but they also encourage such people to sell their belongings and flee to a cave. For those who feel powerless, racial or government conspiracy tales give them an external enemy to pin their feelings of anger or resentment onto. The founder of the Heaven’s Gate cult was insane, but Art Bell and Courtney Brown’s hoax about an alien object coming to earth and Ed Dames’ prophecies of doom set them off. The man who went on a shooting rampage at the Unitarian Universalist church was inspired by Goldberg’s book about the top liberals who were “destroying America”.
Bombast and rhetoric that is given a national audience and not treated critically can become an enabler of disturbed people. It reaches the national consciousness and when they see other people agreeing with it and no one refuting it it becomes an enabler to convince them of their delusional thinking and the over-the-top sentiment encourages them to “step up” their activities or becomes a call to act on them.
National discourse couched in the same language and imagery as experienced by paranoid and delusional people espoused by seemingly sane people (for profit) is dangerous. It becomes a match set to gunpowder. It’s not just the rhetoric of a political party “destroying America” or a politician coming for your guns or your grandma, but also the folks who peddle claims about the end of the world in 2012, the forsaking of conventional medical treatment, all the way to the lady who last week claimed that the massive bird die-off was caused by eliminating don’t-ask-don’t-tell that need to be checked. Unhealthy minds will take this “red meat” for special interest groups seriously and then act on it. This isn’t the same as the old bugaboos of heavy metal or video games. It’s a call to violent action that the disturbed take seriously.
Plus we all know cryptozoology doesn’t make people insane… but being insane already probably helps. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
This weekend we should all try to rent Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King.
Ok, I’ve given some thought to how cryptozoology can be directly linked to deadly shootings, and I think I finally found one… how many poor mangy coyotes have been shot by people thinking they were bagging a chupacabras? 🙂
I agree with alcalde. It’s all about state of mind. How the someone’s mind perceive the information it receives. It get worse when religion gets thrown in the mix.