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You may vaguely remember the incident. It came over the television
and radio as a "news bulletin." The dateline was Washington, D.C.
The details, viewed in retrospect, are shocking.
Frank Eugene Corder, who was immediately dubbed a "lone nut" by
the media, had stolen a single-engine Cessna 150L plane from an
airport north of Baltimore. He then headed south to the District of
Columbia, flew over the National Zoological Park and down to the
Mall, and apparently used the Washington Monument as a beacon. As he
closed in on that Masonic obelisk just off the Beltway, Corder
banked his plane into a U-turn over the Ellipse and flew low over
the White House South Lawn, clipped a hedge, knocked some branches
off the magnolia tree planted by President Andrew Jackson, and
crashed the plane into the White House -- two stories below the
presidential bedroom. This all began at 2300 hours military time,
according to the White House.
There was an attack on the residence of the President and First
Lady. And it happened not long ago. But few people today remember
when the pilot of that Cessna launched his attack at the heart of
our nation. It happened in 1994 -- on September 11.
Do you remember it? The incident obviously made quite an impact
in the minds of some people. Coincidence? Conspiracy? Or something
else?
In the wake of Frank Corder's crash and the resulting publicity,
the White House was the focus of a cluster of attacks. On October
29, 1994, Francisco Martin Duran, a convicted felon, pulled a
semiautomatic rifle from under his trench coat and fired at least
twenty-nine shots as he ran down the south sidewalk of Pennsylvania
Avenue, spraying the front of the White House with bullets. In
December 1994 the White House saw five incidents. Four of them
involved breaches of the mansion's grounds and ranged from fence
jumping, to threats of a bomb in a car, to a homeless man waving a
knife on a sidewalk outside the White House. That individual was
shot by police and later died of his injuries. Then, on December 17,
an unidentified person fired at least four bullets at the White
House. One went through a dining room window, while others hit near
the president's bedroom window on the second floor.
If you are surprised by the Corder story, you will likely be
shaken by many of the other events recalled in this book. What is
going on here? you wonder.
In short, we are living in times strongly influenced by "the
copycat effect."
Copyright © 2004 by Loren Coleman
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