Exit the stargate
Initial perception quickens my heart rate
This dark place planet Earth
orbits one star
come from afar
far away state of mind
Open up your third eye
Black helicopters in the sky
Non Phixion
I have suggested that an alternative road may bypass the main path of history, shortcircuiting the organic stages of consensus, value formation, and the experiences of common enterprise generally believed to underlie political community. This relies on a grave crisis or war to bring about a sudden transformation in national attitudes sufficient for the purpose. According to this version, the order we examine may be brought into existence as a result of a series of sudden, nasty, and traumatic shocks. But does this sufficiently lay the basis for genuine community, adequate to create a durable world order? The transforming experience, whether evolutionary or revolutionary, must, to achieve the foundation of consensus requisite for community, be enough to reach and move great masses of people, many of whom are not now touched by governmental processes, or a fortiori by international relations. In the end, the question of feasibility can only be answered with a prediction: once critical mass had taken place, however tentatively or suspiciously, a new and essentially unpredictable dynamic would have been set in motion, sufficient to confound predictions made from this side of the line.
Lincoln P. Bloomfield, “A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations” 1962
Since the New Children’s Hospital opened its gaudy gates at 11 am on April 16, helicopter traffic over Bloomfield has noticeably increased. Though irritating, none of the choppers I’ve observed of late have contained my mangled/diseased body or that of a beloved child, and thus I count my blessings when I hear their blades.
As I never tire of reminding my long-suffering pals and fam, though, the Steel City once (thirteen years ago today, in fact) received an unexpected visit from a different breed of helicopter, a breed on a daring mission, not to spirit the infirm to allopathic succor nor to film the Action News from a lofty vantage, but to freak out, intimidate and piss off Pittsburghers.
A noisy late-night invasion of Pittsburgh by low-flying military helicopters was only an Army training exercise, but only a few people knew that.
Uninformed civilians awakened by the sound of chopper blades and explosions late Monday and early Tuesday called police, emergency operations officials, and radio talk shows, wondering if an invasion or military coup were under way.
Because of concerns expressed by city residents, the Army canceled another training exercise that was scheduled for last night.
“We’re re-evaluating to see what can be done with as little disruption as possible,” US Army Lt. Col. Pete Pierce said in a telephone interview from Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville, N.C.
Less fearful residents took Monday night’s and Tuesday’s unusual sights and sounds in stride. But when the facts emerged yesterday, outraged Pittsburgh Council members wondered why they weren’t told of the Special Forces’ first foray into Pittsburgh to practice what it called “urban infiltration.”
“We’re not getting paranoid here, but there is a proper way to notify the city,” said City Council President Jim Ferlo.
The maneuvers involved 200 troops from Frot Bragg who have been stationed in Pittsburgh since May 28. The troops, working in conjunction with Pitsburgh Police and Allegheny County SWAT teams, practiced dropping soldiers on a rope from a helicopter to buildings, Pierce said.
“What we’ve found in the past is if we notify with a long lead time, we’ll end up with spectators coming down trying to watch what’s going on,” Pierce said.
The choppers flew over the Monoghahela and Allegheny rivers, beginning about 10 p.m. Monday, disturbing residents from McKeesport to West Mifflin. Army and police officials said residents in the immediate area were notified shortly before the exercises began, but there was no general announcement.
“I was sitting here, watching TV,” said an elderly bed-ridden woman who lives on the North Side. She watched the soldiers descend from a helicopter.
“I was scared at first. They were low.”
The soldiers also fired training ammunition and charges, as well as devices “used to make the training as realistic as possible,” said a statement released yesterday by the US Special Operations Command in Pittsburgh.
Many were startled by all the noise. Mary Mondik, of the North Side, at first thought fireworks were going off at the Three Rivers Stadium. “I just didn’t know what it was all about,” Mondik said, adding residents should have been told what to expect beforehand.
City Councilman Dan Cohen, who chairs the city’s public safety committee, said he would ask army officials to explain why more people weren’t informed of its plans. “I think the public needs some answers,” Cohen said.
“There’s no real danger to anyone,” said Pittsburgh Police Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr., who believes wider notification would have attracted too many bystanders. Police received numerous complaints around midnight from residents in a six-block area of McClure Avenue near Termon Avenue in Brighton Heights, McNeilly said.
Training in urban settings is as important as training in deserts or mountains because forces could be sent anywhere at a moment’s notice, Pierce said. The training is being conducted in other cities as well, and Pittsburgh was chosen for its unique geography.
“Each area has its own characteristics and its own challenges in terms of training,” Pierce said.
Radio talk show hosts, who often receive calls about UFOs and “black helicopter” sightings, were among the first in the media to hear reports of explosions and military aircraft over the city.
Chris Moore, who was filling in on the overnight shift at KDKA Radio early Tuesday, said he at first discounted the callers’ claims until he heard the roar of the choppers through an open window in the station’s Gateway Center studio downtown.
Callers kept the lines lit until 4:40 with questions about the unusual sights and noise. “It’s the kind of night you dream about on the overnight shift,” Moore joked.
But the talk show host said he came away with a new awareness of just how frightened the public is about the possibility of a military takeover or revolution.
“That’s the word that kept coming up repeatedly: Revolution,” he said. “I was making light of it, but I got serious later on as I recognized the depth of the concern.” Fifty percent of the callers were genuinely convinced that some kind of military attack was under way, he said.
Councilman Sala Udin said he had just one question about the military exercises: “I would like to know who the enemy is.”
Paul Muschick, Kris Mamula, and Mary Anne Lewis, “Urban Infiltration: Army Training Wakes Up, Scares City“ Trib, 6/5/96
Perhaps because the Clinton administration had viewed Pittsburgh as the home of the mastermind of the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” the place from where the “cancer” had sprung, the city seemed to get a little more White House attention than others. When the head of HUD visited town, he pointed across the Monongahela river at a forsaken little town called Braddock and asked if that was where the Morning Militia met. On June 4, 1996, Pittsburghers had a bizarre experience — an unannounced nighttime invasion of black helicopters playing war games over city streets, zooming over McKeesport and Braddock. “Not Armageddon, Just Noisy Helicopter Training,” said the next morning’s headline in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“World War III did not break out along the Three Rivers last night,” reported Post-Gazette staff writer Michael Newman. “It just sounded like it. As part of a U.S. Department of Defense training exercise, helicopters flew low along the Monogahela, Ohio and Allegheny rivers, from McKeesport to McKees Rocks to the Strip District. They were accompanied by a frighteningly realistic soundtrack of exploding bombs and crackling gunfire. Residents from throughout the area called their local police. One man said the commotion was so loud, his wife went into labor. An official at Pittsburgh’s emergency-management center said the exercises were part of the Defense Department’s normal training. He said last night’s exercises were designed to help helicopter pilots learn to fly at night in urban areas. The exercises, sponsored by local police departments, including the city’s, started shortly after dark and lasted until after midnight.”
“It Would Have Been Nice to Warn Us,” said a headline the next day, followed the day after by “Military Retreats in Face Of Anger: Public’s Reaction Was Too Negative, Army Announces.”
Said Lt. Col. Ken McGraw of the Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, “In light of the public reaction, we re-evaluated our training schedule and determined we really couldn’t do much of our training without disruptions to Pittsburgh residents and thought it would be better to cancel it.”
Asked about the safety of flying the Black Hawk helicopters at night over heavily populated areas, McGraw said, “I’m never going to tell you nothing [sic] is foolproof.” He said that in other cities, such as Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago, where similar exercises had been held over the last few years, public reaction had never been anything like in Pittsburgh.
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., stated that he had been “left with the impression from a meeting with officers at the Special Operations Command” that the training was in part to prepare troops should their expertise be necessary at the Atlanta Olympics. Others said the Army was concerned that conditions in certain cities are ripe for racial conflict. The morning after Pittsburgh’s helicopter invasion, Tom Marr, a Philadelphia talk show host said that invariably in these situations the “black helicopter crowd” comes out of the woodwork, spreading rumors that the Pentagon is ready to aim its guns at American citizens.
Whatever the reason, the black helicopter crowd did get angry — and pour out of the woodwork they did! Some even poured into the streets in their underwear during the treetop anti-terrorist maneuvers by nine Army helicopters that swooped through with mock gunfire and explosions that shook the ground.
“In my granma’s neighborhood,” said waitress Kelly Toth, “people laid down in the streets. The noises came in through the open windows. The helicopters were flying so low you could’ve hit them with a broom handle. They thought the communists were coming to take over, or that it was aliens!”
The owner of La Dolce Vita Sweet Shop in Bloomfield, Pittsburgh’s Little Italy, said he wasn’t surprised to see masked soldiers sliding down ropes onto rooftops from helicopters. “They’ve been doing extractions around here for a long time,” he said, referring to Pittsburgh’s missing persons.
Another woman peering out her apartment window in the wee hours at the black helicopters said, “Oh my God, the militia was right!” On the other hand, Granpa Bup, a World War II vet, said, “These people are crybabies. They should’ve felt the ground shake when a 3,000 pound bomb was dropped on London!”
Sarah J. McCarthy, “Goodbye to the black helicopters”, WorldNetDaily 5/9/01
I replaced some beat components in my toilet tank this afternoon (nearly swooned just now when it flushed properly, no gingerness required in applying my hand to the handle) and tankers sprayed a good deal this evening (I saw an asterisk expand into regularly spaced parallel rows and a few salmon and teal “chembow” patches) and I experienced new streets and beautiful (bike) trails and sublime joy and acceptance of All of It, including the fact that the biosphere is being deliberately and spectacularly poisoned (with regard to the spraying, perhaps only as a lucrative epiphenomenon of mapping scalar weapon signatures or of Control’s eleventh hour bid to shield its bliss-disabled DNA from a star electromagnetically gasping its way towards orgasmic maxima [or not] or of some even goofier primary agenda). Anyway, C, D, and R, thanks for taking me outside my bike riding comfort zone and keep watching the skies, and where you’re going, and the watchers.
Cuídate.
