Secrets

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Mind Over Mystery PO Box 513 Patagonia, AZ 85624

Phone 520.303.6993

“Mind Over Mystery” intends to inhabit the intersection of good Research, Critical thinking, and absorbing True Mystery.

In our view, treatment of Mystery online either plunges into ungrounded, sensational theories on the one hand, or scoffs at and trivializes legitimate mystery research on the other.  We represent that “sweet spot” of serious, but probing inquiry into legitimate mystery.  Put on your Critical Thinking and Research hats, and join us on this exploration.

We need to know – Featured this week…

The case of Michelle O’Connell, from our Crime and Disappearance Section:

Michelle’s case, a death on Sept. 2, 2010, was officially ruled a suicide by medical  examiners but remains complex and controversial:

1. We need independent testing of the weapon used.  What are the results of firing it upside down, as per the theory of ME Dr. Bulic (see the visual in the Frontline Documentary from November, 2013)?  Would upside-down firing necessarily cause injuries to  hands?  Is it possible the Tac Light could be thrust forward into an eyelid as per the theory?

2. We also need the opinion of suicide specialists within the field of psychology/psychiatry.  What are the statistics for mothers of young children committing suicide?  Given Michelee’s overall profile, how likely do they judge a suicide in her case?

3. Thirdly, we need examination of  Jeremy Banks video-taped interviews, and other recorded  comments, by specialists in behavioral analysis and deception detection.  How do the professionals judge his testimony and comments?

Also:

The Curious Death of Brittany Murphy and Simon Monjack, from our Medical and Scientific Section

Brittany Murphy and her husband, Simon Monjack, died several months apart in the same Hollywood mansion of the same diagnosis, pneumonia.  In our research, we can use help:

1) We do not have the reports from the Medical Examiners. Can you help us acquire these?

2)  Are there written reports that exist about the later discovery of mold in the home?  And are there articles, accessible to the layman, about the potential of mold to produce pneumonia or similarly serious respiratory illness?

3) Is there any corroboration to the allegation that traces of toxic metals in Murphy’s hair samples suggest deliberate contamination?

by Mind Over Mystery

Often, interviews with and debates between Mystery Masters will enliven our study of mystery. But…

read more

by Mind Over Mystery

We need to know – Featured this week… The case of Michelle O’Connell, from our Crime and…

read more

The world of aircraft of course has its own experts, its own buffs, and aircraft on the fringes represent their own world of mystery. When an aircraft of unknown design is sighted, it’s like the shiver that goes down the spine of the ornithologist spotting a bird thought to be long extinct.

So when a small propeller driven plane, looking a bit unlike anything anyone has ever seen before, is photographed on the tarmac of a small California airport, curious aviation minds want to know.

A bullet shaped plane.

Clear capacity or potential for some alternative, futuristic power source.

Unusual aerodynamics.

And the single small propeller, like what mariners might call a screw, in the back, giving the aircraft the look of a large flying torpedo.

Numbering on the tail led the aviation sleuths to a company which owns the plane. Questions posed to the company—Otto Aviation Group, LLC, led them absolutely nowhere. No comment. We have nothing to share with you in regard to that aircraft.

Questions without answers are the fertile soil in which speculation grows, and unusual phenomena are the fertilizer which grows it faster. The plane, in and of itself, is nothing spectacular. We’ve all seen planes with wings, and propellers. And yet, not exactly like this, not with this bulgy yet aerodynamic shape, not with a single propeller of that size and shape, not one that raises these questions.

A Sherlock of aviation will take a careful look at the craft and want to know:

• Is the plane primarily an aerodynamic experiment?
• Does it have some future military implications that aren’t immediately obvious?
• Is it built a test hydrogen or electricity or some other alternative fuel.
• Yes we’ve all seen airplanes with propellers before, but just what’s this one all about?

Usually the aviation mystery buffs chase the legend of photographs smuggled from a secret air base, or plans bootlegged from a classified source. Radar defeating planes, or aircraft that might fly at Mach 7. Now they’ll be checking for patents on something much simpler, but still very secret. When something is secret we all want to know why.

After the brutal, infamous white colonial regime of South Africa gave way in 1994 to a government run by African hero Nelson Mandela, the new president asked for Truth and Reconciliation, even having a commission established under that name.

The idea: get the atrocities of the past out into the open, but not with the aim of retribution. If a criminal of the race wars in South Africa confessed, and beyond that showed genuine contrition, he or she might be granted amnesty, and afforded a large measure of forgiveness.

The film: The Forgiven, with Forest Whitaker as a compelling archbishop Desmond Tutu, brings us a painfully true story, though the vehicle of both real and fictional events. We won’t attempt here to grapple with all the details of this gripping portrayal.

The story offers up conundrums of the human psyche… how does the psyche transform, become amenable to other ways of seeing, of deep repentance…when and why do some persons just snap, as if moving from night to day?

What does the high sounding aim of “reconciliation” offer the victims, really, after all their loved ones still died horrible deaths. What of their psyches, their tortured souls?

The mystery chaser also asks:

How do you know when someone who’s “come clean” has told you everything?

How will you ever know when political deals covered up a little truth, a lot of truth?

Is there ever a time when political considerations should cover up a little truth, a lot of truth?

In the end, how do you know when you’ve finally burrowed to the bottom of scandal, depravity, of stories with no ending?

The film, for example, does of good job of this, looking at the basic level of abuse of blacks, but also asking a haunting question, as a refrain: just what was operation Hacksaw?

When you go back to the 1990’s and engage with South Africa’s story, there’s much, much to think about.

Developed from Abagnale’s memoir of the same name, the film version of “Catch Me If You Can” claims to be based on that “true story.” It takes us back to the mid-60s and early 70s, where a winsome and ageless Dicaprio pulls some pretty neat tricks as a junior con man. He charms the pants off most anyone, especially attractive women.
It’s a homespun romp where “Frank” is a victim of poverty, neglect, divorce and the need to please, please, please his father by assuming phony professional identities. One of the falsities of the film is that portrayal, because Frank didn’t see his father after his parents divorced early in his life. This is only the first of many departures from the narrative of Abagnale’s book.

And, of course, never one to not comment on himself, Frank sent out a news release:

“I feel it is necessary to make the following statement concerning the book and the film, Catch Me If You Can. The reason for this statement is to provide clarification and accuracy.

I wrote the book, Catch Me If You Can, more than 23 years ago. Obviously, this was written from my perspective as a 16-year old with the help of a co-writer (I’m now 54 and I sold the movie rights in 1980). I was interviewed by the co-writer only about four times. I believe he did a great job of telling the story, but he also over dramatized and exaggerated some of the story. That was his style and what the editor wanted. He always reminded me that he was just telling a story and not writing my biography. This is one of the reasons that from the very beginning, I insisted the publisher put a disclaimer in the book and tapes.

It has been reported that I had written $10 million, $8 million and $5 million worth of bad checks. The actual amount was $2.5 million. I was never on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List as this is reserved for very violent criminals who pose a threat to society. All of the crimes I committed were when I was between the ages 16 and 21. I served time in prison in France, Sweden and the United States. In the U. S. Federal Court, I was sentenced as a youthful offender because of my age at the time the crimes were committed. Even so, I was given 12 years of which I served a total of five years. This was considered harsh punishment then and almost unheard of today.

I have been married for over 25 years and I am the proud father of three sons. When I was 28 years old, I thought it would be great to have a movie about my life, but when I was 28, like when I was 16, I was egotistical and self-centered. We all grow up. Hopefully we get wiser. Age brings wisdom and fatherhood changes one’s life completely. I consider my past immoral, unethical and illegal. It is something I am not proud of. I am proud that I have been able to turn my life around and in the past 25 years, helped my government, my clients, thousands of corporations and consumers deal with the problems of white collar crime and fraud.

I know that Hollywood has made a number of changes to the story, but I am honored that Steven Spielberg, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks participated in the making of the movie inspired by my life. It is important to understand that it is just a movie… not a biographical documentary. ‘’

Frank W. Abagnale
September 3, 2002

In most countries, there is no Statute of Limitations on Murder. Old, cold cases, come back to haunt us. We never stop wanting to know.

The fate of the family of Czar Nicholas, at the hands of the Bolshevicks, has been addressed in hundreds of books. But now,

Nisman died mysteriously in 2015, but the story goes back to 1994…

Jewish center bombing casts shadow over Argentine politics 23 years on. Former president Kirchner ordered arrested on suspicion of covering up Iran’s role in terror attack that killed 85 in return for lucrative trade deals

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — The bomb blast that ripped through a Jewish center in Buenos Aires and killed 85 people in 1994 continues to cause shock waves in Argentina’s politics.

Twenty-three years after the bombing, two former presidents have been indicted, a slew of Iranian officials are accused, a campaigning prosecutor is dead from a bullet in the head, but no one has ever been charged in the original attack.

On Thursday, a prosecuting magistrate ordered the arrest of former president Cristina Kirchner and called on the Senate to begin procedures to strip her of parliamentary immunity.

On July 18, 1994, a bomb destroyed the headquarters of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), leaving 85 dead and 300 people wounded.

It followed the bombing of Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires two years earlier, which killed 29 people and wounded 200.

Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terror is accused of the carrying out bombings at Iran’s demand.

Alberto Nisman was appointed special prosecutor by Kirchner’s husband, then president Nestor Kirchner, and he quickly showed his investigation would be far-reaching.

On his request, British authorities in 2003 arrested Iran’s former ambassador to Buenos Aires, Hadi Soleimanpour, but he was released on bail for lack of evidence.

APF.com, 8 December 2017

That’s the triggering event, that second bombing, aimed just as squarely at Jews as the attacks we’re used to seeing in the Middle East On Argentina’s scale it was a 9-11, Twin Towers type of catastrophe. They weren’t used to bombs going off in their largest city, killing scores of people.

The anti-semitic Iranian state is suspected. Thus, for a quarter of a century now, a huge, nasty question mark has hung over that memory. Was it a vicious, sideway strike at the Jewish state by targeting a major Jewish center in South America, as most allege?

And the further allegation is what brings us to Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman. He was chief among those who claimed that the investigation into Iranian involvement was soft-peddled deliberately, in exchange for political favors.

Read on:

Argentina’s former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has appeared in court, where she denied covering up for Iranians accused of involvement in a 1994 bombing at a Buenos Aires Jewish center that left 85 people dead.

Calling the case an “absurdity”, Kirchner, who held office from 2007 until 2015, went on to attack the judge overseeing the case, which is based on charges first levelled two years ago by a federal prosecutor who was found dead in his homeshortly before he was due to present his allegations publicly.

“I don’t expect any justice from you,” Kirchner, reading from a 17-page prepared statement, told the federal judge Claudio Bonadío on Thursday.

Kirchner is facing accusations of treason and plotting a cover-up for signing a 2012 pact with Iran that would have allowed senior Iranian officials accused of the deadly attack to be investigated in their own country, rather than in Argentina.

Senators enjoy immunity from prosecution, although this week congress stripped a former minister in Kirchner’s government of his immunity as part of a corruption inquiry.

“This is a great judicial absurdity,” said Kirchner. “The aim of this judicial persecution is to intimidate opposition leaders in congress. They want a submissive congress.”

APF.com, 8 December 2017

It’s hard enough to judge politics in your own country, figure out what’s a genuine prosecution, what’s a set-up.

And the death of Nisman just before his much-anticipated speech?

Propaganda, that’s what we call it, that’s what we remember. But so many questions are left unanswered whenever propagandists offer us their alternative version of the facts.

The NY Times offered an article a few months ago under the title “The Mystery of Hanoi Hannah.” She was the Tokyo Rose of her war, always telling the opposing troops on the radio how they’d been duped, how they really worked for evil, how they were really losing the war.

The story’s absorbing, but many elements of human mystery left unexplored.