It's all over now. Looking back, it was a time of terror and uncertainty. It was also a time of great anger and unity.

I was on duty at the firehouse on Tuesday the 11th. I had just finished a 24-hour shift. It was special duty that morning. We were being held over to be fitted with new SCBA masks.

Watching all that unfold that morning as an on-duty fireman was just a special experience that I'll not now pollute with words.

The week following consisted of 24-7 coverage on every channel. All aviation except military was grounded. I remember going outside at night and looking into the sky. No flights. No nothing. I made a mental note of that and filed those planeless skies into my memory.

Other things were happening. Poison mail. Anthrax mail.

After a week or so the FAA decided to let aviation, even small planes fly again. Maybe it was human nature but when the flight ban was lifted, every Tom, Dick and Harry with a pilot's license hauled *** to the airport and fired up their Cessna. After no flights, no nothing, suddenly it was like a giant airshow.

I was at Palmerdale #3 working my second Fire department job. I was at the station minding my own business. When the phone rang. I'll never forget the near panic in that fireman's voice.
The City called, my primary job.

"Travis", the fireman said, "You gotta come come in. The chiefs are gone, Chief is out of town and the Assistant Chief is unavailable you are the man. "

"What's happening?" I asked?

"It looks like we are under attack!" he replied

"Attack how?!!!" I asked.

"Small planes! Several callers called dispatch. It was seen just north of town, a small plane dropping a powder like substance. A witness called dispatch and reported two men in a small plane. One was hanging out the side emptying a bag."
"Travis, there is "stuff everywhere! White stuff, we don't know what it is.
It's not just here. The Law Enforcement channels especially the North Net is going nuts! "

"I'll be there as soon as I can." I replied.

I called in a good man to take Palmerdale # 3. I gave him a briefing and then I grabbed an extra SCBA off a truck to take with me. Palmerdale and the City were close and could aid each other if need be.
With the SCBA, I headed home. I told my wife to stay in unless they go up the road to my parents. Stay indoors...
It was surreal.

I did not carry then. I did not have a permit. It was a different time.
I called upon my Colt Series 80 1911. I loaded it up. It was loaded up cocked and locked, you know...for terrorists.

So, with Palmerdale's SCBA and my 1911 I headed to the City in the midst of an apparent terror attack.

It all made sense. The attack on 9-11 with airliners. The anthrax mail and now they are hitting rural America with small planes.
Here we freaking go!

As far as my pistol loaded in my truck, I was as illegal as a 4 Dollar Bill at a Cockfight. In that moment in time though, I could have had a belt fed hanging out the window and no LEO in the State of Alabama would have held it against me once they knew who I was.

Sure enough, as I approached the City, I started to see the "White Stuff". It was everywhere.
When I got to the station, stuff was floating around everywhere. If it was a poison, what could we do? The only thing we could do is offer supportive care for acute cases. So far there were no medical issues reported.
That being said there were all kinds of calls related to the stuff...
Wal-Mart's AC units clogged up with it.
We decided Level D...turnouts, no scbas wou/d be the realistic course of action as the stuff was already everywhere....

The same reports all over the South...
Biloxi, Hattiesburg, Jackson, Tallahassee, Pensacola, Cullman, Huntsville, Columbus MS, Sylacauga, Georgia...Tennessee...All reported the same...
Small planes dumping stuff...
Funny white stuff everywhere.
For while it looked bad, I mean bad,bad.

Come to find out...
It was a small spider.
Every fall these spiders make a parachute type of web and fly with the wind. September 2001 seemed to be an extra heavy year for them.
Every fall since then, I have looked for them and I may see a web or two but nothing of note.
Pretty much, I have not seen those jokers since, at least like that.

It kind of reminds me of the Japanese landing boats being seen off Honolulu after Dec 7.

This was the first time I carried a loaded pistol for protection. In a time of war, I reached for the 1911.
Now I would grab my Model 10s, mainly because I'm set up for them.

Wait, what? So... What did the plane that dumped stuff have to do with anything? Was it merely coincidence? Exaggeration? False reports? Was the plane flown by that pilot who screamed like a woman in Kindgom of the Spiders and what was dumped was a big bag of their offspring?

__________________
Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

The airplane seen, could have been a crop duster. There are some fields 15 miles north of town on the reverse slopes of the hills.

It was coincidence. It was just a heavy year for those spiders.

People were scared of airplanes a week after 9-11.

I believe people saw what they wanted to see. What was crazy was it was regional not local. That lent an air of creditability to reports coming in from surrounding states.

54ball, why didn't you firefighters call the military to intercept those suspect planes?

Right after 911 I had an elderly woman come in and give a report of "suspicious plane" activity. She claimed to have seen a low-flying plane over the city dumping some powder or liquid, not sure which, over the residential area. I got all the details of the plane, description, heading, etc., and when I got to the question of "when did this occur," she stopped a minute and got that far-off look of someone dredging up a memory and said, "I think it was June of 1946."

I thanked her for the info, and escorted her out the door.

__________________
No good deed goes unpunished.

Those reports came into the dispatch center. The dispatch center 911 would send law enforcement or fire service to investigate depending on the information.
The information was passed up to the county EMA. The county EMA would pass it up to the state level and eventually it goes up to the Federal level.

The information coming from the upper levels down is how we learned that similar reports were coming in all over the region. Also, radio chatter of the same types of incidents were monitored.

Several hours into it, it was confirmed from state/federal level that the substance was indeed spider silk and not hazardous.

We ran on an elderly lady with dementia. I asked her age and she told me 19. I asked what year it was, and she said, 1947. I asked her who the president was, and she said Harry Truman.

She was right. She would have been 19 in 1947. Bless her heart, to her she was 19 living in 1947.

Why do that when he had a series 80 1911?

How can we explain and learn from these airplane sightings and apply that to CCW?

1. In these incidents after 9-11-2001 there was a collective fear due to traumatic events.

2. There was a pancake of pre-conceived notions, fears and real events that can influence a person

3. All of this together makes something benign( the small airplanes in this case) a potential threat.

4. A real but unrelated event, the annual spider migration, is seen as evidence and is tied into this pancake of evidence. This "evidence" being a terror attack.

5. People really did see airplanes doing strange things, at least in their eyes. They really did see it and I'll explain why.

Airplanes are relatively fast. You only see them for a moment, and they are gone.
No airplanes have flown in a week. Something that was seen everyday was completely gone for a week.
Suddenly they are back and back and back in large numbers.
Airplanes that were harmless a little over week ago are now scrutinized as threats.

Human vision is not what we think. Predators see well straight ahead and they can see movement in the peripheral very well. In between the brain/mind fills in the gaps. In a sense, the brain processes vision as snapshots, this is processed, and the gaps are filled in by the imagination.

Scary thought.

Now an airplane at an angle...the window...the struts the landing gear can be a blob.
A person who already is afraid of aircraft, sees this undetailed blob and processes this a man dumping something out the airplane's window. A cloud behind the airplane or in these cases spider silk becomes the confirmation that the airplane has indeed dumped stuff.
People were reporting what they saw, but what they saw, was not what they thought they saw.

Examples of this phenomenon.

Hunting...
While stalk-hunting, movement is seen in the peripheral. A quick look to that movement and a "deer" is seen but just a millisecond later this deer is really limbs leaves and a stump. For a split second a big, dried leaf appeared to be an ear, limbs appeared to be the antlers and the stump was the body.

The above explain why hunters get shot by snap shooters.

Defense incidents...

Same thing...A person feels threatened. The cell phone becomes a "Gun". A folded piece of paper is a knife.

Witness testimony....

What they swear they saw may not really be the reality. The old movie 12 Angry Men demonstrates this.

Be aware of this.
Be aware of what you see.
Make sure what you think you see is really what you see.

Add this to your toolbox.

Not sure what to make of this tale.
Is it humans as a group are jumpy?
Or maybe people call the authorities for no reason?
I knew this girl whose family had moved from Virginia to Florida. One spring day her mother opened the front door of their new home to see a bunch of little green lizards all over the screen door. Mom panicked and called 911 and told the operator that baby alligators were attacking their house.

this was after 9/11 so perfectly justified.


what's not justified is liberals finding 22lr bullets in the backyard of their newly purchased home and calling the bomb squad

I wish I hadn’t red the post, my head now hurts.