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  • 2017-10-06 (xsd:date)
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  • Did an Anonymous 4chan User Predict the Las Vegas Shooting Three Weeks in Advance? (en)
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  • In early October 2017, a rumor surfaced online alleging that a person using only the name john on the messaging board 4chan had predicted the mass shooting in Las Vegas on 1 October 2017. Police say a 64-year-old gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on a crowd of 22,000 people gathered below for the Route 91 Harvest Festival at 10:05 p.m. on 1 October. The attacker had modified a semi-automatic firearm so that it fired like an automatic, and for roughly ten minutes he sprayed the concert crowd with bullets, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds. As with many mass casualty incidents in recent history, conspiracy theorists immediately pounced, claiming without proof, for example, that there was a second gunman on the fourth floor of the hotel or that internet sleuths had spotted footage of the shooter at an anti-Trump rally. In keeping with this pattern, conspiracy-minded web sites Neon Nettle and WorldTruth.tv posted identical stories claiming that an anonymous 4chan user predicted the Las Vegas Strip massacre three weeks before it occurred. NeonNettle reported: The messages posted by John on either 10 September or 11 September 2017 (depending where you look) don't in fact predict any specific catastrophe -- he only said vaguely that some kind of incident would occur the following day in Las Vegas or Henderson, and that a harbinger of this disaster will be three black vans parked next to either. According an alleged screen shot and archive of his comments, reposted to 4chan the day after the shooting (with the thread title, Anon 'jon' predicted Vegas attack) the anonymous user issued the warning a day before the 16th anniversary of the 11 September terrorist attack, which could point to a troll trying to drum up fear as the anniversary approached. The user wrote: Although some 4chan users questioned whether the person who wrote the posts was the Las Vegas gunman, others didn't seem impressed at all, saying the user had a habit of regularly posting vague predictions. As one person pointed out, Make 1000 predictions a year and a couple will come true. Another 4chan user noted that the name john may reference John Titor, a message board hoax from the early 2000s that depicted a time traveling soldier from the future who made bogus predictions about catastrophic events. We don't know who posted these messages, nor do we know whether the person who did so posts similar messages regularly. They gave the wrong date and didn't refer to any specifics that would point to knowledge predicting the Strip attack. The aspect of the prediction that was correct was the location, but even that was general. Predictably both Neon Nettle and WorldTruth.tv used the posts to support the claim that the attack was a false flag -- a prevailing conspiracy theory that posits mass casualty incidents are engineered by the government to serve as pretense for heightened security and surveillance, and/or tighter gun control legislation. (en)
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