Counter-Currents
Revisiting the Charlottesville-Las Vegas Conspiracy Theory
Travis LeBlanc
Stephen Paddock
1,428 words
I’m not really a conspiracy guy, although I’m not anti-conspiracy theory as a matter of principle. Conspiracies do happen, and the theories can be fun. I’ll watch some conspiracy theory videos as entertainment, and there are a few I believe probably have some merit to them. But in general, conspiracy theories are just not something I feel like devoting a significant amount of mental energy towards. With so many of them, it’s like debating the existence of God: you are never going to know with 100% certainty. We will never know the full story about what happened to JFK. We will never know the full story on 9/11. No matter how much evidence you have, there will always be loose ends and missing pieces to the puzzle, and the guilty parties are never going to confess.
But every once in a while I will stumble upon one that really piques my interest. There was one that arose right after the Las Vegas shooting in 2017 that I have never forgotten. There were a million conspiracy theories flying around after that, and while a handful of them were debunked (like the flashing light in the fourth-story window, or how the shooter, Stephen Paddock, never could have gotten all those guns up to his room), some of have not. Watching the videos, it did sound like there was more than one gun being fired. Paddock’s girlfriend skipping off to the Philippines just beforehand was also ultra-shady.
It likewise doesn’t help that the police have refused to provide many details. We have never been given Paddock’s motive. Everything about the shooting smelled rotten, and the police response had all the signs of a coverup. We know there are things they are not telling us.
One of the theories that flew relatively under the radar is of particular interest to the Dissident Right because it connected the Las Vegas shooting to Charlottesville, which had happened just six weeks before. Now that the fourth anniversary of Charlottesville recently passed, it got me thinking about it again.
Charlottesville happened on August 12, 2017. We all know what took place, so I won’t go over the details other than to say that the most memorable thing that happened was James Fields plowing his car into a crowd of Antifa. That really fucked things up for us. Forevermore, that event became known as “the deadly Unite the Right rally.”
The next day, someone posted on 4chan claiming that the “car attack” was an op. Big deal, right? If anything happens, you can be sure that there will be people on 4chan saying it was an op. I could blow my nose and you can be sure that someone on 4chan will be able to explain how it was part of a Mossad op.
But here’s the deal with this 4chan post. This mysterious stranger did not just declare that the James Field “car attack” had been an op. He then proceeded to accurately predict the next op.
The post read (link to archive here):
Guys I don’t have long but please take my message seriously. This car crash yesterday was planned in advance. I just want all of you to know that another event will be taking place soon in Henderson Nevada. All I can say about Henderson is don’t go to any rallies or parades or public outdoor events.
True, the shooting happened in Las Vegas, not Henderson, but Henderson is right outside of Las Vegas, and Stephen Paddock lived in Henderson. You might be thinking, “Okay, lucky guess.”
But wait. It gets weirder.
On September 11, 2017, four weeks after that last post and three weeks before the Las Vegas shooting, someone dropped a series of messages on 4chan. Again, they predicted a mass-casualty event in Nevada, but this time they specified either “Las Vegas or Henderson” (archive link here):
look i feel bad for some of you on this website. so i’ll let you in on a little secret. if you live in las vegas or henderson stay inside tomorrow. don’t go anywhere where there are large groups of people. also if you see three blacks vans parked next to each other immediately leave the area. you’re welcome
-john
just stay away. go to arizona if you can. they won’t bother you in arizona.
-john
to clarify i won’t be doing anything to harm anyone. i’m not a killer and i never will be one.
-john
it’s called the “high incident project”. they want to make the american public think that places with extremely high security aren’t safe. they are trying to create more regulations. you will see laws proposed within the next few years to put up more metal detectors and other security devices. media and politicians will be saying places with lots of police need even more police. i can’t guarantee anything will happen tomorrow but las vegas is on their minds.
-john
if their plan is successful state of nevada will pass a law in the future making all casinos have mandatory metal detectors and backscatter machines. soon after a federal law will be passed to put these machines in universities, high schools, federal buildings, you name it. osi systems and chertoff are the main producers of these machines. sometime around 2020 chertoff and osi will merge into a single company. after they merge the owners will sell off all their stock and make billions in profit. mr chertoff has been in contact with sheldon adelson. mr adelson will become a huge sponsor of these machines and he will be the first to put them in his casinos when the law passes. this is my last message for now. don’t expect me to return anytime soon
-john
If your tinfoil hat wasn’t on after that first post, it probably is now. You should at least be considering taking it out.
Of course, there is still room for skepticism. They mysterious poster claimed that the attack would be occurring the next day: September 12, 2017. The actual Las Vegas shooting occurred on October 1. Maybe the baddies were planning to do the attack on September 12 but postponed it for whatever reason. Maybe they postponed it because of the 4chan posts.
To determine that, we have to ask, “Were there any large events going on in Las Vegas on September 12, 2017?” Well, there was a WWE Smackdown event going on at the Thomas and Mack Center. That crowd would have been of a similar demographic to the Jason Aldean concert that got shot up on October 1. Rick Martin was also doing his residency at the Park Theater in the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino on that day. However, both the Thomas and Mack Center and the Park Theater are indoor venues.
Could they have been planning a Bataclan-style massacre? Maybe, but doubtful. The Bataclan required multiple shooters on a suicide mission, and an attack on the Center and the Park Theater would have involved shooting one’s way through security or to have had the weapons stashed inside. In other words, there is a lot that could have gone wrong with that plan.
There has also not been a merger between Chertoff and OSI, but then again, if there was supposed to be one, it might have been derailed by the death of Sheldon Adelson.
It is very likely that someone had advance knowledge of the Las Vegas shooting. Everyone remembers the story of the mysterious woman who walked through the crowd of concertgoers an hour before the shooting yelling, “You’re all going to fucking die.” That could have just been a crazy drunk woman, but I dunno. It could have been a coincidence, but if that’s the case, it was one hell of a coincidence.
That’s what I find interesting about those 4chan posts. Maybe it’s just a freaky coincidence. But if that’s the case, it’s a hell of a coincidence. We’ll never know the truth with certainty, but this theory at least provides a motive for the Vegas shooting — something the police and feds have never done.
The fact that it ties in with Charlottesville is interesting as well. I would not have thought that the James Fields “car attack” was an op. By all accounts, he was a genuine Nazi, and it is entirely plausible that with Antifa attacking his car, he may have panicked. Likewise, if he was part of an op, he would have nothing to lose by saying so at this point. But when someone calls the James Fields “car attack” an op before accurately predicting the next one, it makes me say, “Hmmm . . .”
P.S. I am not suicidal.
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18 comments
It’s difficult to make an assessment about this sort of thing, but I appreciate the author bringing it our attention.
I see the possibilities as:
1) I think unfortunately in the world we live in, it possible to take a reasonable guess at some big future news events with certain themes: mass shootings being one of these.
So someone predicting a mass shooting and that will be used to press for more gun controls and security intrusions is not controversial.
So it just comes down to filling in more specific details. And a stopped clock is right twice a day.
2) It could have been the killer himself seeing what reaction he could get, or trying to generate mystery and that’s why the dates are wrong.
3) It is possible the system itself creates its own predictions and hints for people to focus on, perhaps to shift the focus off of the who and more onto the grassy knoll type stuff.
4) It is not impossible some agency actor involved in this had a crisis of conscience and decided to say something on this occasion.
I don’t know why a motive wasn’t provided, as presumably a system that can so easily mass murder could manufacturer one that suits them. ‘He was a white supremacist’ whatever.
The thing about the Las Vegas shooting is that if it was an op, how would the feds make up a motive that would make sense within the context of the event and advance their agenda?
It wouldn’t make sense for a white nationalist to shoot up a country music concert full of conservative white people. Post-Charlottesville, the establishment was trying to promote Antifa as plucky citizen heroes so that would be out. And saying that Paddock was a convert to Islam and joined ISIS would have played into Trump’s hands. If it was an op, their only option would be to say he was crazy. But even that has its problems: no criminal record, high functioning member of society, steady relationship….
That’s what makes these 4Chan posts intriguing. They at least give a motive and it’s the only one anyone has been able to given us. Not saying they are true. Just saying it is interesting.
A good point. What are the chances: middle aged white guy with money, no prior history going off the rails in this rather premeditated organized way ? Probably extremely low, maybe not impossible.
This incident has a high death count but it’s one of many which are increasing in frequency since the 1990s (although there are examples before), where the mass shooter is presented as committing suicide and for which a motive isn’t made clear.
These kinds of crimes, whoever is behind them sadly are no longer that unusual.
I’ve seen it said that each mass shooting is a factor in inspiring new ones. Not saying it is or isn’t but it seems at least a plausible idea.
But I agree motiveless mass murders left to hang there don’t inspire confidence that the system wants to pursue the incident properly.
The first 4chan post gives the impression it was made by a different poster than subsequent ones in the other thread. And I see now none of the anon posts specifically mention a mass shooting although one might derive that based on prior shootings, some of his words and who he says will gain. He’s plucked out a couple of high profile Jewish names that often float about our circles. But stakes and opportunities in the security industry would gain if there is some major event. I’m tempted to ignore that.
The only thing he was specific about were two place names- one of them related to the killer, an outdoor event and the mention of casinos. As Las Vegas is so known for casinos, one might be tempted to ignore that too, although it seems to offer a connection with this claim later that Paddock was a big gambler.
So considerable parts of it could be ascribed to conjecture anyone could have said apart from the location names and an outdoor event.
Im sure I’ve said here before anons posting ‘Something big is about to go down’ is such a recurrent theme online it’s very hard to establish any kind of signal to noise with that, except this one hits some notes which make it stand out.
It should be fully investigated. I found this article somewhat disturbing and I’m quite used to conspiracy stuff.
That we’re talking about these ideas shows that trust in the system has completely broken down to massive negative numbers way below zero. It’s not run on trust, it’s run on fear, terror, oppression, confusion, omission, chaos. Because it has to be.
Nice summary of the possibilities behind the Las Vegas shooter.
Here’s something else to consider. Two weeks later, the #meToo movement went viral. Two weeks. Was the #meToo line pushed through:
1) …as a diversion from the LV shooter case? Perhaps the LV shooter really was a leftist out to terrorize MAGA folk. So TPTB used #meToo to turn public attention away from the Left. After all, if the James Fields case was interpreted (falsely) as a deliberate Alt Right terror attack, what then of a leftist who killed c. 60 people? That blows the leftist narrative out of the water and puts the ball back into the court of moral high ground for the Right
2) …as an amplifier to the LV shooter case? TPTB unhinge the masses psychologically via a mass shooting in a venue where Americans from all walks of life congregate, follow on with an agitprop campaign creating mass hysteria over “sexual harassment.” Further exploit with the attacks during the Judge Kavanaugh hearings and then comes the big offensive: the 2020 BLM mayhem. End result? 20 January 2021 the Regime’s front man reading the Oval Office teleprompter.
Regardless, there is a bigger story here which needs to be uncovered…but it’s all just conspiracy theory, right?
Hmm, has the identity of “John” ever been determined or the IP address from which he posted? Would it even be possible to do that? Could John have been the shooter stephen paddock himself? From the standpoint of a broader state conspiracy, the stated motives all hang together with the tendency to greater freedom restrictions as brought in by the Covid pandemic, which of course has resulted in travel restriction and closures of many public spaces.
I agree about conspiracy theories in general, and favor some of the ones you mention, and also that we will never have certainty, so there is a limit how much mental energy and time it is wise to expend upon them. I react to Holocaust revisionism in a similar way. They are sort of scholarly cul de sacs which might distract the higher mind from its purposes.
Ive been very mainstream and norm ie for the early part of my life and react with revulsion from conspiracy and the paranormal and woo, but all this weird stuff with the IT and the Boys or whatever has opened my mind to the romantic and paranoid modes of thinking. It seems media and stuff are orchestrated at such a granular level with all that that I can’t help wondering if there are other parallel systems of revelation of the method, as it’s termed in conspiracy circles. In particular I think there are a lot of references to the epstein type affairs in that time period, like the movie la confidential and eyes wide shut, obviously on that one lol! Or like the urban riots incited in the Joker movie at the end! Just nine months later we were having the blm riots all over the place! What do you guys think, am I a little nuts or does this have merit?
There was a lot of weird stuff with Field’s court case. The judge wouldn’t move the trial to another location but most odd is that he barred his initial attorney because if I recall correctly the attorney voted in favor of the statue remaining. Field’s replacement defense attorney was an ersatz defense attorney doubling as another prosecutor. And then all the “hate crimes” charges.
What I’m wondering is how could Field’s have been plausibly “oped?” The impression I got was he had a mob around his car; in the footage you see someone bash it with a baseball bat and he probably thought it may have been gunfire. I think Field’s was just in the wrong place and at the wrong time had the wrong set of believes and was the perfect white supremacist male to sacrifice to the cult of state that is Frankfurt school repressive tolerance. If he didn’t take the plea bargain and was found guilty and sentenced to death, I can almost guarantee they would do a live feed of his execution.
I’m not a big fan of James Field but everyone deserves a fair trial and I don’t think he got a fair trial.
I agree. On its face, there is nothing about the Fields case that would make me suspect that it was an op. He was seen with people from Vanguard America and some people think that group was riddled with feds but even if that were true, that would not be sufficient for me to suspect that it was an op.
The only reason to think of to believe that it was an op is a single 4chan post from a guy who said it was an op and who also seem to have foreknowledge of the Las Vegas shooting.
Again, I’m not endorsing the authenticity of that post. I’m just telling a fun ghost story.
We have over 2 million illegals just marching into our homeland from the Mexican border, so far this year, but not all are from Mexico or points south. Blacks, direct from Africa are appearing and gleefully announcing their presence. There are probably people from worldwide that ICE doesn’t have the time to identify. This is a far bigger problem than anything that happened in Las Vegas or Charlottesville. The Left keeps going on about those two shootings four years ago to deflect our concern away from the massive INVASION that is going on right in front of our eyes. I have no clue as to what to tell you how to stop this invasion, but at least put it in perspective.
You put your finger right on the most important threat to the U.S. for the last 60 years or so, migration over the southern border. The Mexicans and others from the Third World are incompatible with civilization and ultimately, especially with the 24/7 anti-White propaganda, hate White people. They hate us because they know they can neither build nor maintain any kind of civilization. They are dependent upon Whites for clean running water, electricity, medical care, food in the stores; everything.
The non-Whites are full of envy directed at Whites and The Usual Suspects inflame this natural tension because of their own ancient hatreds too. Once Whites depart it’s only a matter of time before civilisation departs also. The signs of this in California are the intermittent blackouts, $5/gallon gasoline, infinite government regulations for Whites the brown people usually ignore without penalty and the general deterioration all around.
This cannot be remedied through the political system or it would have been fixed long ago. The Republicans are traitors who openly betray their base for the benefit of their wealthy oligarchs, there is no salvation there. The system has to collapse like Weimar Germany which will destroy the ruling class’s legitimacy. When this crash arrives is the big question along with what comes next.
The suppression of potentially rightwing crowds is a possible motive. I thought Charlottesville was opped because over 600 rightwingers in one place is a trigger alert for the authorities that the right is getting too bold. Gunning down a country music festival fits that pattern. It’s not sage now on three levels to show up to a rightwing rally.
“I think this was an FBI terrorism sting gone wrong – the sort where they recruit attackers & foil them later. This 4chan poster was somebody contacted & spooked by FBI informants. The FBI went on to recruit Paddock instead & they lost control of him.”
https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1426486869727059968
Paddock was broadly leftwing. Married a philipina, loads of gambling living in a city area. The brother if he’s any guide to the character of the shooter happens to be a libertarian sort. Kinda whiny certainly an individualist on the left side of the political spectrum. Comped Sushi. May have had a beef with the whites who voted for Trump. Alternative hypothesis. Paddock was set up and murdered by the authorities. Shooting into a crowd of white people is a perfect act for a bureaucracy that hates white people. I’m not endorsing that extra idea because Paddock had the were with all to do it all by himself.
On another note have had to reassess McVeigh’s status as prowhite in the light of the racial facts about the Branch Davidians. The OKC Murrah building bombing could have easily been the authorities attempting to gain sympathy with the public after they clumsily butchered a dozen wacky Xtian black people and their wacky white chums in Waco. Who knows what McVeigh was up to there, he certainly wasn’t doing white people any favor by avenging the FBI shooting of a Multicultural Multiracial church at Waco.
I think what happened was he had been a professional gambler, but then the casinos tightened up the machines, cutting off his source of income, and threatened with the prospect of having to get a “real job” he went postal.
Paddock had at one point in his life been a letter carrier for the USPS. So he had some credentials for going postal.
And in that sense a fairly typical liberal person. A very gifted subspecies of NEET. If he was on the political spectrum the type of selfishness he exhibited is fairly typical of a liberal with a permissive ethical and moral outlook.
The 4chan poster was nowhere near predicting the date and Las Vegas is a hotspot for gatherings. Travis’s entry level for what qualifies for a “hell of a coincidence” looks very low indeed.
Since none of the things he predicted would happen actually did, the rest of the guy’s posts aren’t even compelling.
Exactly. It’s this trend of fake “insiders” predicting future events with claims of possessing hidden knowledge that was known all over the Chans. It’s what gave rise to the Q anon meme.
The Charlottesville death didn’t happen because Fields drove his car into a crowd of Antifa. That’s what the MSM led everyone to believe. He was in a traffic jam trying to leave town, four leftists ran up to his car from behind and one of them clubbed it. Then he panicked, perhaps fearing that they’d kill him, and drove forward into the car in front of him. That started a chain reaction causing a pedestrian to be crushed and suffer a coronary. Just after that, he reversed, causing the leftists who attacked his car to scatter. I suppose this gives the MSM plausible reason to say “zOMG this naaaahtzee drove into a crowd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I bet those presstitutes were jumping for joy because someone died and they could pin it on our side. It certainly took the heat off the C-ville police chief’s bad decisions. There was a video clip of the car crash (NOT the one everyone saw on TV) which shows what happened, but YouTube deleted it, of course. By objective standards, at the very most, this was vehicular manslaughter, and even that is iffy.
Anyway, back to Vegas. A lot of what was predicted did happen. I do recall some odd business about black vans, much like what the prediction said. It’s true that the date didn’t turn out the same. (If it had gone as planned, obviously it would been a 9/11 reminder.) However, it’s not impossible that it was planned but got postponed for whatever reason. This did not lead to calls for X-ray machines at casinos, but the fact the plan got leaked ahead of time would’ve made it guilty as hell if they’d gone forward with it. I can’t say for sure if that’s what all this was, but this is one way of looking at it.
Other than that, I’ve heard stories about the real purpose being to whack a Saudi prince. I find that unlikely. Either someone is speculating too much, or it could be disinfo to throw us off the trail.
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