...or maybe even a real and successful attempt at a terrorist attack? No I am not talking about the recent Imams supposedly causing a commotion on a plane in the USA. What I am talking about is the recent strange event on a Saudi Arabian passenger airliner. Maybe my imagination is a bit too wild, but to me it sounds like the opening of a Stephen King book, or worse still, the opening of a real life story that centers around biological terrorism.
I am referring to the recent panic caused by scores of mice on a Saudi passenger plane. It has been reported that about 80 mice escaped from the baggage of a male passenger who was traveling on a domestic flight, no word if the same aircraft was to have continued foreign. If you have not seen it, read Mass mouse escape on Saudi plane @
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6183587.stm
Now I may have missed the reports on this incident in the U.S. media, but I looked twice and did not find it reported there. It is kind of funny how they blow everything else out of proportion, yet would not even report on this especially in the light that it could have been terror related. Not to make a mountain out of a molehill here, but think about the possible terror connections for a moment. These are only what ifs, but they are pretty important what ifs, and I hope someone in our anti-terror business is wondering likewise:
What if the guy was a courier for a medical laboratory; and if they were just lab mice infected with the flu?
What if the guy who had these mice with him was an al Qaeda terrorist?
What if those mice had been infected with a biological terror agent, or some deadly and highly contagious disease such as the Ebola virus, a Hanta virus, the Avian Bird Flu, or something even worse?
What if his instructions had been to bring these hypothetically 'infected' mice aboard the aircraft and then release them?
What if the hypothetically 'infected' mice had been placed into a container which was to automatically open at a certain time, such as after this fight had departed to foreign shores?
What if there had been 150 passengers on that aircraft?
What if 10% of them came down with the hypothetical contagious bio-terror agent?
What if half of that 10% who were infected traveled onto international destinations, and were frequent travelers over the next couple of months?
What if none of this were hypothetical?
What if that really happened on 100 flights around the world on the same day, with mice all really infected with a deadly and highly contagious bio-terror agent?
Of course there is another very important what if:
What if this was all just an innocent event, some guy in the pet trade or something similar?
Well then that is quite probably the end of the story. Let's hope so because if it is not the end of the story, if there is something more to it like some of those what ifs above, it could get very messy. All I can say is that the potential outcome of such an event or set of events, should it really happen with infected mice, would be very scary. One can only hope that this incident is being looked at very carefully, and that authorities around the world are paying attention, and making sure such will never be duplicated accidentally or purposefully. That way we won't have to worry about any of the what ifs.
All the best,
Glenn B
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