Las Vegas Conspiracy Theorists Winning the Narrative

We’re now two days removed from the mass shooting in Las Vegas that left at least 58 people dead and over 500 wounded.  Despite the fact that the killer died at the scene and we’ve heard interviews with people who know him, we still know absolutely nothing about why he did it.  It’s incredible because a crime scene photo of a dead Steve Paddock (NSFW) has somehow leaked out, but not a plausible reason or a connection that might explain why he did what he did.

In the absence of facts, the conspiracy theorists are running wild.  Of course, the Democrats with their usual eagerness to jump on the gun control agenda are helping this right along by providing a motive for the Deep State or UN or whoever to have carried out a “false flag” attack.  It’s Sandy Hook all over again.

ISIS has claimed responsibility.  They’ve also recently carried out attacks in Canada and France.  It’s obvious that they’re still active.  They’ve also never claimed a mass-casualty attack that they didn’t actually inspire, plan, or have some other involvement with.  Why is the FBI obfuscating about this?

The longer this goes on, the worse it looks for the authorities.  Even I’m starting to wonder if the conspiracy nuts are onto something.  At the moment, I’m flirting with the idea that Paddock may have been a FBI informant or had some other relationship with them.  We may be living in a strange world in which the FBI is lying to us and ISIS is telling the truth.  If you think I’m speaking like a lunatic, you might need to read up on the Garland, TX ISIS attack and see how even US Senators are wondering WTF the FBI was covering up there.

The law enforcement agencies involved in the Paddock investigation owe the public an explanation before this gets uglier.  Maybe the facts look bad, but it’s going to look worse the longer the truth is held back.

What about you guys?  Anybody else rocking the tinfoil hat?  Let’s move the Las Vegas conversation here from the open thread, please.

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60 comments

  1. the whole lack of motivation of a guy that was well off living life large, had no priors, no political or religious issues..no know training, just up stages a well planned and executed mass murder, on a country music festival, of all things…………….

  2. This case doesn’t make sense and I’m saying that as a guy who very closely studies terrorist incidents and mass shootings. I wrote a college paper on the Columbine Massacre, ffs.

    You guys know me. I’m not a Sandy Hook guy and I hate 9/11 Truthers. And I’m saying that 2+2 does not equal 4 this week.

  3. yeah something rotten in Denmark.. .. now, there is this guy ,a author, scifi military friend with him on FB, he knows his shit. and he claims to know ppl that are involved in this case,and things are looking at the possibility that he had a severe mental issue in the last few months. All the Guns in the room were legally owned by him bought over the course of several years. and he also regularly shredded and deleted all his correspondences and emails.

  7. In Manila, ISIS claimed it and the police said “Nuh uh!” It hasn’t been proven one way or the other. Governments (including the US) routinely downplay ISIS involvement or inspiration no matter how blatant it is.

    Keep in mind that the attacker in Manila had a M4 rifle and his father had no idea how he acquired it. Even here in the US, a M4 is hard to come by, but they are in common use among ISIS militants in the Phillipines.

    The Duerte government in particular isn’t one I’d take at its word on much.

    Point is that ISIS’s claim should not be so rapidly dismissed. It definitely shouldn’t have been dismissed before any forensic investigation of Paddock’s computer had been conducted.

  8. Actually – a bit more googling trying to find what the FBI actually said – this might be the media being a bit too black and white. the only statement I can find is:

    “We have determined to this point no connection with an international terrorist group,”

    Which is basically right. The media reports it as “FBI says he has no connection”

  9. Then what’s the motive? The FBI and LVPD has searched the perpetrator’s home. They’ve found that he apparently livestreamed the attack, so he might have made a last statement explaining why he was doing it. Have they found anything that could explain this and if so, why not share it?

    The uncertainty and lack of transparency promotes distrust, especially when the FBI already has a long track record of lying or obfuscating about as well as botching anti-terror investigations.

  10. According to reports, the girlfriend is back in the US, and was met by law enforcement at the airport.

  11. I don’t know what the motive is. I was saying that the FBI didn’t seem to have ruled out an ISIS connection. Given that, jumping to vast conspiracy seems premature.

    BBC is reporting that the Sherriffs office are saying that the cameras were to warn him of the police presence.

    I guess we have to wait and see – the problem is that it could be any number of things…..

  12. The waiting is why the conspiracy aficionados already control the story. This doesn’t look good. Either they’re covering something up they’re ashamed of or there’s something they know that will cause panic.

    Nothing about this is normal, even for such a high impact event.

  14. No need for motive if he was mentally ill enough and had the means. In terms of cameras I thought he had two set up to show him when cops were close, one down the hall and one through a peep hole.
    I’ve also read the ISIS seem to be getting sloppy lately, have incorrectly claimed two attacks that weren’t theirs. Trying to find where I read that.

  15. Ah OK, a third camera filming himself.
    Certainly there is severe mental illness in the close family (his dad).

  16. I saw a few claims that he scoped out a rap music festival prior to this one. Imagine if he had shot that up, and what the medias response to that would have been?

  17. No need for motive if he was mentally ill enough and had the means.

    His girlfriend can give some insight on that. Paddock otherwise had no known mental illnesses. I’m taking ISIS at its word.

  18. I saw a few claims that he scoped out a rap music festival prior to this one. Imagine if he had shot that up, and what the medias response to that would have been?

    Had it been a rap concert? Oh, my. Yeah, the media would be focused on it as a racist hate crime. Smartest thing ISIS could do in that that case is NOT claim the attack and then watch America slide toward a full-blown race war.

  19. Well, hold the phone. Looks like this may be another mass shooting linked to psychiatric drugs:

    https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/the-strip/las-vegas-strip-shooter-prescribed-anti-anxiety-drug-in-june/

    But still:

    Dr. Michael First, a clinical psychiatry professor at Columbia University and expert on benzodiazepines, said the Finnish study speaks for itself. But he also told the Review-Journal on Tuesday that he believes the drugs would be more likely to fuel impulsive aggression than premeditated behavior.

  20. Planning this type of thing is really sustained. Plenty of opportunities to say “maybe this isn’t such a good idea”. I am not onboard with your ISIS hypothesis, but I think his psychosis/psychopathy is likely organic. Psychopaths are usually pretty good at hiding their illness. Wiring the money to the girlfriend is a bit off for a true psychopath unless she needed the money for something specific and he was afraid of his money getting tied up in the courts.

  21. Psychopathy isn’t a motive or even something that could be used as an insanity defense. Eric Harris of Columbine infamy was probably a psychopath, but still had a motive.

    He can easily be both ISIS inspired and be a psychopath.

  22. Agree, they are not mutually exclusive. There may yet be a motive coming (omg the video) but I am struggling with how a millionaire lives 64 years basically a-religiously and suddenly becomes a jihadist. It is a leap I am not prepared to make until it is corroborated.

    We are still operating on our guts, right?

  23. When I say he’s ISIS-connected or inspired, I’m not operating on gut feeling, no. Other things I am.

    However, you have these details:

    ISIS claimed the attack, which again they either never do or rarely do (depending on how you qualify it, I say the former) unless they were involved somehow
    Girlfriend is apparently from Gold Coast Philippines, where ISIS is active
    We know he has traveled to the Philippines, just not when
    The attack was consistent modus operandi with Islamists targeting concerts in Paris and Manchester or using a sole shooter in a crowded entertainment venue like Pulse in Orlando.

    I’ll admit that I’m a bit confused why a lot of people (not just here, but all over the Web) are so inclined to dismiss ISIS involvement.

  24. I am still fully in gut-feeling mode. Information is coming in but key pieces are still missing.

    Hey, if there is an “allahu akbar” on the video then I will change my mind readily as I simultaneously go check on my recently retired 65-ish year old next door neighbor. There just aren’t that many old white male jihadis. I am not dismissing so much as waiting for corroboration.

    Phillipino woman has not been shown in a hijab or abaya to my knowledge. In fact many photos of her are of the hot asian “I’ve still got it” variety. I would be skeptical of her jihadi creds for that reason. I guess stranger things have happened. The younger Boston bomber looked like an underwear model.

  25. Phillipino woman has not been shown in a hijab or abaya to my knowledge. In fact many photos of her are of the hot asian “I’ve still got it” variety.

    Look at Mateen’s wife, Noor Salman. She’s gorgeous and she was eventually charged with aiding and abetting ISIS even though the government initially claimed that Mateen had nothing to do with ISIS.

    Paddock does not fit the typical profile at all, no. Going back to gut feelings, I would suggest that he may have been performing other support roles for ISIS. We know that he could legally buy guns, had a couple of planes, and was a qualified pilot. Gun runner maybe?

    Pure speculation, but maybe when his pilot license expired (2013) or something else happened that made him less valuable, he was directed to carry out a martyrdom operation.

  29. The brother is certainly an odd duck. The whole rambling “go get me a sandwich” thing was fucked up.

    His brother just died in almost the worst case scenario, yea leave him alone.

  30. I LOL’d at the “go get me a sandwich” monologue. I’m so sorry for that.

    However, my head almost exploded with the “$100,000 isn’t a lot of money” bit. Who the fucking fuck ARE THESE PEOPLE?

    Given everything said here, I’m convinced that Marilou is the key to this.

  31. The indisputable fact that this was extremely premeditated rules out any sort of insanity, temporary or otherwise. It would be hard to imagine the incredible amount of planning and resources that went into this without any motive at all, so I believe there is a motive. I also believe that the target selection was of significant importance to paddock, for a yet unknown reason.

    In many ways it does provide enough reason to believe that isis would at least want to be a part of this attack, and I think the most compelling evidence in their favor is that this attack (in many ways) mimics their most successful attack to date (orlando). What is far fetched about it is radicalizing an old, wealthy, reclusive baby boomer who had very few interests outside of compulsive gambling.

    The Filipina mail order bride simply establishes only loosely a geographical possibility of a connection. Two immediate awkward fits that involving her are ..,

    a.) Duterte is an authoritarian dictator who carries out warrantless targeted assassinations in his country. Neither her, nor a terror cell could operate that long in a location to bring her to paddock, then paddock to the Philippines after radicalization, and then plan this out there without any attention from duterte’s gestappo police force.

    b.) how these two would pair doesn’t make sense if she was a Muslim. The San Bernardino cuck met his bride in a Muslim mail order website, and I’d have to believe she’d be shopping around that way as well. In addition, according to the brother, paddock wasn’t religious, and why would he be? He’s fucking rich. So if he’s getting a Filipina mail order bride he can just shop in a conventional sex trade market like most rich white American men do.

    So, for me, the main connection is the style of attack, and that there has to be some e plainable motive for this. What doesn’t work is how this old, technology averse baby boomer makes enough contact with isis to carry this out.

  32. The target selection matters. I’ve seen people claiming that he’s a lone nut and observed some right-wingers claiming that he was an “Antifa” who had “Antifa literature” all over his hotel room. That’s bullshit, of course.

    Lone nuts who just snap don’t invest that much planning into major attacks against total strangers. Antifa doesn’t carry out mass shootings. In fact, no left-wing terrorist group has ever performed a mass shooting against an entertainment venue. Not anarchists, Weathermen, or ecoterrorists.

    In fact, the only terrorists who target entertainment venues are religious terrorists and of those, only Islamic terrorists do mass shootings against concerts. ISIS in particular favors these types of attacks. I can’t think of any other type of mass murderer who does this besides ISIS. Eric Rudolf would be the only exception, but he used a bomb.

    So the target selection matters. I don’t think it matters that it was a country music concert. It does matter that it was a mass shooting targeting a concert. Only ISIS does that.

    Now, Marilou’s family lives in Australia, not the Phillipines. He certainly could have made contact with Islamic radicals among her family or friends there. She’s from Gold Coast, which does have a growing Muslim population and Islamic extremism has been a concern.

    I don’t actually know for sure if she’s Muslim. We also don’t know how heavily he was involved in attack planning or means collection while she was around or what she saw. I’m sure the FBI is trying to figure that out now.

    But what if she was another jihadi war bride of sorts? To listen to Paddock’s brother talk, it sounds like he was very much in love with her and cared deeply about her. He “sent her away” according to one of her family members, so I don’t think he was devastated over a breakup. But did he send her away to give her plausible deniability? If she had nothing to do with it, why send her away? He could have carried out the attack just the same, I would think.

    So I’m banking on some stuff that hasn’t been remotely confirmed. I say he was radicalized by ISIS and I think the girlfriend is probably the one who inspired him to do it and brought him into contact with people who could provide the necessary training. Nothing else makes sense.

    As for him being simply old and technologically illiterate, I don’t agree with that. He was a pilot. He definitely had technical know-how. Just because he doesn’t have a Twitter account doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to work a computer.

    In fact, his ability to freely travel and the fact that he did travel to the Philippines at one time or another gives him access. We need to know more about her and what she may possibly have exposed him to. Paddock meeting her, going on anti-anxiety meds, and converting to Islam all seem to have happened at about the same time earlier this year, if ISIS is telling the truth.

    I’ll say–controversially, I know–that if no motive is established within the next couple of weeks and no connection to any terror organization is substantiated, I’m going to start saying that he’s a patsy. I’ll go full bore conspira-tard, I swear. I can’t accept that he just woke up one day and decided to leave his pretty Filipina girlfriend, fortune, and leisurely life to kill a bunch of people for no reason.

  33. *Firmly puts on my tinfoil hat*

    What if ISIS knew about this guy from his visits to the Philippines and his girlfriend, and kidnapped his girlfriend? They then demanded he wire $100,000 to them. Then they demand he use the guns his girlfriend has told them about to perform this heinous act or they will kill the girlfriend?

    *Takes off tinfoil hat*

    At least that sounds about as plausible as other shooters, and black flag, or some of the other crazy theories coming out.

  34. You think he was under duress? Yeah, I could cosign on that.

    Maybe not that specific scenario, but it’s not impossible that ISIS forced him to do it. Still makes it an ISIS attack. He could even have left a note or something for law enforcement explaining it.

  35. Duress would explain why the Government would be hesitant to reveal the motive. What the hell do you say, “if your wife/GF gets kidnapped, and ISIS threatens her, don’t kill a bunch of people for her sake, okay?” That brings out a whole new line of terror, similar to some movies.

  36. It is an interesting way of marrying the two possible options I’ve presented: It was both an ISIS attack AND he was a patsy. Very good!

  38. A local paper in Vegas is reporting that they think he was trying to blow up big aviation fuel tanks that were near the concert. They say there are bullets and dents in the tanks thinking it was his target. That would have been much worse had they blown. That might explain why the videos I’ve seen show that the first round or two of fire didn’t seem to spark a lot of panic.

  39. https://www.facebook.com/notes/john-ringo/a-theory-on-las-vegas/10155111388257055/

    I’m generally critical of psychotropic drugs and do believe they’ve been a factor in other shootings. However, only thing we know of that this guy was on was Valium. He might have been more impulsive, as the author’s wife was, but that doesn’t translate into committing a premeditated act. But above all, other people noticed changes in his wife’s behavior. Neither the brother nor Marilou have said anything publicly about recent mood changes.

    Also, he’s another one of those who’s quickly handwaving away the ISIS claim. As I’ve said above, that they claimed it cannot be easily discounted and this is similar to their other attacks in Paris, Orlando, and Manchester. They also put out a propaganda video in May emphasizing that Las Vegas was a potential target.

    There’s no history of serious mental illness, he wasn’t an attention seeker, and he didn’t have a criminal background. None of the precursors that are usually present in the “guy who snapped” profile are there.

    Understand that I’d be okay with it if it turned out psychotropic drugs are to blame and maybe we can finally have a national conversation about it, but the signs are most clearly pointing to ISIS based on the (amazingly) little we know right now.

  40. A local paper in Vegas is reporting that they think he was trying to blow up big aviation fuel tanks that were near the concert.

    I wonder if that would even work? If his plan was to cause an explosion, it may explain why he pretty much gave in on killing after ten minutes or so. Since he couldn’t get the effect he wanted, he decided he’d made his point or something?

  43. I need some help here. Has ANYBODY in the media asked and gotten a straight answer as to whether Danley or Paddock are Muslim?

    If we’re going to confirm or refute the ISIS claim, this is the single most important consideration and I’m amazed that I can’t find it anywhere.

    Has anyone encountered a report from a reputable source that answers the question and if so, can you provide me a link?

  45. Well they can’t ask Paddock and I am sure that they did ask Danley given ISIS has claimed credit. If they were Muslims it will be discovered eventually.

  46. I did see an interesting report last night – the Authorities said none of the guys cameras were actually recording.

    I’ll bet at least one of the cameras was streaming video to someone. The one in the hallway wouldn’t have needed to if he was watching it for cops, of course. But it would be shocking if his footage didn’t end up in an ISIS propaganda video.

  48. I don’t think she’s a Muslim thrill. I’m using only intuition and the knowledge of Filipino in laws, but I believe if she was Muslim it would be pretty distinct. Her origin in the phillipines would be distinctly from the southern islands, I doubt she’d have an Anglo name, and her appearance would be much darker and indicative of the complexion of the people from that region.

    I could be completely wrong, but even duterte has more of the eggplant complexion of a Moro and he’s an avowed Muslim hater. I think if he did convert and was radicalized it’s probably something he identified with in secret, on his own.

    That could explain why the style of attack works but the connection to his girlfriend doesn’t seem to fit.

  49. It seems he might have had an accomplice and there are a lot of other things that don’t look right about the crime scene photos. There was something going on with this guy that went way beyond gambling problems.

  50. We really don’t know, JDPS. Regardless of whether she is or isn’t, nobody we know of was closer to Paddock as he planned the attack and was in a better position than anyone on Earth to know what was going on.

  51. One thing that’s making me nervous is that I’m finding in multiple online social media chats and polls that right-wingers are increasingly convinced that Paddock was a left-wing extremist, not an ISIS terrorist.

    That doesn’t bode well. Seriously, the FBI needs to start shedding some light on what’s going on.

  53. Evidence is becoming overwhelming that Paddock wasn’t a lone nut.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/las-vegas-shooting/las-vegas-massacre-investigators-probing-whether-others-were-gunman-s-n808431

    The investigators are puzzled by two discoveries: First, a charger was found that does not match any of the cellphones that belonged to the gunman, Stephen Paddock.

    And second, garage records show that during a period when Paddock’s car left the hotel garage, one of his key cards was used to get into his room.

    “Calm before the storm”, indeed.

  55. Talk about adding fuel to the fire of conspiracy theories.

    A Nevada home the Las Vegas shooter used as a stash house for handguns, shotguns and a “plethora of ammunition” was burglarized last weekend in a stunning security breach, and comes as federal and state authorities say they’re still sweeping the scene for clues.

    At least one vandal broke in to Stephen Paddock’s Reno-area home through the building’s front door, though detectives still were unsure if multiple suspects were involved, Officer Tim Broadway of the Reno Police Department told the Reno Gazette-Journal Tuesday.

  57. Yowza.

    A laptop computer recovered from the Las Vegas hotel room where Stephen Paddock launched the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was missing its hard drive, depriving investigators of a potential key source of information on why he killed and maimed so many people, ABC News has learned.

  59. I walk around all the time with laptops with no hard drive – not.

    I’m not a tin foil hat kinda guy, but something is off.

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