Today, The Washington Post reported that Jared Loughner, the man in custody related to Saturday’s massacre in Tucson, may have visited an alternative-discussion forum this past summer.

The information was relayed by me to my readers on the Tucson Citizen a couple of hours ago, after a bit of contemplation.

I posted without commentary. I did not go into detail about what the article said, only that Abovetopsecret.com (ATS) had a statement on their website, along with a quote from the website’s representative.

ATS is the largest alternative-topic discussion forum on the Internet, where users can discuss UFOs, conspiracies, the paranormal and other alternative topics. I do believe that the staff of the Scottsdale, Arizona-based ATS, were sincere in wanting to help in this ongoing investigation.

As far as the newspaper that ran the article, I am unsure of their intention.

The headline for the article by The Washington Post reads:

“Jared Lee Loughner apparently sought community online at Abovetopsecret.com”

When I read the headline, my first thought was: “So what?”

When I read the article, it stated “the site’s operators believe [username] Erad3 was accused Arizona shooter Jared Lee Loughner, 22.”

The keyword in the headline is “apparently” and in the article is “believe”. It’s not 100% certain that Erad3 was Loughner, but the posts made by Erad3 used the same language that Loughner used in his YouTube videos. So, the ATS  representative does believe that it was Loughner.

So, I tried to figure out what would possess The Washington Post to release a speculative article like that now, when we have not even buried the victims of the horrific tragedy in Tucson.

Well, we do know that this newspaper in Washington enjoys making light of UFO stories. When retired military men came forward in September, in a news conference to allege that UFOs interfered with nuclear facilities, the resulting coverage was inexcusable. Their journalist said that he only went to the news conference for the cookies and pastries offered at the National Press Club.

Basically, the cookies were the highlight of the resulting report of the news conference.

There were no references to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Erad3′s posts on ATS, as stated by the newspaper, so it isn’t apparent why the newspaper ran with a speculative article.

I can speculate, but I won’t.

My problem with the article, is not that it could be spun to assert that people who discuss alternative-topics, like UFOs and conspiracies, are  “mentally unstable”. Instead, I would expect this newspaper to be 100% certain about the identity of the poster Erad3. The estimated 99%” certainty from the website owner that it was Jared Loughner isn’t good enough. The newspaper should have been 100% certain before running that article.

Also, running that article, which has been spreading all over the Internet all day, really could have waited.

The Washington Post reports that Jared Loughner, the man accused in the shooting massacre in Tucson on Saturday, may have posted on the UFO and conspiracy website, Abovestopsecret.com (aka, ATS). The staff of the website alleges that Loughner made these posts under the username ‘erad3′.

Bill Irvine, chief executive of the website’s parent company, said that he’s 99% sure that the posts were made by Loughner. Irvine added that, “He [Loughner] seemed just . . . way, way out there, from some of his ideas.”

As a result, a statement was posted on ATS:

We here at AboveTopSecret.com, our owners, staff, and membership find ourselves in the unfortunate position of apparently being one of the largest (if not the largest) repositories of online postings by someone who has been classified as a “monster” (among other things) due to his (accused) actions of two days ago. Online research that began on Reddit, and continued here on ATS has resulted in an overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence to support the notion that the “erad3″ member account here is Jared Loughner. Indeed, the content found in more than 4,000 Google search returns (including some pages in the mainstream press) have drawn the same conclusion.

This is a rather unique situation, to say the least. I and our staff have been considering if we should provide a public statement, and if we do, what should we say? Especially since we’re already being contacted by the media for comment and more information.

The postings of “erad3″ reveal someone who clearly has many questions for which answers have been elusive if not outright impossible to obtain. And despite the best efforts by many of our members, it seemed there were no answers to be found here for which he was satisfied.

As is often typical, recent analysis in the media is rampant with all manner of conclusions, second-guesses, exaggerations, distortions, and missing information. The opinion of the staff and owners of AboveTopSecret.com is that it serves the public interest to provide an easy method to access every post made here by erad3 (normally, visitors must be logged-in to view such information).

Those who are interested in reading the posts of ‘erad3′ can follow this link to the ATS website.

Strange lights were reported in Riverside County, CA around 10:00 pm last night, according to CBS Los Angeles, initially reported as “breaking news” involving a “UFO”.

The lights were since identified.

According to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, the lights were only civilian parachutists with flares.They added that the parachutists gave advance warning to law enforcement that they would be making the jump.