Who's Afraid of a Big, Bad, ..... Cloud???

Incoming cloud forces Bush into safe bunker

President George Bush was bundled into an underground bunker, Dick Cheney was evacuated to an "undisclosed location" and heavily armed secret servicemen took up defensive positions when a fast-moving cloud scudded towards the White House, it was reported yesterday.

As an anti-aircraft missile battery on the roof of a nearby building was raised to the fire position, a Black Hawk helicopter was scrambled to take a look, but saw nothing except some clouds, one of which turned out to be the suspected aggressor.

The customs and border protection agency did not return calls seeking comment yesterday, but a spokesman, Gary Bracken, told the Washington Post that a cloud was to blame. "It does happen," he said. "We have to deal with weather anomalies showing up on the radar screen."

Such false alarms are common, triggered by clouds, flocks of birds or private aircraft wandering off course, but the White House confirmed yesterday that this was not the first time since September 11 2001 that the president has taken refuge in the hi-tech bunker beneath the building, the Presidential Emergency Operations Centre.

It was not clear yesterday what it was about Wednesday morning's cloud that created such havoc. It was moving at about the speed of a helicopter, disappearing and then appearing again on the radar screen, but the same could be said of many clouds.

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the president was in the bunker for only a short time - the all-clear was sounded about 20 minutes after the first alert. US officials claimed that the incident showed how smoothly the alert system was functioning. [...]

Comment: Apart from the pathetic image of macho Bush and Cheney fleeing to a bunker at the approach of a cloud, we note the marked difference in protocol from that which was observed on the morning of September 11th 2001. On that particular day, when the US was clearly being attacked by sources unknown, and it was certainly possible that the life of the President was in danger, Bush was allowed to remain exposed for at least 20 minutes as he sat reading to children at a school in Florida. Why was there no immediate "whisking away" at the first sign of danger then? Is it possible that Bush's handlers were well aware of the nature of the threat and knew that there was no plan to "take out" the President?

And what type of threat might there be hidden in a cloud? The following is a report on a UFO sighting:

"On many occasions, UFOs are reported to become gradually engulfed in a vapor cloud. The fully developed cloud then looks like any other cloud in the sky and affords the UFO a very convenient "hiding place."

"The series of photos made by the army private shows not only the rare ring object, but also shows it gradually becoming engulfed in a vapor cloud."

Could this be what the White House was really upset about? For more on UFOs and clouds, see the article Mysterious Smoke Rings or When is a Cloud not a Cloud?
Technorati categories: News, Blog, Politics, Current Affairs, Media, Science