Miracle on the Hudson: Terrorist Connection?

February 15th, 2009 Nearly one month ago on January 16th a US Airways Airbus A320 crash-landed safely in the Hudson River through the crafty maneuvering of its pilot, Chesley Sullenberger.  Of the 155 passengers on board there was not a single casualty and only a few bumps and bruises all around.  The only question on everyone’s mind was, “What could have caused this calamity?”

The answer was found only a few days after the crash when investigators confirmed that a small flock of geese had flown into the plane’s engines.  Clumps of feathers and other debris were found scattered within engines on both sides of the plane.

These findings were confirmed by most of the investigators to be rather odd but not entirely unheard of.  Scientists have long known that male geese will fly quickly in front of oncoming aircraft as a means to impress females, a sort of mating ritual practiced since the late 1930’s.  This, however, was exactly what caught the eye of one key investigator on the scene: Dr. Richard Hartfield, a Yale doctorate with a specialty in crime scene investigations.

“The odd thing about the feathers we found in the aircraft is that they all appeared to come from female geese.  The males are generally the ones to get involved in risky situations like flying in front of a plane.  The females would have no reason to attempt such an act.”

Upon finding the feathers of the female birds Hartfield had a hunch that the crash was no accident.  He took the feathers back to his lab for closer examination.  There he discovered a startling fact: the geese were all female and had flown to New York from the Philippines, a path thousands of miles outside their regular migratory route.  Hartfield then presented his evidence to Defense Secretary Robert Gates hoping to find a possible explanation.  The answer he received, however, was almost to startling to bear.

The Department of Defense speculated that the geese migrated from the Sulu Archipelago in the Philippines, land currently under partial governance by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an actual terrorist group. 

“MILF has been known to participate in very unorthodox terrorist operations.”  Said Steve Carpenter, a Defense Department aid.  “The training of female geese to be attracted to the noise of aircraft engines is one such example of their unique strategies.” 

The method MILF uses is also strikingly simple.  They merely use the theories of classical conditioning to teach the females to be attracted to engines.  They keep a large group of them huddled together in a room and blast various aircraft noises at high decibel levels.  They then show the geese a photograph of a full-figured male goose, leading them to believe that the noises are a mating call.  They continue this process until the females are completely brainwashed into attraction to aircraft engines. 

“In this case, the MILF terrorists used a photograph of a US Airways Airbus model.  When they saw one take off in New York they pounced on what they thought was a glimmering opportunity.”

Though the connection is yet to be confirmed the Defense Department has announced that they will increase security in all Philippine installations.  They also plan on developing a state of the art goose tracking system which is scheduled to be released into use in Fall 2010.