The Mad Hatter - constantly asked nonsensical and unanswerable questions.
...Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.So began Alice's adventures in Wonderland and, in a similar way, my own adventures down a very deep rabbit-hole of sorts. It's the strange event that doesn't make sense that can get you wondering; the thing that you might just let slip by as curious. But then you look a little closer and, next thing you know...
"The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well..."
Comment: Addendum:
Sometimes following the thread of an event leads to unexpected, interesting connections. In this case, the event was the only successful hijacking of an airplane in the U.S. By successful, we mean that the person who hijacked the plane managed to not only collect ransom money, but also managed to get off the plane, with the money, within U.S. borders without being caught or identified.
This particular thread lead us back to Jim Humble via the Wandering Bishops.
The hijacker identified himself by the alias Dan Cooper--later misreported in the press as D. B. Cooper--boarded a 727 in Portland on November 24, 1971. He slipped a note to a flight attendant that read, "I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked." He demanded $200,000 and two parachutes, both of which were delivered to him when the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Once the demands were met to Cooper's satisfaction, the plane took off with orders to fly to Mexico City at the low speed of 170 knots.
Shortly after takeoff, Cooper opened one of the exit doors of the plane and parachuted to freedom. The FBI, unable to solve the case, declared that they did not believe Cooper had survived the jump.
One very likely suspect was named in the case, however--a man by the name of William Gossett. He was a decorated veteran of the wars in Korea and Vietnam, a survivalist and an experienced parachutist. He spoke often of D. B. Cooper, once telling his wife that he could "write the epitaph for D.B. Cooper," and had told all three of his children definitively that he was the hijacker. He even walked into the office of a Salt Lake City judge and confessed to the crime, who told him to shut up and never talk about it again.
Gossett was a man continually strapped for cash, due at least in part to a gambling addiction. He eventually became a private detective, specializing in money fraud, cults and missing persons. He even assisted the FBI in rescuing a woman from an alleged cult.
And then, in 1988, Gossett changed his name from William to Wolfgang and became a priest of Christ Catholic Church, a church claiming the same "apostolic lineage" that Jim Humble claims. Interestingly, given the fact that this man was a confessed hijacker with a gambling problem, his title was The Very Rev. William Wolfgang Gossett. Also interesting is that while his address in the church directory was listed as DePoe Bay, Oregon, his phone number has a 415 area code: San Francisco.
William "Wolfgang" Gosset compared to FBI sketch of "D. B. Cooper"