Santa Monica, CA - He's been standing on the sidewalk in front of the Pandemic Compound for six days now, shouting to everyone who will listen - "The Pandemic is coming! The End is near!" Derwood Helman would probably be described by most casual observers as a 'street person' or even a 'crazy bum', but this bum's no ordinary beggar. "I'm jus' out here beggin' for people to lissen!" pleads Helman. "They gotta understand what's goin' on in there! There are people what go in there and don't come out - not ever. And if you knew what they were planning in there, you'd try to do something about it."

And Helman isn't just talking. He's taken action. At his feet is a small bundle of cardboard boxes and styrofoam chunks. Two 'antennae' protrude from the top of this construction. "This here," explains Helman, "is the way I know what I know. This is what gets me on the inside. When they start doin' their stuff in there, this things starts sendin' me a signal, see. I'm in touch with what they're doin'. I can..." Suddenly Helman begins to gyrate violently. "I can feel it comin' on now!" he calls. It seems that he has begun to receive a new message through his sidewalk contraption. "I see them plottin' in there! I see the...the...doom of all the people of the...people who...Ooweee!" Helman's speech at this point descends into a stunning cascade of seemingly random syllables. Then, after nearly a minute of shouting and wild gesticulations, the episode subsides. He then mumbles. "End of the world. P-P-Pandemic. The end, the end..."

So what does it all mean? Is Mr. Helman using his strange contraption to help him receive horrific visions of the goings on inside the Pandemic Society compound? Isn't it more likely that he's just another loony? "Absolutely not!" insists Dr. Friedrich Mostakovicz, a world renowned scholar in the field of psychic experience and glossalalia. "Mr. Helman," says Mostakovicz, "is experiencing classic signs of telekefetic connection! It's all very VERY real. I've seen it happen before. It's rare, but the signs are unmistakable. My first experience with this sort of thing was when I was a student in Bali many years ago. A man there was able to focus on a particular stone and experience a kind of 'remote viewing' - in other words, he could see things that were going on far away. While he was sitting there, he stated emphatically that at that very moment, the American president, John F. Kennedy, was being shot. It wasn't until the next day that I found out he was right - right down to the minute. And this man on the street in Santa Monica - his behavior matches that of the man in Bali exactly. I am convinced, therefore, that we must take his words very seriously. If he says there is some kind of Pandemic coming, we had better believe it!"

We can't confirm at this time if Dr. Mostakovicz is correct, but we feel that it would be irresponsible to ignore this potentially prophetic vision of doom. We'll keep watching Mr. Helman - and the Pandemic Society!

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