Al Jernan Spencer made her first appearance on the scene a couple of months ago. She claims to be a London cardiologist. In earlier versions of her story, she claimed to be a terrorist hunter. But over the last few weeks her persona has evolved to where she is now claiming to be a jihadi herself.
She is now posting information on a website at www.globalislamicmedia.com and on a Yahoogroup called GlobalIslamicMedia4Women. (These appear to have no relationship to Al Qaeda's Global Islamic Media group(s).) She has a photograph of herself posted with six of the seven individuals listed in the FBI, claiming to be a wanted terrorist herself.
On her website, she claims to have knowledge of attacks on the US this summer that sound quite frightening: “dead and burning cities, and we will praise and give glory to Allah and his prophet and vegeance shall come to all who invade our countries and enslave our people. There shall be no govenment that shall stand set up by Bush and his lapdog Blair. And any who wish to join the list of those to die as they become the puppets of the Americans who want only our oil and to rape and pillage and burn the Iraqian homeland, shall be blown to pieces and be found in hell and agony eternal.“
So who is Aljernan Spencer and is she a real terrorist?
One of the most important characteristics of a good analyst is the ability to discern hoaxes and practical jokes from real intelligence information.
The Boston Globe fell into this trap last month when they published pictures from a pornographic website and claimed they were authentic photographs of American GI’s raping Iraqi women. They were more than a little embarrassed when World Net Daily exposed the hoax on the WND.com website.
Al-Jernan Spencer appears to be trying to lure others into falling for a similar hoax.
There are a lot of clues that indicate Al Jernan Spencer is a hoax of some sort.
Our analyst started unraveling the take of Al-Jernan when she said the name out loud. Al-Jernan Spencer. Wow! That sounds familiar.
Al-Jernan Spencer. Algernon Spencer. The two names are homophonic. They sound exactly alike.
Flowers for Algernon is the 1960 Hugo Award winning novella by American novelist Daniel Keyes. Most recently, it was made into a made-for-tv movie and aired on CBS.
The novel is the story of a mentally retarded young man, Charlie, who undergoes an experimental procedure designed to impart him with intelligence.
Algernon Spencer is the white mouse that is the first successful test subject for the experimental operation Charlie later undergoes. The operation makes Algernon three times as intelligent as a normal mouse and enables him to solve complex puzzles.
Although Charlie and Algernon each gain brilliance, and then each loses their temporary intelligence. There are excellent summaries of the novella at www.sparknotes.com and other similar sites.
It appears that “Dr. Spencer” is nothing more than a psyop. The website was registered in April 2004, and appears to have been procured through a backorder of the domain name in much the same way that the AlNeda website was taken out of the hands of Al Qaeda.
Al-Jernan posts from an IP address assigned to Starband Communications, a provider of mobile satellite broadband internet services (www.starband.com). The information regarding the owner of the domain is protected with “NameSecure”, and no information is available regarding their identity.
It is anyone’s guess as to who is behind “Dr Spencer” and her website. . Whether the Al Jernan persona is a psyop from one of the governmental agencies, or is a practical joke by kids out of school on summer break, it only goes to underscore the importance of fact checking, and ensuring that your data is correct before you unnecessarily alarm people with inaccurate information.
Thanks NEIN!
Well, as my Military friends would say, seems y'all were "squawkin' on the same frequency." :)