UFOs Spotted Over NYC Prompt Panic, 911 Calls

CHELSEA, N.Y. (WPIX) —Several New Yorkers witnessed an unusual sight Wednesday afternoon when several shiny, circular objects were seen flying high above the streets of Manhattan.

The NYPD and Federal Aviation Administration say around 1:30 p.m., they received calls from many people who saw the objects hovering over Chelsea.

Many people took to Twitter to talk about the unidentified flying object sighting, and posted videos and photos of the bizarre event.

Although officials could not confirm what the celestial objects were, skeptics believed the balloons were part of a tourism promotion event held on Broadway in Times Square for the centennial of the Madrid's Gran Via on Wednesday, which included the release of several bunches of yellow balloons into the sky.

Spanish newspaper El Mundo, explained, "Unfortunately for the advocates of 'I want to believe' what they saw on the 11.00 (New York time) were not UFOs, but dozens of yellow balloons that the City of Madrid had dropped in Times Square in a campaign to promote tourism in the Great Via, which this year celebrates one hundred years."

A Westchester elementary school class also came forward Thursday claiming the balloons were from an engagement party the children held for their language arts teacher Andrea Craparo. A parent was walking to the Milestone School in Mount Vernon when the wind took away a bunch of white balloons intended for Craparo.

But believers cite a September 13 press release for the book Challenges of Change by retired NORAD officer Stanley A. Fulham, which predicted a fleet of UFOs would descend upon Earth's major cities on Wednesday, October 13.

Fulham stated the extraterrestrials would neither land nor make any communication with Earth on Wednesday. But their presence would be "the first in a series intended to avert a planetary catastrophe resulting from increasing levels of carbon-dioxide in the earth's atmosphere dangerously approaching a 'critical mass.' [...] They are aware from eons of experience with other planets in similar conditions their sudden intervention would cause fear and panic."

He asserts their contact with Earth is part of their process of leading mankind into accepting the "alien reality and technologies for the removal of poisonous gases from the earth's atmosphere in 2015, if not sooner."

The book also states that with the help of a channeler, Fulham has been in contact with a group known as the Transcendors for more than a decade. He described them as a group of 43,000 eons-old souls, who use their experience and knowledge to provide information to "humans in search of basic realities of mankind's existence." The press release also stated:

The Transcendors reveal through the author crucial information about urgent global challenges facing mankind such as earth changes, international terrorism, worldwide financial collapse and the environmental crisis. One revelation is al Qaeda has a dirty nuclear bomb and WMD, but faces a moral quandary over "containment of collateral damages."

Utilizing the theme of the Four Horsemen as symbolic metaphor, Fulham warns mankind will survive all of these future challenges, except the CO2 pollution of our atmosphere. According to information provided to the author by the Transcendors, the build-up of CO2 pollution is rising 1% annually to a "critical mass" of 22% in which mankind could not survive "without outside intervention."

The FAA also stated Wednesday that after reviewing radar information, they only found typical helicopter traffic above the West Side but could not detect anything unusual that would prompt the avalanche of reports they received.

"We re-ran radar to see if there was anything there that we can't account for but there is nothing in the area," said FAA spokesman Jim Peters. "There was some helicopter traffic over the river at that time and we checked with LaGuardia Tower. And they said they had nothing going low at that time."

NYPD and FAA officials say if the objects were part of an planned, organized weather balloon release, it is protocol that they are notified in advance. Neither agency received alerts.

The National Weather Service also stated they were not missing any weather balloons Wednesday.

On Thursday, the FAA stated the objects remained unidentified.

"We'll let people draw their own conclusions as to what they saw in the air over New York City," said Peters.

Conservatives Call for Ground Zero Mosque Protest

(CNN) -- Conservative bloggers called for a protest Sunday against plans to build a mosque near the site of Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by Islamist hijackers on September 11, 2001.

"Building the Ground Zero mosque is not an issue of religious freedom, but of resisting an effort to insult the victims of 9/11 and to establish a beachhead for political Islam and Islamic supremacism in New York," the group "Stop the Islamicization of America" says on its website.

"Ground Zero is a war memorial, a burial ground. Respect it," says the group, which is run by conservative blogger Pamela Geller.

"No one's telling them they can't. We're asking them not to," Geller told CNN's Joy Behar recently.

"We feel it would be more appropriate maybe to build a center dedicated to expunging the Quranic texts of the violent ideology that inspired jihad, or perhaps a center to the victims of hundreds of millions of years of jihadi wars, land enslavements, cultural annihilation and mass slaughter," Geller said.

She's anticipating about 1,000 people will show up, she told CNN by e-mail Sunday.

The project calls for a 13-story community center including a mosque, performing art center, gym, swimming pool and other public spaces.

It is a collaboration between the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative.

The Cordoba Initiative aims to improve relations between Muslims and the West.

"The Cordoba Initiative hopes to build a $100 million, 13-story community center with Islamic, interfaith and secular programming, similar to the 92nd Street Y," its website says, referring to the cultural institution on the upper East side of Manhattan.

Daisy Khan of the American Society for Muslim Advancement told CNN it was a "community center with a prayer space inside."

She said the project was an opportunity for American Muslims living in New York to "give back" to the community.

"There is a lot of ignorance about who Muslims are. A center like this will be dedicated to removing that ignoranceand it will also counter the extremists because moderate Muslims need a voice," she told CNN. "Their voices need to be amplified."

Local political leaders turned out in support of the community last month after Mark Williams of the conservative Tea Party Express reportedly said the mosque was for "the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god."

"To make room for peace there can be no room for hatred, bigotry or prejudice," council member Robert Jackson said at the May 20 demonstration.

The project has the backing of the Community Board of lower Manhattan. It does not require city permission to go ahead.

The plan has split people touched by the September 11 attacks.

"Lower Manhattan should be made into a shrine for the people who died there," said Michael Valentin, a retired city detective who worked at ground zero. "It breaks my heart for the families who have to put up with this. I understand they're [building] it in a respectful way, but it just shouldn't be down there."

Others such as Barry Zelman said the site's location will be a painful reminder.

"(The 9/11 terrorists) did this in the name of Islam," Zelman said. "It's a sacred ground where these people died, where my brother was murdered, and to be in the shadows of that religion, it's just hypocritical and sacrilegious. "

But Marvin Bethea, who was a paramedic at ground zero, said it was "the right thing to do."

"I lost 16 friends down there. But Muslims also got killed on 9/11. It would be a good sign of faith that we're not condemning all Muslims and that the Muslims who did this happened to be extremists," he said. "As a black man, I know what it's like to be discriminated against when you haven't done anything."

Remains ID'd As Woman Who Left Club with Sex Offender

New York (CNN) -- Remains found in Pennsylvania have been identified as those of a woman who disappeared in New York in 2008 after leaving a Manhattan nightclub in the company of a convicted sex offender, authorities said Monday.

Forensic testing determined the remains recovered April 11 from Mount Cobb, near Scranton, Pennsylvania, are those of Laura Garza, said police and prosecutors from New York and Pennsylvania.

"We have not determined a cause of death but, to be perfectly honest, that is something we would not have this quickly," said Capt. Wayne Olson of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation for the New York State Police.

A family spokeswoman said Garza's relatives were gathering in Texas. "They weren't completely shocked because they had an idea that is what happened," said Awilda Cordero.

A watch found with the skeletal remains first led investigators to suspect they were Garza's, police said. DNA samples were collected and tests confirmed that the bones were hers.

Garza was 25 when she vanished in the early hours of December 3, 2008.

"She had a dream to become a professional dancer here in New York City, but she was also a hard-working lady," said Cordero. "She had just become an assistant manager in a shoe store."

She was last seen leaving the Marquee Club, a popular nightspot in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, with Michael Mele, police said.

Mele, a registered Level 1 sex offender, has been questioned several times about Garza, police said. He has never been charged in connection with her disappearance.

He is now serving time in prison for violating terms of his probation, according to court records.

"We still consider him a suspect in her death and disappearance," Olson said. "We are looking to see if he has any connection to the area where the remains were found."

Authorities said the remains were found "in a remote location" and had been there for "a protracted period of time."

"We are certainly not overjoyed in finding her remains, but we have some renewed hope and direction to try and bring the person responsible to justice," Olson said.

Newly Released 9/11 NYPD Photos Show WTC Collapse

NEW YORK – Newly released aerial photos of the World Trade Center terror attack capture the towers' dramatic collapse, from just after the first fiery plane strike to the apocalyptic dust clouds that spread over lower Manhattan and its harbor.

The images were taken from a police helicopter — the only photographers allowed in the air space near the towers on Sept. 11, 2001. They were obtained by ABC News after it filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which investigated the collapse.

The chief curator of the planned Sept. 11 museum, which is compiling a digital archive of attack coverage, said the still images are "a phenomenal body of work" that show a new, wide-angle look at the towers' collapse and the gray dust clouds that shrouded the city afterward.

The photos are "absolutely core to understanding the visual phenomena of what was happening," said Jan Ramirez, chief curator at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

The images of the dust clouds rising as high as some downtown skyscrapers "are some of the most exceptional images in the world, I think, of this event," Ramirez said.

ABC said the NIST gave the network 2,779 pictures on nine CDs, saying some of the photographs had never been released before.

The network posted 12 photos this week on its Web site, all taken by ex-NYPD Aviation Unit Detective Greg Semendinger, who was first in the air in a search for survivors on the rooftop. He said he and his pilot watched the second plane hit the south tower from the helicopter.

"We didn't find one single person. It was surreal," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "There was no sound. No sound whatsoever, but the noise of the radio and the helicopter. I just kept taking pictures."

He took three rolls of film with his Minolta camera, plus 245 digital shots. Semendinger said he gave the digital images to the 9/11 Commission and believes those images were released by the NSIT. In the days after the attack, he e-mailed some of the photos to friends and several were posted on the Internet.

Later, nine of the images were published in a book called "Above Hallowed Ground: A Photographic Record of Sept. 11" without his consent. The book was a tribute to the officers who were killed that day.

The photos capture the enormous scope of the dust that enveloped the area.

In some images, the tops of the nearby Woolworth Building and other skyscrapers can be seen rising above the billowing dark plume against a clear blue sky. Buildings can hardly be seen at all in one image — just a burst of dust clouds hanging over the serene Hudson River at the southern tip of Manhattan.

A close-up image from earlier in the morning shows orange flames and black smoke rising past the antenna on top of the north tower, the first hit by a hijacked plane.

Ramirez said the museum, which is slated to open in 2012, saw a selection of the photos at police headquarters several years ago.

They are extremely important because the NYPD aviation unit had the clearance to be up in the air in lower Manhattan only "moments after the first tower was hit," and stayed in the area for the remainder of the day, she said.

Sometime after 10 a.m., she said they were able to "predict that the north tower was going to fall." It did just before 10:30 a.m.

The museum hopes to get a complete set of the photos.

"We've had our sights set on this body of visual evidence for several years," Ramirez said.

Semendinger retired from the NYPD in 2002 after 35 years, 20 of them in aviation. He said he has thought about publishing his work from those days.

"I almost didn't realize what I was seeing that day," he said. "Looking at it now it's amazing I took those pictures. The images are ... stunning."

DJ AM, Star Disc Jockey, Found Dead

NY Times- DJ AM, a high-profile disc jockey who was as famous for his much-chronicled relationships as he was for his creative scratching and mixing on the celebrity club circuit, was found dead on Friday evening in his apartment in Manhattan, the police said.

The police said his body was found in his seventh-floor apartment in SoHo about 5:30 p.m. after friends had tried unsuccessfully to reach him for days. The chief police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police did not suspect foul play.

DJ AM, 36, whose real name was Adam Goldstein, was discovered face-down in his bed wearing only sweatpants, with a crack pipe and unspecified prescription drugs nearby, an official said.

Emergency workers had to break down the door to get in after one of the friends who had been trying to reach Mr. Goldstein called 911 on Friday.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2007, Mr. Goldstein said he drank heavily, used cocaine and smoked crack in his early 20s, reaching his lowest point when he attempted suicide in 1997. But he also said he had cleaned up his life — including having gastric bypass surgery after his weight ballooned to 324 pounds — and had managed to stay sober for nine years.

“At my core I am a glutton, so I’ve had to learn everything in moderation,” he said at the time.

In October, The Associated Press reported, MTV was to begin his new reality show, “Gone Too Far,” in which he and concerned families staged interventions for drug abusers.

He also survived a plane crash a year ago that nearly killed him.

A native of Philadelphia, Mr. Goldstein was known for his “mash up” style of spinning, in which he jumped across various genres and eras to combine songs from artists as different as Jay-Z and Journey.

He had been a familiar figure on the Los Angeles club circuit since the 1990s, but it was his highly publicized relationships with Nicole Richie and other starlets in recent years that earned him B-list stardom. He was featured in an episode of “Entourage” on HBO, and he commanded fees in the tens of thousands of dollars to spin at nightclubs in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York.

In 2006, he presided at a party during Super Bowl XL in Detroit that was attended by three generations of the Henry Ford family.

Mr. Goldstein was seriously injured Sept. 19, in the crash of a Learjet 60 plane in Columbia, S.C. The crash killed four people and injured Travis Barker, a musician and former drummer of the group Blink-182, with whom Mr. Goldstein frequently appeared. On Friday night, throngs of friends and fans gathered outside Mr. Goldstein’s apartment building at 210 Lafayette Street. Many described him as a friendly and approachable man who was serious about his music and who always stopped to talk to fans who recognized him. Mr. Goldstein regularly posted messages on Twitter, including one final, poetic note — lyrics from a Grandmaster Flash song — that he posted on Tuesday.

“New York, New York. Big city of dreams, but everything in New York ain’t always what it seems.”

New York Bouncer Found Guilty In 2006 Slaying of Student

(His DNA is found on the ties used to bind her, and he kidnapped someone else back in 2005.. Oh, yeah, "definite" scapegoat.)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A Manhattan nightclub bouncer was found guilty of murder Wednesday in the slaying of a 24-year-old graduate student from Boston, Massachusetts, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said.

Darryl Littlejohn, 44, could be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the death of Imette St. Guillen, a criminology student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Sentencing is scheduled for July 8.

"We're going to appeal," Littlejohn's lawyer, Joyce David, told CNN after the conviction. "We're disappointed. I'm hoping this gives the family of the victim some closure. But I think that the wrong man was convicted."

The verdict came several hours into the first day of deliberations by the jury.

Before the verdict, David stressed to CNN that she believed in the innocence of her client, saying that Littlejohn was framed and that another person was a likely suspect.

"He was a convenient scapegoat who has a long criminal record," David said.

During the trial, witnesses said they saw Littlejohn and St. Guillen leaving The Falls bar in lower Manhattan together early on February 25, 2006. Hours later, St. Guillen's nude body was found in an isolated lot in Brooklyn.

Her face was covered with strips of packing tape, and a sock was stuffed in her throat. She died of asphyxiation. Investigators determined she had been raped.

Littlejohn was charged with murder after investigators linked his DNA to blood found on plastic ties used to bind St. Guillen's hands behind her back.

Littlejohn is already serving a term of 25 years to life for the October 2005 kidnapping of a 19-year-old college student in Queens.