LAS VEGAS SHOOTER LINKED TO NASA
Despite a concerted media effort to portray alleged Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock as a “retired lone wolf gambler”…
…Paddock’s actual history as a career Federal agent began to appear in the bottom paragraphs of major media profiles yesterday:
Above courtesy of ABC News.
On the heels of this major buried lede comes more information painting a cohesive picture of a career Federal employee deeply immersed in the military industrial complex.
The NASA Links: Call Steve Paddock
Today, information emerges linking Paddock to NASA as early as 1980.
Multiple editions of a quarterly NASA Internal staff circular published in 1980 make reference to an employee named “Steve Paddock”, who alternately organizes employee bowling tournaments while listing discarded residential apartment supplies in the internal bulletin’s classified section, drawing attention to Paddock’s career narrative.
According to multiple mainstream reports, Paddock graduated from Cal State Northridge in the late 1970s — a university based in the middle of the CA Aerospace Contracting Belt (read: next to Skunk Works and the Jet Propulsion Lab) that features strong, above-board recruitment and funding links to NASA and JPL dating back 40+ years.
Even the official cover quoted in unison by mainstream media acknowledges that Paddock entered Federal service directly out of college.
His paycheck came from the USPS during the period in which some evidence points to NASA employment. The next steps in Paddock’s official cover as a Federal Agent lens credence to the NASA links.
Certainly, a former NASA analyst sounds better qualified than a “mail carrier” (an unsourced job description quickly pinned to Paddock in unison by mainstream media within hours of the shooting) to make the jump to senior investigative positions inside the Department of Defense (Defense Contract Audit Agency — (DCAA) as well as a similar role inside Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Government’s largest military contractor.
The Department of Defense DCAA division is one of a group of nebulous and multi-purpose investigative and enforcement agencies lumped together in the same department and budget heading, with reporting responsibilities directly to DOD Director level.
Alongside the DCAA exist sister agencies of the same classification, including the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) and the National Security Agency (NSA).
From the DCAA, Paddock — a licensed pilot with at least two planes — progressed to an internal auditing role inside a classified Lockheed Martin “predecessor company”, where he worked from 1985–89 on an undisclosed project.
Aside from the unverified NASA connection surfacing today, the rest of Paddock’s employment history as described above is widely reported (if buried).
In the end, it’s hard to honestly state that Stephen Paddock was anything other than a career Federal Agent with a track record of high profile, likely-classified assignments deep inside the military industrial complex. Without a doubt, one could assume that Paddock at the very least had security clearance of some sort as well as significant skill, resources and training that have yet to receive appropriate coverage.
Further, Paddock’s Federal employment history may clear up some of the puzzling contradictions scene in early law enforcement reports.
For example, we understand now how it may not be a contradiction for one law enforcement source to state “Paddock had no criminal record of any kind” as other local Las Vegas-based law enforcement sources simultaneously claimed that Paddock was known to the local law enforcement community.
Be on the alert for the subtle differences in language used by competing reports.
It may be entirely true that Paddock did not surface on background checks because of his clean record;
and it may also be true that a career Federal agent working in the shady world of military and aerospace contracting would have professional relationships with local law enforcement resources that would’ve made him “known” to local police.
For now, the best we can say with certainty is that professional journalists continue to bury what is — at the very least — relevant biographical information linking the alleged Las Vegas shooter to a career in Federal service. And this phenomenon in itself is worthy of further consideration.
