The Bum's Countdown

There's a strange phenomenon I've noticed on several television reports from the early 1960's onwards. There may be more before, but since I got my first television in 1962, I can't say for sure. I would like to post this here to ask if anybody else has noticed, or seen any others. 

It started in the early 1960s. Specifically, the Kennedy assassination. I was watching a broadcast by ABC of his final precession, and whilst the reporter was talking to the camera, amongst the crowd, I noticed something quite odd. A very scruffily dressed man standing quite a distance behind the reporter was staring right into the camera. He wore the typical attire of a homeless person. Dirty brown trench coat, a dark green woollen hat, and noticeably long facial hair. This wasn't what creeped me out however. There was a massive amount of people around, and I just assumed this homeless man was here to watch the parade. The fact he was staring dead on at the camera motionless was quite off-putting though.

A little while into the report, he finally moved. He raised his arm in front of himself, and put him hand up, giving the number "5" with his digits. A few seconds after he did this, there was a loud bang, and a massive commotion in the crowd. The man stayed absolutely still, with his hand still outstretched, but the reporter and camera man moved to get a better look at what had happened, and the man was no longer in shot.

Kennedy had been killed.

Some years went by, and along the way, I seemed to forget about the strange homeless man from the Kennedy report. That was, until 1980. I had returned from work, and was absolutely shattered. My wife was laying out our evening meal, and I was just catching up on current events on TV. I changed to a particularly interesting report about a heat wave that was currently affecting some of the states down South. This concerned me, as my wife has relatives there, and I feared for their wellbeing. The news reporter was billing this as "The worst American heat-wave in decades." At that point, I noticed him again.

In the distance, over the reporter's left shoulder, was the homeless man from the Kennedy report. I didn't notice him at first, and it was his initial movement that drew my eyes to him. As the reporter spoke, the homeless man lifted his hand once again, and signalled the number "4" with his fingers. I was more alarmed at the fact that the man seemed exactly the same as when I had spotted him in the Kennedy report almost 20 years before. He was dressed the same, still wearing his trench coat, despite the reporter claiming that the heat was unbearable. He himself had removed his suit jacket, and had rolled his shirt sleeves up.

That man has made a couple more appearances in news reports that I know of. One in 2001, during a report of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centres, where he held up 3 fingers, and more recently during reports of the devastation Hurricane Sandy caused in New York, where he held up 2 fingers. Each time, in all 4 of these news reports, he has been dressed exactly the same, and shows absolutely no emotion. The people around him seem to pay no mind to him, and each time he just stares directly into the camera lens, until the report ends, or the cameraman moves the camera away from him.

I have written this because of his appearance in the Sandy reports. It is now 2012, and I know for a fact that DVD recording and such has become a lot more common. I have never owned a recording device myself, and so I haven't been able to capture the man in any reports. Other people may have though, so I urge you to flick back through any recordings of the news reports you may have, and try and screen grab an image of the man if possible, so that we may identify him, and find out exactly why he is showing up at these events.

Right now I am very scared though. And I think it's plausible that you all should be too. It's obvious at this point that this man does not age, and appears in news reports of disasters- both natural and man-made. Not to mention, with the exception of the Kennedy assassination, many people have been injured and killed in said disasters, and it's getting worse. It's also obvious that this man is counting down to something in each one of the reports he has appeared in. And worryingly, he's down to number 1.