... and revealing that the World Trade Center is still standing ... in 2002.

A quick Google search confirms that I wasn't losing my mind -- as others have also noted that the omission of Ground Zero from this alternate reality seems to imply that Kermit The Frog's existence either directly or indirectly caused the 9/11 attacks in 2001, which incidentally was also the year The Muppets Take Manhattan came out on DVD. And, if you recall, this isn't the first time they've coincidentally loomed over this national tragedy ...

The Parenting Group
If only we had just given him the damn cookies.

So what does this all mean? Could it be a simple goof in the making of this festive Christmas classic, or were The Muppets trying to reveal something far more sinister? A large part of me needed to lay this question to rest, and so I began my descent down the rabbit hole ...

Google
I'm Feeling Truthery ...

And so if characters like Elmo, Big Bird, and Ernie are mere actors -- then we actually know very little about them and how closely their appearances mirror the actual lives they live.

Also filed under "Things we know very little about": why Bert was prominently displayed at a pro-Osama Bin Laden rally:

BBC News
"Death to rubber duckies!"

Bert is clearly standing behind America's most notorious enemy like a whispering shoulder devil. The official story is that this was a printing error on the protesters' behalf, only this sure seems like one too many coincidences to walk away from ... especially when your current white rabbit is a single man living in a shady New York apartment with no last name and an obsession with pigeons ... which happen to be a common Bin Laden household pet.

PBS/HBO
I also have it on good authority that Bert was experimenting
with ornithological warfare as recently as 2011.

Additionally, Bert and Ernie appear to repel each other half the time, and yet they live quietly as roommates. And while some have theorized that they are lovers, those rumors have been officially denied. So could it be that this duo's grudging hideaway exists secretly for other, nefarious reasons?

Then it hit me ...

PBS/HBO
Celebrities. Lots of celebrities.

Everyone has been on Sesame Street, and because of this, Muppets are allowed access to anywhere in the world.

MedillDC/Muppet Wiki/Henson Website/Sesame Workshop
Not pictured: Oscar The Grouch shaking hands with Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Their siren song of vowels, consonants, numbers, and rudimentary hygiene advice even echoed through the halls of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Yes, these mop-faced fuckers have more international sway and infiltration than the CIA does. Sesame Street has talons so deep in every corner of the world that all it has to do is tighten the grip.

Sufficiently frenzied, I mustered the unflinching go-getter-ness needed to enter the techno-modern corner office of Editor-In-Chief Jack O'Brien. It was blind luck that my haste interrupted his jogo do pau cooldown and not some important business call, saving me the punishment of his lotus staff.

"Talk to me," he said while tossing Portuguese weaponry to his life-assistant.

The words spilled from my mouth. "I know who really caused 9/11!"

He waved for his L.A. to leave before walking to his desk and removing a small, snub-nose revolver from the side drawer and casually sliding it toward my timid hands.

"Keep digging." He then began a game of Spider Solitaire, which is how Jack ends every conversation.

I was operating on dream-time, shakily burying the pistol into my reporter satchel as I stepped onto the Santa Monica sidewalk. The assignment was to keep digging, and so my first stop was the children's bookstore.

My goal was to start with the literature, finding any and all clues that might have slipped through the forgotten pages of some coloring or alphabet book. There are over 1,200 written works from Sesame Street, and even the modest shelf at the local 123: Science And Learning Store was going to take most of the day. Having already experienced several hammer-cocking jump scares -- I inadvertently drove by the bimonthly Los Angeles Balloon Popping Festival en route -- I kept one hand firmly within the leather liner of my handbag as I shuffled quietly to the row of undersized tables and chairs.

Surprisingly, no one thought me -- a grown man feverishly researching alphabet puppets -- creepy whatsoever. It was nearly nightfall when I came upon my first gut-boiling revelation.

Bendon Publishing
Time to wipe the toothless grins off those smug, fuzzy faces.

Sesame Street's Fun With Friends coloring book was first published in 2004 and holds no apparent significance to 9/11 ... unless you know where to look.

PBS/HBO
Sadly, indoctrination begins at childhood.

The man you see on the left is Louie, Elmo's father. He is characterized, for some ungodly reason, as having orange messy hair and a ginger soul patch. Only until Fun With Friends, Louie was actually portrayed as an entirely different person.

Sesame Workshop/Reader's Digest
That's some Woolly Willy shit right there.

What you're seeing are the books Elmo's First Babysitter and Elmo's Apartment -- both depicting an older, red-headed Louie ... and both released in early 2001. In fact, before Sept. 11 -- this was how Louie looked in every Sesame Street book. Then, after the towers came down, a younger man moved into the house and stayed there until 2006, when "Louie" announced to "his family" that he was "being deployed" to an unknown location for unknown reasons. People assumed that meant he was in the military -- but at no point did he specify this.

Also, this happened three days before Saddam Hussein was executed, on Dec. 30.

MLive
This might also explain Detroit's devastating economic decline.

I'm not a total lunatic; I know that Louie probably isn't real ... and there's a good chance the Muppet actor playing him was simply recast in 2001. But if that's the case, the possibility that Louie's portrayer was a terrorist sleeper cell becomes that much more disturbing if you consider that this would implicate the entire show for casting him. Could it be that playing the role of Louie was the perfect cover, and the entire cast of Sesame Street was in on it?

I was starving for more answers ... and even asked the tired clerk if she could tell me of any Muppet casting agencies in the area or, failing that, how to get to Sesame Street. Her answer was silence and what seemed like a permanent squint of distrust. As I left, her gaze followed while her unnaturally full lips maintained a frozen, ear-to-ear smirk. Her name tag read "Janice."

The library was a tomb. George, the night security guard, let me in after-hours while conducting a poker game with his co-workers. From their boombox, Bach's "Air On The G String" washed over the marble surfaces as I combed through a dusty news archive, stopping only to make notes in my yellow legal pad.

I was looking for any and all mention of Sesame Street or The Muppets in relation to major terrorist events. If 9/11 was indeed the work of cotton hands, it undoubtedly wouldn't be their first singalong. The first connection I found was back in 1996, when Sesame Street pulled an episode based around a bomb threat on the one-year anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing ... despite that episode being an innocent spoof of the movie Speed.

PBS/HBO
Not so innocent? Her active participation in the events of 6/13.

It was as if they were trying to scrub away any subtle connections they might have to Timothy McVeigh's act of terror. But if The Muppets were somehow involved in this or similar bombings of the '90s -- there would have to be a way they were carrying it out, some undetectable front for handling and shipping suspicious amounts of electronic equipment across the country.

Tyco
Paydirt.

Tickle Me Elmo was released in July of 1996 -- the same month as the Olympic Park Bombing -- and became a public craze by Christmas that year. The doll functioned with the aid of a microchip designed by a former aerospace employee and childhood math prodigy who also specialized in making electronic toys. The man was young, from the Midwest, and had worked jobs in construction. He often shipped electronics parts around the country ... all of which no doubt led to this headline:

Orlando Sentinel
To be fair, Tickle Me Elmo is still widely considered a WMD in its own right.

It would be crazy to accuse the maker of Tickle Me Elmo of using his occupation as a means to aid various domestic terrorists in the U.S. ... or maybe it would be crazy not to. It seemed like wherever these hand vaginas were, tragedy struck ... even when it was deemed accidental ...

On Jan. 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger tragically exploded during its launch, killing everyone inside. This included a school teacher selected from 11,000 applicants as part of an initiative to get children excited about space. What most people don't know is that she was actually NASA's second kid-friendly choice for this position ...

NBC News
This goes all the way to the top.

That's right -- this cheeky wad of feathers had a ticket on the most tragic event in astronaut history. It was only due to his height that the plan had to be scrapped ... but presumably not before giving the bird access to NASA headquarters. Was there nowhere this dead-eyed long-neck couldn't slip its beak into? What other government headquarters have these feltwork Machiavellis seen the interior of?

Random House
Oh, for fuck's sake ...

I didn't know what to believe anymore, and so I stuffed the various photocopied articles and notepad into my reporter satchel and started to the front of the library. As I walked past the rows of microfiche readers it occurred to me how utterly quiet my surroundings now were. There was no murmur of joviality from the nightwatch poker game, nor any peep from janitorial equipment or an air-conditioning duct. And as I entered the darkened and expansive lobby, it dawned on me that I was completely alone. I had been forgotten about, and as my pace quickened toward the door, I prayed that George hadn't sealed me in for the night.

My hand was in the satchel before my ears had registered the noise behind me. From somewhere deep in the darkness, the clang of a solitary note echoed from the library's piano down the hall.

Followed by a second note.

And a third.

D-sharp, two middle Cs, A-sharp ... Bach's soothing orchestral was now being crudely re-created by some unseen presence in the next room ... and with it came the muffled sounds of wolf-like snarling. It was this noise, not the piano, that made me realize my pistol had long been buried in the clutter of my bag. The hound grew louder, angrier ... the piano keys clobbered wildly ... and I began to desperately tear through the research papers as my jog turned into a full-on sprint for survival.

Slamming against the wooden library door, my satchel spilled its content as I fumbled with the knob. I belatedly realized that the howling pianist was meant to send me toward the exit, for I was not alone where I stood. The shadows were leaping from the walls as I unlatched the lock and face-planted, panicked in the dewy night.

As I lay crumpled, now disarmed of my belongings, I could hear the library door squeak open and a psyche-shattering croak beckon from the ichorous blackness.

"Mahna mahna motherfu-"

CBS
Psyche-shattering, but also kind of sexy.

The next thing I remember is pulling into my driveway. My windshield was shattered, cerulean feathers -- perhaps from some flightless osprey -- pockmarked the grill, and a bloodied toque -- whose label credited it to a catering company in Uppsala, Sweden -- was wedged in the tire well.

With the sun creeping through my shades, I had finally conceded to a dead end. Work was at 9 a.m., so I lay across the couch in the hope of catching a few hours of sleep. Perhaps it was both my exhaustion and obsession that caused me to put on The Muppet Movie while I tried to doze, and so my day ended to the tune of "The Rainbow Connection" ...

Why are there so many songs about rainbows?
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions,
But only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.

I sat up, and without thinking reached for my laptop.

Google

The song coming out of Kermit was written by Paul Williams, a songwriter who coincidentally shares his name with Paul L. Williams -- an author who specializes in two subjects:

Amazon
The plot thickens ...

Who said that every wish
Would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star?

Google

What's so amazing
That keeps us stargazing,
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it,
The rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Google

When Noah exited the Ark, God made an agreement with him that no disaster should befall the Earth again -- and the rainbow symbolizes this covenant. Its purity symbolizes the end of what was perceived to be a necessary devastation to start anew.

King James Bible Online

Have you been half asleep?
And have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound
That called the young sailors?
The voice might be one in the same.

Noah was a sailor ...

King James Bible Online

I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.

King James Bible Online
Oh.

Someday we'll find it ...
The rainbow connection ...

King James Bible Online
My.

The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

King James Bible Online
God.

I bolted for the door so fast that I completely forgot my roommate -- tripping over him during my desperate rush to bellow at the world. Poor, gentle Alex. Asleep and peaceful, his thin arms splayed straight above his head, face shrouded by a rug ... he could never dare to dream the horrific truth I was about to unleash.

It was this moment that I finally noticed Alex's complexion, and that the sweet pipe of Marrakesh Clawhammer had apparently sickened him so that his skin turned bright green in the night. "That must not be easy," I thought, slowly reaching to turn him over ...

Editor's Note: After emailing in his initial draft, David has since sent the office a formal letter denouncing all claims and detailing plans to move to the Pacific Northwest, asking that no one try searching for him under the cryptic statement: "It's time for saying goodbye."

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