What’s the Frequency Kenneth?
I’ve just started to research the bizarre events surrounding “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?” To most people this phrase is a name of an REM song and nothing more. However REM’s lead signer Michael Stipe got his inspiration for the song by these unusual events.
I first heard about this years ago when REM released the song and I remember being told that the song was about CBS’s Anchorman Dan Rather being attacked by 2 unknown men. I didn’t give much more thought until yesterday. I was researching something else that related to Iran-Contra when I can came across, “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?” and remember about the song I looked into it a little further. At this time my information is limited and may not be completely accurate. From what I understand at this point this is what happened.
On October 4, 1986, as Rather was walking along Park Avenue in Manhattan to his apartment he was assaulted by 2 well dressed men from behind. While the men were punching and kicking Rather they repeatedly demanded to know, “Kenneth, What’s the frequency?” Afterwards when Dan Rather was asked about the incident he said, “I got mugged. Who understands these things? I didn’t and I don’t now. I didn’t make a lot of it at the time and I don’t now. I wish I knew who did it and why, but I have no idea.”
On September 11, 1987 Dan Rather walked off the air leaving the network scrabbling to fill 6 mins of dead air.
The assault went unsolved for many years, then in 1994 William Tager was arrested for the murder an NBC technician, he was also identified as the man who assaulted Dan Rather in 1986. Tager killed the NBC tech because he was worried he could decipher the “frequency”. William Tager told police that we was from the year 2265 but in a parallel universe. He was part of a time travel program that they had been working on for the last 149 year. This was the first test of the time travel technology so they used a convicted felon as a test subject. Tager was used in return and if he was successful in the experiment his sentence would be overturned and he would set free. They implanted him with a chip in head as a way to communicate with his own time. Apparently after examining Tager they actually found something in his head.
In Tager’s timeline Dan Rather was called Kenneth and he was part of the time travel experiment. When Tager saw Dan Rather in New York in 1986 he thought it was Kenneth from his own time.
Other pieces:
- Dan Rather was going to researching the Iran Contra events and had new information that he was going to expose
- For a month in September 1986 he signed of the news with “Courage”
- His last broadcast he signed of with “Courage”
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