ROD DREHER REPORTS stepped up security in New York. Last night, a reader from the D.C. area reported a lot more fighter-plane activity than usual. Maybe the latest terror warnings are a little more serious than earlier false alarms.

UPDATE: I got this email with regard to Rod Dreher’s report:

I saw your comment on Rod Dreher’s observation of National Guardsmen in New York City, and wanted to clarify the situation. I’m an officer in the National Guard here, and we have been securing Grand Central and Penn Station continuously since Oct 2001 (my battalion was the first one in after Sep 11th). What Rod saw was not something new (perhaps he just hadn’t noticed before).

Just wanted to set the record straight!

On the other hand, the fighter-aircraft report seems solid. Here’s another email, very consistent with what I got last night:

I live in Germantown, MD, about 34 miles north of downtown D.C. As regards your report of “fighter plane activity”, what I observed from my patio last night appeared to involve four fighter aircraft, at about a couple of thousand feet altitude (hard to tell, it was dark, and I could only see their anti-collision beacons). They were flying tight circles, and sounded as if they were occasionally going on afterburner. Two went to my right (East), the other two left (West). Right in the middle of this “air show” I observed a slow flying, brightly lit aircraft at lower altitude flying off to the West. It appeared to be a helicopter, but I couldn’t hear rotor noise over the roar, to confirm this. The impression I got was that the fighters were “sanitizing” the area to the right and left ahead of the slow, low aircraft. Possibly it was a practice for some sort of “insertion” mission? I’ve lived at this address for nine years, and never saw any such activity before.

Interesting.