We don’t know what the chances of a coincidence like this happening are, but the fact that the letters and photos received on Capitol Hill yesterday and the Times Square bombing have nothing to do with one another is a total mindfuck. To recap: Yesterday afternoon, as many as 100 members of Congress received a holiday-card-like photo showing a man in front of the Times Square recruiting center that was bombed earlier that morning. On it was written the sinister message, “We Did It, Happy New Year.” Along with the card was what’s described as a “twenty-page rambling rant,” the kind reclusive cabin-dwellers write to Congress on a daily basis.

And yet somehow, the FBI has concluded the letters and the bombing in Times Square are completely unrelated. “It was just an incredibly unbelievable coincidence,” a law-enforcement official told the AP. Either this is one of those bad FBI lies (“Relax, we’re not abusing our powers”), or something screwy happened in the space-time continuum. A Los Angeles antiwar activist who has been cleared of any wrongdoing apparently sent the letters and photos. “We Did It” was not sinister at all but celebratory; it was referring to the Democratic victories in the 2006 midterm elections, as in, “We Did It! Yay!” We can only imagine the poor guy’s surprise when the FBI stormed his cabin. —Dan Amira