So, you find yourself at O'Hare International Airport in October of 2020. You suddenly realize that COVID-19 is a problem (even though the pandemic has been raging since March of 2020). What do you do?

Well, if you're a California man named Aditya Singh, you decide the best, smartest, most logical thing to do would be to...stay at O'Hare and hide out until you figure things out, or more likely, find yourself under arrest.

The Chicago Tribune says that Mr. Singh showed up at O'Hare from L.A. on October 19th, and had managed to stay off of everyone's radar by hiding out undetected in a "restricted security zone" ever since (at least until his arrest Saturday morning).

My favorite part of the Chicago Tribune piece is the judge's reaction after being filled in by a prosecutor:

“So if I understand you correctly,” Ortiz said, “you’re telling me that an unauthorized, nonemployee individual was allegedly living within a secure part of the O’Hare airport terminal from Oct. 19, 2020, to Jan. 16, 2021, and was not detected? I want to understand you correctly.”

As it stands right now, the reason given by Mr. Singh for setting up camp at O'Hare is that he was "scared to go home because of COVID-19."

The Chicago Tribune goes on to point out that the guy has no criminal record, and although unemployed, he does have a masters degree in hospitality. Other passengers apparently helped him make it by providing him with food.

He's due back in court on January 27th, so we'll keep any eye on this story.

Many people are drawing a parallel to the 2004 Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks movie "The Terminal," which, according to Wikipedia, "...is partially inspired by the true story of the 18-year stay of Mehran Karimi Nasseri in Terminal 1 of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, France, from 1988 to 2006."

This sort of thing has happened more than a few times before. Click here for a list of about 25 people who've decided to, or have been forced to, spend a lot of time at the airport.

 

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